I hate midwives they are shit.

[AtYourCervix]

Here you go.

Could you please post your bollocks here so I only have to hide one thread.

Thanks.

Daisy - don't you fucking dare.

Some are better than others that much is true but i would rather have a shit midwife than labour on my own and deliver my own baby.

My MW was incredible, and by some total fluke and lucky chance of fate she was also the daughter of a close work friend, I couldn't have asked for a better MW, she was incredible. C - thank you.

Do you think if midwives were allowed to be proper midwives instead of shoehorned into the factory-line birth assistant roles that the NHS makes them fit into then we might have better experiences with them?

(personally I had a great experience, but I had one to one care, saw the same person all along who was also present at my (home) birth and when the placenta was retained came to hospital with me and stayed through surgery until I was fine and settled. The NHS have now seen fit to dismantle the practice which offered this service and deserve a for being such short sighted idiots)

I think so, sausagerolemodel. The midwife who attended my home birth was bloody fantastic.

I liked mine.

Except the one that insisted that internals during labour dont hurt

Even she was alright when she wasnt rummaging about in my fanjo.

I didnt like the one who made me stand on an incopad so I didnt make a mess when I was in labour with DD.

The two that came for DC5 were bloody brilliant. They were older women and traditionally built. They sort of wedged themselves into my bedroom and let me get on with it. Gently chatting and giving me encouraging nods every now and then.

Luverly.

My midwives - both on the community team, supporting me towards a hb for DD (who is 4 weeks old) - and in the hospital when I had to go in due to being too overdue for my hb, and who spotted my rupturing, abrupting placenta within 5 minutes of me being in hospital and had me in surgery within 25 mins of arriving at hospital, saving DD's life - were FUCKING AWESOME. Likeable, personable, calm, reassuring, knowledgable, supportive, brilliant. As were the Maternity Support workers on the postnatal ward, and everyone down to the cleaners. AWESOME.
I have nothing but respect for anyone who works in the NHS and medical fields.
AtYourCervix we've turned this into not the thread you wanted, haven't we. Sorry :) but I think mw's rule.

My MW for my first pregnancy was brilliant - just out of school I think but absolutely lovely & clearly knew her stuff. Can't really remember much about the ones I had during the birth but I think they were lovely but I was too drugged up to take much notice

This time, I'm not convinced yet - she is a lovely lady but doesn't seem bothered about me really. It may be that because she knows this is my 2nd, she assumes that I know everything, but I don't think thats an excuse really. It doesn't take much to ask. Hasn't offered to take my urine test yet & I'm 16 weeks now. Also at my 11 week app she didn't take my BP but wrote in my notes that it was the same as when she did take it at 6 weeks. She has one last chance this week, & if Im not happy then I'm going to ask to change. I do feel mean about that, but I'm more concerned that DC2 & I get the proper care.

I read threads like this with such sadness. I had excellent care, privately and I asked a few of the midwives why they were practicing privately and not on the NHS and it turned out many if them had NHS posts but did some private bank nursing so they could practice from time to time in the way THEY want to work - better staff ratios, better facilities, less pressure. It should be like this for everyone, not just those outside of the NHS.

That is hilarious!!

When I saw the thread title I immediately thought "uh oh, poor AtYourCervix".

Well I have not had a bad experience so far at 38+5. I suppose I can only fully make an assessment in a week or two and then I will come back to comment on this thread

the midwifes when I had DD2 were amazing, totally amazing. both of us could've died, but we're both fine because of those women. I'll never forget them.

I've met one utterly useless (known to every mum in the town) community midwife. A lovely one at the antenatal clinic much appreciated by the same mums.
A mixed bag of hospital MWs, some perpetually doing paperwork and some who remembered their patients.
To the nice MW, who delivered DD1, who I kicked across the delivery room, Sorry.
And to all the amazing community midwives who might have been on call for DD2s home birth, who did AN appointments so they could find my house and PN appointments to see her afterwards thank you. And to the two MW who were on call the night she was born THANK YOU!!!

I took the midwives presents after I got home with DS, it was like I just couldn't leave without doing something. If you're a MW Cervix then you have my respect. Thank you x

My midwife was fabulous, no nonsense, hands off (until she needed to be hands on), managed me (no clue) and dh (no clue) and a ventouse-happy registrar (who obviously had lots of clues but had only spent 2 minutes with me whereas the midwife had been there 4 hours).

She delivered ds and me safely through childbirth and I'm very embarrassed that I was too out of it to remember her name.

My postnatal hospital care wasn't great but that was due to not enough staff. My community midwife was also fabulous, no nonsense and is the sole reason that I managed to bf ds because she managed to give me the tools to undo the damage that the first 48 hours had caused.

My whole pregnancy, childbirth and afterwards was managed by midwives and I'm grateful that I lived in a country where I could choose that model of care.

I've worked with many midwives, and some of them were indeed hideous power-crazed bullying harridans. Others were lovely, kind, wise women. Same distribution as you'd expect across the population, really.

But what I would add to that is that, politically, I am hugely pro-midwife. It's such an important role, and deserves much more investment and support than it currently gets. I think it's very hard for midwives to practise midwifery in the way they would like to, and we would like them to, and that is a real problem.

My midwife, by the way, was fantastic

I had an awful experience with DD1, which mostly boils down to not getting enough attention either during or after the birth. But I lay the blame squarely at the foot of the system the MWs were working in, not the MWs themselves. If there are only so many MWs and too many women and babies under their care, even their very best can't be good enough.

DD2 was a homebirth as I didn't want a repeat of my hospital experience with DD1, and the two community MWs were absolutely amazing. A world of difference in the quality of care. And I put it down completely to the environment, where they had time to care for me properly, not the MWs themselves.

Well done to all the MWs doing the best they can in a crap system.

I have had 7, and they were all great!

Sorry you're feeling under attack Cervix.

My experience of midwifery care has covered the full spectrum from absolutely outstanding, to very poor.

I think midwifery is a very odd profession: it attracts some incredibly bright, passionate and principled women, but there are also plenty of midwives who are unable to do much more than provide the most basic clinical and administrative care of the women they're supposed to be giving holistic support to.

My independent midwife is one of the bravest, most compassionate people I know. I think you have to be very brave to be a good midwife now.

My mother and I both nearly died during my birth. We did not, thanks to the insistence of the brave and wonderful midwife that senior medical staff had made an serious error. The MW and my mum still exchange christmas cards 30-odd years later.

I've had nothing but respect for your profession from a very young age AYC, and through two pregnancies I've had no reason to think otherwise. :)

ah yes mine were terrible ...i mean, the one that came for DD2 didn't even want any biscuits! how very dare she spurn the biscuits of this house

My midwives were amazing and I fear the day that "maternity assistants" are responsible for care instead of a fully trained midwife.

I have the deepest respect for midwives, day after day they guide hundreds of babies into this world, their experience is second to none and even rescue a bungling doctor out of a difficult spot sometimes.

I agree there will always be the oddly incompetent one, lacking in bedside manners, but on the whole id say the word "midwife" should be sacred to a woman

Not sure about 'bungling doctor'. The Obstetric Registrar rescued me and dd from the bungling midwife for my first delivery

To simply not want women to voice their criticisms and share their experience of sub-standard care from midwives just avoids the very real issues being raised. Surely those midwives who post on here are capable of separating the experience of other women from their own personal efforts in the profession?

The majority of midwives I've come across (and there have been many, you never see the same one twice here and I'm on my second pg at a different hospital) have, sadly, appeared to be not-very-bright. I'm unsure whether this just reflects their poor manner (not explaining things/muttering so you can't tell if they're talking to themselves or explaining what they're doing to you/ "computer-says-no" type attitude when I asked questions about what choices are available to me) or whether my first impressions are correct. Also appearing TOTALLY uncaring, when I asked for help out of bed following removal of my catheter so I could clean myself up as I'd sat in a pool of blood all night I was simply told "we don't do that" so I had to ask for the curtain to be pulled so that when I bled all over floor it wouldn't be in full view of the other women on ward.

I have been cared for by a few great midwives though. Grace who calmed and assured me and DH when I had a bleed at 20 weeks, the one who fought my corner against the consultant anaesthetist when I was being refused an epidural despite 7 in 10 hyperstimulated contractions (you don't see midwives arguing FOR epidural very often!) and who stayed with me past her shift change whilst I was in theatre being butchered by a consultnt wielding Keillands. And lovely, lovely, Elizabeth who supported me through the first 6 weeks, got me breastfeeding and put my confidence back together when I was shattered and broken.

There are clearly huge issues with the system that midwives are working within. I can remember going for a sweep only to be told they couldn't do it because they only had large latex gloves at the health centre and she had small hands(!) After the birth a midwife was unable to check my open epi wound because she had large hands on the only gloves in her health centre were small. Apparently the gloves could only be collected from the hospital within the congestion charge zone and the NHS wouldn't reimburse the c-charge to midwives going to collect them, so they just did without the gloves(!) Then following the birth when I had to be driven all over South London to find a midwife to see me and DD as there were too few in the area to do any home visits(if you're concerned, go to A&E was the advice).

I don't think the way for midwives to garner support regarding the broken system they work within is for them to criticise, get angry with or ignore women who have been victims of substandard care within that system.