What did you want from midwives on postnatal wards?

[Studentmidwife247]

Hi ladies, I am a first year student midwife heading out on my first placement next week. I will be spending a fortnight on a postnatal ward and was just wondering what you most wanted from the staff during your time on postnatal wards? I'm mainly hoping to be a supportive, consistent friendly face who can get to know the women (due to the high risk nature of the ward, ladies are likely to be spending long periods of time on it). I know that staff on these wards are normally incredibly busy, so from your experiences, what would you have wanted from a student midwife to make your stay more comfortable/pleasant? Was it just someone to chat to? Someone to assist with practical skills such as breast feeding? I want to make myself as useful as possible during my time there! Thanks

Water, food, pain killers. A helping hand when I could hardly move (very long second stage as dd had cord round her neck and was hard to push out). Not being treated like a nuisance just because my very existence. Someone remembering to send the fax across to the community team so that someone could come round to see me at home. Previous birth had been a stillbirth, so still somewhat traumatised.

Someone being a bit nice to me would have made the world of difference tbh. I know that wards are incredibly stretched for staff, but treating patients as though they're thick, irritating and in the way doesn't save any time.

Being pleasant would be the main thing. my memories of my time on the ward after the birth are mainly how snappy the midwives were.
also would be good for someone to explain what happens after the birth. I didn't realise doctors would examine my baby or that they got a hearing test.

Also as others have said, food.
I was admitted just before lunchtime and was in the labour ward until 10pm so missed all the meals but had to wait until the following day before being fed.

More breast feeding support and advice.

I was on a post natal ward for five nights for various complications relating to both myself and DS. Five other new mums and babies also on ward. Night four was the first time that everyone on the ward had been asleep at the same time, no crying babies, silence and peace for the first time in over 72 hours and midwives came around, turned on the lights, shook all the mums awake and asked us when the last time we feed our babies was. I did could have cried.

Thanks everyone, it's such a shame there are so many bad stories, I'm feeling slightly nervous to go to the ward now! I hope the hospital I'm at isn't too bad. Hopefully I'm going to be given a bit of freedom to go and introduce myself to all the ladies on the ward and find out a bit about them and their babies. I can't believe some of you have had midwives grab your boobs :( we've already been told so many times that BF support should always be hands off. I'll remember the little things too, like being hungry and thirsty and unable to move around. Thanks again ladies, keep the tips and stories coming (good and bad) xx

Hi student midwife. Good luck! Remember though it's your FIRST placement in your FIRST year. Don't expect to swan on the ward and transform these women's experiences. It's unlikely you'll be sent off on your own to help with BFing or whatever. Your job is to shadow your midwife and familiarise yourself with the ward, try not to take on too much by telling yourself you're going to do xy and z. Kindness, compassion and some very basic care is what to aim for on this placement x

To not laugh at me when I tried to walk to the toilet post EMCS.
To not treat me cruelly and like I was a massive nuisance in the middle of the night when I couldn't sit up to get my crying baby and had to buzz for help.
To arrange for me to have some tea and toast after no food for twenty fucking hours.
There, I said it!

Just to be nice to me, do the job you are paid to do and not treat me like an inconvenience.

Breastfeeding support.
We were kept in for 3 days (until DH helped me insist we were leaving) because of DD's poor feeding. A MW would come round first thing in the morning, ask how feeding was going, be unable to offer any advice or suggestions how to get her to feed other than expressing and syringe feeding her, on a good day she would come back about 12hrs later to see how we were getting on. We left there with no more idea how to establish breastfeeding than we had started with.

Someone to realise I was completely exhausted as I'd been up for 48hrs+ pretty much straight thanks to an induction, all day contraction pains and then an emergency c-section and maybe have offered to take the baby so I could rest before I accidentally fell asleep holding her and dropped her off the side of the bed.

Luckily, I had some instinct left and managed to grab her by her shoulder before she hit the ground (just), but that remains one of the single most terrifying moments of my life. (The midwife did take her after that for me and I got an hour of rest). If there is no staff availability, maybe partners could stay longer?

My baby needed regular antibiotics in SCBU, but we were on the normal postnatal ward. I was given the helpful advice of setting my alarm for midnight so I could make sure I took him round to SCBU to get his medication.

Some help/ assistance with getting him there might have been useful.

Also telling the women in the private rooms that good was available.

Reading this thread reminds me of all the worst bits of being in hosp post section. Everything I experienced has been covered by other posters so I won't repeat.

Now really not looking forward to being there with DC2 in April although this time I'll defo stay only one night, all being well.

OP I will say that while postnatal was in some respects horrid (and having read many of these posts I think I was quite lucky really), antenatal was wonderful and I only have praise for the many midwives I saw, as well as the elcs delivery team from consultant to anaesthetist to theatre midwife. Similarly the community midwives who visited us at home afterwards were fabulous.

By and large it really comes down to lack of available staff on postnatal wards with too many mums and babies to tend to and all the problems that result from this imbalance. I know I'm impatient when I'm frazzled at work and while I try to remain professional and not show it, we're all human and susceptible to stress.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to us and best of luck with your studies and career.

There must be a reason why so many post natal wards have these issues? Is it just general underfunding and lack of permanently employed midwives?

To read the notes, to actually listen- if I say something's changed etc I should know best its my body, breastfeeding support and I had to stay in a day after giving birth so I would say practical help with the baby if needed would have been great.

Be kind. Be compassionate. Bear in mind that although it might be routine for you, these women have gone through one of the biggest experiences of their lives.

Think about their possible limited mobility, hunger, thirst.

Generally be kind, and you'll be fine.

Things that didn't help last time I gave birth:

• Being left on my own with a screaming baby who would not feed after 2 days of labour. Staff insisting my DH and DM leave as it wasn't visiting hours but then being unhappy when I buzzed for assistance.
• Telling me I should put the baby down when I couldn't reach the cot as it was out of my reach and I had catheters and all sorts still in.
• Not traumatising my baby by grabbing it and forcing it on my boob in order to make her feed which left us both incredibly distressed and almost meant I couldn't BF altogether as she had such an aversion to the nipple after that experience.
• Not offering me a shower until over 8 hours after I'd given birth and even then only because my DH hassled the nurses about this.
• Leaving me lying in my own blood and filth, again only because DH was there was I able to change a pad.
• Leaving water out of my reach.
• Holding me in all day for a minor reason, which could have been checked out in the community at a later date. I was ready to self discharge rather than stay another night there.

The one positive thing I remember, is the midwife who spent a lot of time trying to help me with BF and undo some of the damage done by the midwife in the early hours post birth.

It's pretty unusual, but if a woman has foot drop (paralysed lower leg and lower leg with no feeling), she may need a bit of help getting around. A bright and breezy "off you go to have a shower" is fairly daunting if you can't actually stand.

The reason that postnatal wards are under-funded and under-staffed is that the risk in them is lower than antenatal and labour wards. To be flippant, if you and your baby get to the postnatal ward in one piece then you are unlikely to be at serious risk, even if the care is shit.

I have had lovely and professionally excellent midwives. My first was a textbook water birth; my second was complicated and traumatic. You will be fine, please don't be daunted. Just being attentive if required, and having a willingness to learn and help will carry you far. Every woman is an individual with different experiences, fears and concerns. Be open and ask your patients how you can best support them - you'll get lots of different answers . Enjoy the experience.

A bit of sympathy to women whose babies are in NICU would be nice.

Is it entirely necessary to wake up a stressed, exhausted, terrified woman in the middle of the night when she has finally got to sleep just to take her blood pressure?? And then insist on yet another fucking blood test? I could have actually punched the bitch who muttered, "it's for your own good love."

Actually don't underestimate the importance of student midwives. In my first (disastrous) labour, it was the student midwife who helped me stick the TENS machine on when the midwives sneered I wasn't in labour (and oh boy, I was).

It was the student midwife that made me feel like I mattered a jot whilst the midwives sat drinking tea when I laboured the first hours all alone.

Post labour - noticing I am lying in bloody sheets for 2 days. I developed an infection of course.

Second labour so much better. You never forget a good midwife. But aftercare was again appalling. Left in filthy sheets. Blood all over the communal loo. As I was basically ok, I was ignored for 48 hours completely (baby being monitored). Just for someone to smile and acknowledge me. Say where I can find clean sheets to change my own filthy bed....

I laugh when the government wonder about trying to improve breastfeeding rates. Like women don't want to.

All they need to do is read this thread! Take an exhausted women post delivery and stick her on a badly staffed post natal ward. Ignore her. Don't wash or assist in anyway. Ram the importance of breastfeeding down her throat and saunter off. Watch her cry. Watch her wounds become infected. Watch her unable to reach her water. Discharge her.

I don't blame individual staff - I know there are huge funding problems. But we basically set most women up to fail.

Time, empathy and reassurance. I had a horrible labour but was looked after brilliantly. I was encouraged to press the buzzer for help as much as I needed and never made to feel like a nuisance. As an anxious and exhausted first timer I needed that reassurance and support.

Remember that all the women on the ward are actually people. Treat them as such, ask them if you can touch them, and then be gentle about it.

Some painkillers post section. Somebody to answer the buzzer sooner than 45 minutes after pressing it, then waiting another 45 minutes for some fucking paracetamol (after major abdominal surgery!! Paracetamol!!) and not then looking mystified at my crying in pain by that point, and emphatically not then saying 'you need to stay on top of the painkillers dear, call me sooner next time'. Some help standing up for the first time beyond 'the loo is over there, can you manage, I have to go and weigh this lady's baby'. (Er, I've been desperate for the loo for three hours since you took the catheter out in the middle of the night, but obviously a baby's routine weighing couldn't possibly wait 5 more minutes.) And not then looking patronisingly at me when I tell you as im being discharged, 15 hours post section, that I'm really in a lot of pain, and saying 'well yes dear, c sections are painful'. (Actually 'dear', it turns out I have an infection, in a few hours I'm going to be back in with a raging temperature, but thank goodness by that point I won't be allowed back to this hellhole of a ward.)

If I was being fussy, id also have loved some help picking up the baby so that I didn't have to hold her all night long. If I asked for help putting her down I was worried there'd be nobody there to get her back to me again, as nobody was answering the buzzers.

The delivery unit was beyond fantastic, so the truly dire state of the postnatal care was quite a shock.

Everything awomb said.
In the middle of the night when people have finally managed to sleep...
Don't turn the lights on
Don't shout across the room
Keep your voice down - it's about patient privacy, too
Don't look surprised when all of the above are politely pointed out
Be able to tell mums to keep noise levels down yes you person in next bed: it's not normal to have your phone on loud speaker at 1am in a hospital ward while you have a 1hr row with your boyfriend
and
Spot tongue tie

I actually had a v positive experience with cheerful, profesional and helpful staff who bent over backwards to make us comfortable in the middle of a heatwave

Good luck