Your views on MCAs at birth?

[cherrycherry16]

Hello lovely MNers!

I was just wondering how ladies who've given birth (or are set to give birth soon) feel about having a maternity care assistant present at their delivery? I've never thought it was that strange; I've been an MCA for several years and have been in on deliveries and helped with antenatal and postnatal care since I began (and I absolutely adore it btw!)
But I'll soon be starting my midwifery degree at uni and it has prompted lots of friends to say how they've always been amazed at how much responsibility and input I have already as an MCA with no training at all. Lots and lots of people have piped up with this view, and I do have to take umbridge as its really not true! I'm up to date with all my training including resuscitation and emergency procedures, and I've got lots of experience of mothers and their families who tell me they've felt really well supported by me. I had no idea so many people's minds boggled that I'd be let loose on a labour ward. MCAs aren't a band of uneducated oafs, I promise!

How do you all feel about it, or has it never been something you've really thought about?

The staff at my unit say labour is normal until it's not
Exactly this is why there should be two midwives present, you don't get advance notice therefore all present should be fully trained.

Have you ever done resuscitation on baby? How often is the trainning repeated and your technique observed?

You say the couple didn't complain the assumption that they were totally fine about it because they didn't complain betrays your lack of understanding of what they went through and how long that sort of truma lasts.

I have good cause, legal cause, to make a formal complaint about my treatment and my daughters death but I haven't not because I'm fine with it but because it's traumatic to go over and just the sheer mental exhaustion of dealing with a complaint of that nature.
I could imagine when you have a baby to care for making a complaint about the situation doesn't always take priority in your life.

There is a difference between having a HB knowing that there will be 1 midwife present (I too have never heard of such a situation, even independent midwives will work in two's) to choosing what you think is the safer option of a hospital birth only to find you still only have one midwife present. I would be interested to know if women at your hospital know before hand that there will only be one midwife present? Or if it's presented as normal and they are unaware this is unusual.

There was an investigation at my hospital concerning the infant mortality rate one thing blamed was understaffing I can only imagine the reaction if half those staff members hadn't even been midwives!

Cherry you seem really passionate and keen about what you do and I'm sure the experience in your current role will serve you well in your midwifery trainning.
My negative towards MCA at birth isn't personal against the MCA's but the health authority for allowing it to happen and putting (IMO) babies and women at risk.

I'd like to think that my body is capable and my efforts are enough to deliver my own baby

Sorry op you do sound very lovely but you really need to reassess this.When women have interventions or emergency situations in labour or delivery it has nothing at all to do with effort or their level of capability.
And MLUs etc are not simply "a place to give birth".

For my 1st labour I had 1 mw who didn't listen to me and just about managed to get a 2nd mw in as dd arrived. 2nd labour I only had 2 mws because 1 was a student. 3rd labour I had 1 mw. All 3 were at the same hospital. When I had my twins (different hospital) I was grateful that we had a mca in, we had 2mws who were both very occupied, a consultant and a pead. I Was able to hand her twin 1 whilst twin 2 was delivered, I was a dam sight more relaxed that someone was able to cuddle my baby so dh could be with me and whilst things were going tits up afterwards, 2 screaming babies 1 shell shocked dad, a mother who realised that I hadn't taken my bra off pre epidural going in and was majorly tangled and couldn't figure out how the flip to try and feed them both, she was there to help us with them and had a pair of scissors!
I do think some people have been unduly harsh in how you've replied, I had loads of people in during my labour and yet the mca was great. Shame the dragon on the Ward wasn't the same

I've never heard of MCAs being present for delivery, though I love having students there; the student who helped to look after me when I was in labour was fabulous - but I do really, really appreciate how caring the MCAs were postnatally. I was having a really awful time after DD's birth with psychiatrists involved and all sorts, and it was the MCAs I really remember with fondness, especially the lady who sat with me for ages while I sobbed my little heart out.

I'm just not sure I'd be OK with an MCA in place of a second midwife. At all.

I'm also slightly biased on this whole subject as my mum was an HCA or nursing auxiliary, as was, for years while I was growing up (she's fully qualified now and has been for some time) and she really was used as a cheap nurse, which she got angry about. I find it fascinating that she was able to use needles to take stuff out of people (she ran a bloods clinic at her practice) but not use them to put things in! She also very often felt like a second class citizen compared to other staff - I remember there was this whole furore over uniforms, way back when - she was on the district, so she wore brown, and then they changed the uniform for auxiliaries to grey and blue, and other nurses were up in arms because patients or even worse the auxiliaries themselves might think they were 'one of us'. There seem to be an awful lot of internal politics for both good reason and bad.

Lastly, because this is quite enough for one sitting, I also want to pull you up on the idea of efforts being enough to deliver a baby. It wasn't through lack of trying that my daughter was delivered by EMCS but because she was looking over her shoulder with her 97th percentile head so was going nowhere. Fortunately, there were two very experienced midwives in the room, plus the lovely student, and they pulled the surgeon in. Really, that is why you need fully qualified midwives, I'm afraid.