Why are Mothers-to-be treated like idiots in the Labour Ward???

[Toothache]

This question has been bugging me for a while. I was already in hospital when I my waters broke with DS. I had been in for a few days with high BP and was 39wks when they broke. It was 3am and waddled to the MW station and told them my waters had gone. They said "No they haven't, just go back to bed"!!!! I INSISTED that my waters HAD broke and they made me hand over my sanitory towel so they could check it. NICE! My waters had broken.
A few hours later the backache kicked in, then contractions. I told them I was in labour and they said "No you're not, it could take hours to get into established labour, go eat your breakfast." As I panted my way through another big contraction then waddled back to bed. Half an hour later I tried to phone DH, midwives STILL insisting that I wasn't in labour. I got a huge contraction and nearly fell in the corridor. A Consultant had some firm words with the Midwives and I was given an internal. I was 4-5 cm dilated and whisked off to the labour ward!!

WHY DIDN'T THEY LISTEN TO ME??????????

Another example:
I got a phonecall from a friend yesterday. Her friend was due her 2nd baby 2 wks from now. She went into labour at home and her boyfriend took her to hopsital. They examined her, told her she wasn't in labour, but that she had a UTI and would kept in for the night. She said "Are you sure, I've had a baby before and this feels like labour". They insisted she wasn't in labour and sent her boyfriend away to fetch her some things. They ran her bath to help with the pain of her "UTI" and 30mins later her baby's head was delivered as she was wrenched from thebath in agony! Healthy 8lb girl. Boyfriend missed everything. .

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY don't they listen mothers??????

grumble for the day.... anybody else any experience of this?

When my mum was overdue with my brother, who's now 29, they told her to take a sleeping tablet and she would be induced the next day. She tried to explain that she was getting contractions and that she might be in early labour but they wouldn't have it. He was born a few hours later, in the middle of the night.
So it looks like things haven't progressed in some ways since the 70s!

I was repeatedly told my waters probably hadn't broken, despite the fact they very definitely had. Then the midwife actually moaned at me for the puddle on the floor when I stood up!!

lol... things don't change eh!!?

My Mum's waters broke in the hall as she waited for my Dad to get the car warmed up. He arrived at the hospital 10mins later. They wheeled my Mum in as she screamed "I NEED TO PUSH".... the mw said to her "Now Mrs H, you've done this before so you know it could take HOURS to ge to that stage".... My Mum screamed again "NO REALLY THE HEAD IS COMING"....

MW: Don't be dramatic, I'll just run you a bath"
Mum: If you don't f*king believe me, then have a look:
MW: >sigh< "Okay then........ OH MY GOD, GET THIS WOMAN TO THE DELIVERY SUITE!!"

10mins later I popped out.

Going back a while now, the midwife said to my DAD that 'taking one look at your wife, I can see she's not going to have a baby tonight'.

Yeah, right.

I was repeatedly told my waters hadnt broken even though I lost most of it in front of several midwives. They left me with my waters gone for that long I caught an infection

My SIL kept telling the midwives she was in labour but they kept saying no you are not. The head apppeared between her legs and the midwives went into panic and bundled her into a wheelchair and shot over to the labour ward. My sil was very embarassed because they were doing an antenatal tour of the ward at the time

My Mum telling midwives "I really think this baby is coming now"
No it isn't Mrs C - go to sleep now.
I appeared moments later without any help from anyone else.
I was my Mum's 5th baby - you'd have thought they would have believed her!

when I gave birth with my first, she was incredibly unsettled and screamed the place down (I had problems feeding her and it turned out later she had all sorts of stomach/digestive problems).

The midwives came to see me and instead of helping me, they told me I wasn't making enough effort to keep her happy and I was disturbing and upsetting all the other mothers and babies on the ward who had to hear my baby screaming! If I'd had enough energy I would have walked out.

And all this is why I think an elective c-section is such a good idea!

Ah but Aloha - at least I was able to escape the madhouse a matter of hours after giving birth

I went in (with first) to be induced...was already in labour - mw went ahead anyway, so went v fast to start with! Told mw I needed to go to delivery suite and really quite wanted pain relief - she said I would get much better attention where I was and it would take hours to get into established labour, might not be till following day - said 'I'll just check you...' - 7 cm!!! This same mw said she'd had a baby born in the bath in the maternity ward the previous week.....doesn't say a lot does it!

I'm getting all scared now.

after my waters broke, they kept me in hospital overnight and I started contractions but the midwives said I was a typical over anxious first time mother and told me to go to sleep (I kept going to to the loo as it was more comfortable). After a night of contractions, as my waters had broken over 24 hours earlier, they said they would induce me to avoid risk of infection and when the doctor came for an internal examination prior to inducing, he looked appalled and asked why I was being induced when I was about 4cm dilated?! At the time I was just relieved that I was right and wasn't going mad but because they gave me no pain relief during the night as according to them I wasn't in pain, I was too exhausted to push when required to because I had been awake for 36 hours by then with no pain relief for most of labour.

Sis - That was a bit like me. How DARE they decide whether you're in pain or not!!

The Consultant took one look at me clutching the midwives PC Monitor and growling through another contraction and asked the midwives why I was still on the Antenatal ward. The midwife replied "Well she's only jsut started (lies!!) and we're going to monitor her for an hour or 2"... the Consultant said firmly "No, examine her and take her to the labour suite". And that was that.... 4/5cms and FINALLY got some Gas & Air.

I found the labour ward midwives were pretty good - I did have one great midwife who told me that the baby was back to back and pressing his head on my cervix so that was why I had been feeling the pain quite strongly at a relatively early stage (I am immensely grateful to her for respecting me and letting me know she did not think I was a wuss). The post-natal ward midwives were (a minority to be fair) another matter - I complained of being tired an hour or two after labour (not slept for nearly 48 hours, lots of vomiting) and the midwife told me - "you have a baby, you will always be tired now!", another one seemed astonished I still wanted co-codamol a week after the birth.

This stuff is outrageous! My friend just had her second child - an experience she said could only compare to being disemboweled at Tyburn. She wanted an epidural, but the anaesthetist never turned up and when in agony my friend said, "where is the f**king anaesthetist, the midwife really laid into her for swearing. Of course the anaesthetist only turned up 'too late' so she had to have the whole thing without any pain relief which she found absolutely horrific.

Aloha - They used the delay tactics on me when I screamed for an epidural too. By the time they said to me "right the aneasthetist is here if you want him"... I was so far gone that there wasn't any point!

Dinosaur - That's what I thought, but my friend that told me that story yesterday has a ds of 2! They still didn't believe she was experiencing labour pains and, as a result, her DP missed everything. He returned with some magazines and stuff for her and she was on the postnatal ward with an 8lb DD!

Aloha - can't believe your friend was told off for swearing - swearing is part and parcel of transition, and I understand it is rare not to swear!

I know it's awful eh. I don't really know him Dino... She's more of a friend of a friend. But I think he was mightily pissed off to be sent away.

toothache and aloha, at our maternity unit there is only one anaesthetist on call, and if he/ she is off in theatre with a woman having an emergency section, you just have to wait- the woman in theatre has to be monitored by the anaesthetist, in case she needs an urgent GA, so it's not a case of put in the epidural and off to the next one. Maybe that's why the anaesthetist was delayed?

Tissy, I think that's terrible not to have enough anaesthetists so women have to suffer like that. Worse than terrible, actually, incompetent.
And they wonder why more women want sections!

Tissy - DH said the midwife hadn't left the room, so how she managed to request the aneasthetist and be told he was unavailable confused me!
I was glad I didn't end up having one since I delivered him an hour or 2 later anyway.

Spoke to an anaesthetist acquaintance at the weekend - his view was that epidurals are boringly easy to do, and midwives could be trained to do them. Interesting that is one way of dealing with the epidural availability problem that the media never suggests - instead women are blamed for being too gutless if they do require pain relief over and above hugging the nearest tree!