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?

These are truly awful, dreadful experiences and I have nothing put the utmost sympathy for the people who have been so badly treated.

But can I put in a plea. Not all doctors and nurses and MV are monsters of thoughtlessness. I have friends in all 3 branches of medicine and they are wonderful kind loving people who do difficult jobs under trying circumstances. For example my friend had a knife pulled to her throat after she had to tell a family that their father had died.

I would not, for one moment, suggest that all patients are knife-wielding thugs. And by the same token not all doctors are thoughtless dictators. My dh is only alive because of the skill and kindness of many.

This is not to say that the doctors etc in this thread are innocent, that is not the case, but please can we not damn everyone because of the actions of the few? Another poster on another thread was rightly called racist for making assumptions about a racial group based on the experiences she had with a few individuals. Can we please not have open season on medics?

who's declaring an open season on medics? no-one here has done anything other than state their own experiences.

i don't see why i should have to apologise to the entire population of midwives because i want to state my experiences at the hands of a few rubbish ones.

All the midwives I had were wonderful.

I must add that the problems I had were with the night shift midwives in the maternity ward and everyone else at the hospital (Northwick Park in Harrow, London) was fantastic - especially the miswives on the labour ward.

Melsy, I wish I had had the energy and the confidence to say something forcefully to the midwives instead of just worrying and suffering!

HMB - I can see that there are some anti-doctor posts. But in my posts I have been keen to say that I received good care, but there are aspects of the system that need improving, and also to say that most of the midwives were good, but a few made comments I didn't like, and most of the other posters have been quite diplomatic. The difficulty is that labour and the period just after birth are such a significant emotional experience that your experiences are far more significant and memorable than if you had gone into hospital for a routine op, say, so people do feel very strongly about the care they received.

' think with a few honourable exceptions, medical people never listen to women, whatever the situation. They are just steeped in a culture of total contempt for their patients in general, for women in particular, and for women in gynaecological situations the most!'

To be fair there was the mention of a few honourable exceptions, but then follwed by 'they' are steeped in a culture of contempt.

While I fully agre that these cases are awful and the medics conserned deserve a kick up the backside (at least) , to me it seemed that it was going the way of 'medics bad'. Sorry if I misread it. I have had the odd bad GP, but all the rest of the medics I have seem have been great people. Not 'A few', the majority.

And I gess that labour is an emotional time, at least mine was . However I still remember the time a consultant stayed late to see me, and came back onto the ward to answer my questions about my dh. He was able to re-assure me that he had 'just' had an attack of pancreatitis and it wasn't, as I had feared, the return of his cancer. And that was quite an emotional moment too.

hmb - I started this thread to illustrate that my experience is that I get treated like an idiot.... and it angered me when I heard about the girl I posted details of.

People are posting experiences of labour and how they were treated by the health professionals. I can't see how that compares to someone being racist on another thread.

I stand by what I have said.... I was treated like an idiot and I'm still interested to hear everyone's experiences... GOOD & BAD!

Can NOTHING be discussed on MN now without someone jumping in with the "this thread isn't really fair" post?

No one is denying that medics are invaluable. (I even made a point in saying that in my post.) But I do think that, as a rule, doctors are patronizing to their patients, especially to women. I think 90% of women you ask will say this, and that's one reason why a lot of women prefer women doctors, in the hopes that they'll be better listeners and less patronizing. In the US this contemptuousness and refusal to listen is a recognized problem, and there was a huge article in the New York Times about how medical residents and even full-fledged physicians are now being required to take courses on how to listen to their patients and really take on board what they're saying. I think if we are to use the racism analogy, one could argue that it's medics who are judging & labeling a whole group of people (i.e. patients). We are merely recounting stories of some our bad experiences, while (in most cases) recognizing that we had some v. good care too.

My mother had a similar experience to Toothache's when I was born; stupid junior doc insisting 'oh, she'll be ages yet' when my father rang to see if he should rush over (he was on his way back from a business trip). Completely ignored my mother who was shouting 'NO I WON'T'.

Although have to say, midwives and docs who helped my sister through a marathon 36-hour labour (inc. 5 hours of pushing!) recently were fab, completely supportive and respectful. Can I suggest anyone who has had a bad experience moves to Redditch before their next delivery?

HMB - just one point to make and I shall bow out - since we both agree that most doctors/midwives provide good care I don't want to get caught up in an argument with you - we should ask tech to do an emoticon for an olive branch

I have also had emotional experiences with sick relatives, but have still found that labour is an experience that went to the core of my being IYSWIM, and was the most significant experience of my life, so do remember it differently, and what everyone said, in a way I don't think of anything else.

I think that you have every right to post about your awful experiences and to say how crap those individual doctors/nurses/HV/MV whatever were. 100%! But all I was asking was that this thread didn't become an 'all medics are crap' posting. I have no probelm with people being upbraided for their behaviour, how else will we ever get improvements? But I just don't like it when all of any group gets painted the same way.

Me too! Me too! I have a great story to add to this lot......waters broke with a dribble on tuesday afternoon - having had no contractions, rang the hospital a couple of times on Wednesday asking about whether I should come in. Got told that there was no way my waters would have broken! Got concerned so demanded to be seen Thursday afternoon - mid-wife confirmed waters had broken - and then got all panicky when I told her that they'd gone on Tuesday but no-one would listen to me. So they decided to induce me with a prostaglandin pessary that night - midnight in fact. Gave me a couple of sleeping tablets, sent DH home saying nothing would happen until the morning when I would be taken down to the delivery suite.

2am - asked for tens machine to be put on as there as no way I was getting any rest! By 4am contractions quite strong - was pacing room, kneeling over bed, watching TV and trying to read - to keep my mind off things. Demanded to be montitored (no internal examination I might add!). Put me on the bed so contractions slowed down and got told again it was going to be ages so go and have a bath to take the pain away.

7am - rang dh crying and asked him to come a support me (had had no sleep at all). 8am rang for mid-wife and asked for pain relief thinking that I had ages to go and wouldn't be able to cope with the pain. Mid-wife suggested another bath as there was no room in the delivery suite so they wouldn't be able to take me down there until about 11:00 where I would be hooked up to a syntocinon drip. 08:30 dh arrives and runs me a bath. Get in bath (tens machine off), now having to really breathe through the contractions which are coming thick and fast and hurt. New mid-wife asks if I'm OK - so I tell her I need to get out of the bath because I need to push. Having mentioned the word 'push' FINALLY, at 9am I have an internal to be told that I'm actually 9.5cm dilated! Mid-wife, in a huge panic, legs it down to the delivery suite to find a bed - there are no beds...so I'm ushered into the operating theatre to give birth having had no pain relief and feeling exhausted and angry that no-one had believed me when I told them things were progressing quicker than they thought.

So dd was born in the operating theatre after 9 hours of contractions with only a tens machine for company, 3 hours of pushing (think she got stuck) - thank god dh was there for that bit, one teeny puff of gas&air, an episiotomy and finally ventouse...!

An amazing experience - one that I have learnt a great deal from! Next time, I will be a lot more assertive......

Oddly enough, the wonderful midwives I had also read and paid attention to my birth plan bothe times. I've had a cr*ppy consultant or 2 in my time though...!

But HMB - If the majority of people posting here have had bad experiences does that mean we've got to wait until an equal number of people post of good experiences before we continue????

That was me about the culture, and I stick to it. The medical profession IS steeped in a culture of contempt, and I think you just need to have a bit of contact with it to realise that. (I speak as someone who has a good friend who is a GP and her husband - whom I like very much - is a hospital consultant. And both of them agree with me. Some of the jokes they tell about patients are shocking. And funny!) There is a major problem of attitude to patients within the medical profession - ask the Patient's Association, and commenting on that is no more damning every nurse and doctor who works in it, than calling the police institutionally racist is damning all individual police officers as racists. But if you don't recognise it, it will never change.

So if enough people who have had bad experiences with Asian neigbours post, will that make it ok to say that all Asian neigbours are awful?

Attack the individual, fine, but how would you feel if you were a good MW who was getting flack for the bad practice of another (and I'm not a MW btw!)

And how about my mate who had a knife held to her throat? Or the other friend who did cpr an a guy who colapsed while jogging for 45 minutes and went to hospital with him in the ambulence. Did he thank her? Did he hell! He sued her because she cracked his rib. These individual patients were assholes. Does that give doctors the right to treat woment in labour as idiots? Of couse it doesn't! All I want is repect on both sides of the fence people.

Im sorry you feel that way HMB , I think I have the right to say what I said.All evening they had been dismissive and disinterested and treated me like I was to young to know my own body. I was treated very badly by certain midwives on a certain ward during the night at a certain terrible hospital. Im also receiving treatment still 9mths later for trauma, PND, panic anxiety disorder et al , the birth experince being the catalyst for awful few months follwing. Now if I was the only case at this hospital then may it was just me & bad luck , but it wasnt, as I know several friends who had bad experinces there with uncaring staff. All within a 3 month period. Weirdly though on the ward downstairs for natural labours they were all amazingly lovely, and the 1st midwife in the labour ward was grand and I was soooo upset that she was going off shift. Unfortunately I think good treatment now seems to be the exception rather than poor treatement. and this is not isolated to just the midwives I could tell you some more storys of my bad experinces at the hands of medical staff , but I could also note the ones who were wonderful , but those I count on one hand. I am a very compassionate person and understand the plight of a very stretched midwifery service ,I had listened to 3 different midwives on each shift come to me with there stories of how awful it has been for them,one of which was working a double shift and was feelign quite ill, but I shouldnt have had to suffer the fear and lonliness the way I did that night. I have a family full of medical people , FIL a doctor , BIL a dentist and he does hospital rotations, my cousin is also a junior doctor studying paediatric surgery , so I know very well the stuff that goes on inside the medical profession and it aint always very nice and thats from their point of view in 3 different areas of the country.

oh dear poor Toothache

This is an innocent post about labour experiences. If people want to tar the whole medical profession with the same brush then so be it - I'm sure most who post don't make generalisations like that but if they do, I don't think anyone can change the way they think!

Yes, I had one bad labour experience but I had another brilliant one and every time I have had to see a medical professional for the kids (paediatrician etc.) they have all been brilliant.

I am sure we all realise that all midwives are not the same. Mears seems particually lovely and after my ver bad experience having my daughter, the midwife who was caring for me after my em c-section was a star

And I replaeat what I have posted several times. I have no worries about you posting about your poor treatment. I think that the way people have been treated on this thread is dreadful (and I have said that several times as well). I think that it is important that you can post these things.

But I also know that not all medics are like this. And while that is the case I feel that I have a right to stand up for those good men and women who do their jobs well.

My mother has senile dementia and has been in a psychatiric hospital for 3 years. I know that these are care workers and others who abuse their patients. I also know that my mother has had exceptional care from people who treat her, in the midst of her dementia, with the utmost care and respect. I have simply never, replaet, nefer heared a raised voice or an instance of lack of care from the staff. And this when the patients are spiting and clawing at them, unaware of what they are doing.

I will say one last time. i think the way you have all been treated is dreadful and inexcusable. I think that you have every right to express your anger at these individuals. But not all medics are like this. That is the only point I wanted to make.

I do agree with you there hmb, some of the doctors at my surgery have been amazing, even calling me at home to make sure I was alright in the early months of being a mum. I like to think that I dont genaralise ,as I have mentioned were they were good to me too. I just think its shame that bad expereinces unfortunately can be so apparanet in the mind that it can negate the good stuff.