Am I the only one who has no faith in midwives - contentious topic I know....

[RedFraggle]

I had a bit of a nightmare delivery and ended up with an emergency c-section so possibly my views are slightly warped...

I am having an elective this time around for various reasons, but I have to admit that I felt a huge flush of relief when I realised it meant I wouldn't have to rely on any midwives as I have no faith or trust in them at all. Can I be the only woman on Mumsnet who would really prefer NOT to have midwives involved in their birth? All the threads I have seen seem very pro-midwife and I was just curious...

As a midwife it is incredibly disheartening to hear that so many people are dissatisfied with the care they get.

Sadly a lot of the substandard care is down to short staffed, and although it is used a lot it is a genuine reason, there have been far to many shifts when I have been looking after 3 labouring women, one to one care no chance how can I? shifts with 5 midwives two theatres open with emergencies and 12 full rooms with either labouring women or problems its terrifying.

Despite all this a lot of us do our utmost to make sure that the women we are trying to care for are given the best support and experiences possible, so to hear your profession as a whole being tarred with the same brush is downright insulting and offensive.

If you have a bad experince then write a complaint to the head of midwifery detailing all the things you were not happy about so that things can be changed

My midwives were wonderful - both community midwife and hospital ones.
Agree with Piffle - it is the system, not the midwives that are at fault.

Some of the stories on here are very sad. I think midwifery like all professions has good and bad practitioners. My very first encounter with a midwife was awful, I had to wait almost an hour in the surgery for my booking in session, only to be told by a rude and insensitive midwife that she did not have time to answer any of my questions and only had time to fill in the forms! Thankfully she was just covering holiday and my community midwife who returned shortly was wonderful (as were the doctors at the practice who dealt with my complaint about the first midwife).

My father had a stroke when I was 35 weeks pregnant and was gravely ill. My midwife was fantastic and very reassuring. She came to my home to make sure I was OK and gave DP lots of advice about how to help.

I was really scared about being in hospital and wanted as little intervention as possible. Needless to say that I ended up with a c-section after 42week, 3 inductions and 20 hours of labour. Exactly what I didn't want but I felt in control and well informed at all times. The midwives took notice of my birth plan, recognised that I was a control freak and so gave me plenty of information to prepare me for all possibilities. By the time the consultant made the call to do the c-section, midwife had already told me this was likely, arranged for epidural for minimum delay and explained exactly what would happen.

I wrote a letter to personally thank 2 of the midwives at the hospital who went above and beyond the call of duty to make things as positive as possible for me (we had been informed that my Dad would not wake again by this stage).

I guess I was very lucky.

haven't read all posts but redfraggle i am wiht you - the madwitches who looked after me during my second pregnancy verged from downright silly to dangerously incompetent, only the fact that the consultant was in the hospital that sunday afternoon saved my baby's life and mine. i had a hysterectomy during my c -s ection and the b**ch of a midwife said 3 days later " of course if you want a third you could still try for a home birth" oh ffs read your patients notes - i was crying so hard at her comment the ITU nurses threw her out !

It's really strange that there is a national shortage of midwives. I know the shortage is always worse in urban areas but when I worked at King's College London, applicants were clamouring to get on the midwifery course - they never had a problem getting all their students places filled. This was only 2 years ago. Is the government not comissioning enough places or what?

I think they are probably good at their job but their aren't enough of them so mistakes get made. My 2nd labour I was left alone for hours I felt completely traumatised about it for ages afterwards and would definately not repeat the experience.

I read this on the weekend and was really shocked.

Newspaper round-up: Sunday 4 March

Today's Independent on Sunday leads with news that record numbers of women are being harmed or dying as a direct result of childbirth in what doctors are labelling a "crisis" in maternity care.

There has been a rise of 21 per cent in deaths of pregnant women in the care of NHS maternity services.

Deaths over the past three years now total 391, up one fifth on the comparable period, and 17,000 women have suffered physical harm while on labour wards.

babybore.. a doula i know is applying for midwifery, she explained the rationale behind the number of training places available each year,, cannot quite remember what she said, but i was when she said there were only 18 places ! so that college will have 18 midwifery graduates, in 3 years...

nowhere near enough to plug the gap

also, as midwifery led units and birth centres close, new positions are not opening up elsewhere, so there are not enough jobs now.....

Oh mummydoc, how insensitive and how heartbreaking

I did complain, and got back a huge pack of lies, which, frankly, set my recovery back quite dramatically.
I later found out that all the midwives on the night shift where I was were forcibly transferred to the day shift so they could be supervised as it was clear they were lazy and cruel.

It is not always the system either. That's just making excuses for some truly awful, wicked, incompetent people on a nasty power trip.

Very good post, MrsMalumba.

I heard something about the midwife shortage on the radio the other day. The gist was that, although there is no shortage of aplicants to do midwifery training, cutbacks mean that most NHS trusts have dramatically cut back on recruitment. Many women (for it is mostly women) do their training, qualify ... and then are unable to find a position. There is no shortage of midwives - there is, however, a shortage of funding.

aloha- i don;t know the full circs of your birth, but i gather it was highly traumatic..and as the midwives involved have been disciplined, then i guess it is cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, to know something has been done..even if it does not benefit you.

it is not always the system, you are right

very sorry about all those who have had distressing birth experiences.

the delivery ward/antenatal mws were OK. the night shift postnatal ward mw was another story - left me overnight with agonising urinary retention with the advice to take a paracetamol and/or a shower. It wasn't until the change of shift that I got catheterised and could get any sleep at all. The protocol urodynamics referral never happened. Fingers crossed that my bladder hasn't been permanently damaged due to the lack of prompt action by the night shift mw.

London units sometimes have a few midwifes who really don't seem nice or competent , usually rude , stroppy, aggressive and with attitude problems. Complete mass generalisation I know but once you move outside the M25 everyone in units seems a lot happier. I know some of these things are caused buy overwork , stress etc, but is often difficult working with people like this and even worse being cared for them. I've seen horrible treatment of Bangledeshi women who could not speak english and treated worse than dogs.
Somewhere I worked, put the incompetent MWs on the private ward cos they only had 3-4 patients to look after there and so were less likely to cock up some-ones care.
HOWEVER, there are lots of rude incompetent Doctors out there as well, probably nurses, physios and accountants.

I would imagine part of the bad attitude though is sometimes due to being over worked and stressed, you really dont work your best in those circumstances in ANY profession let alone one where you can end up in court if you make a mistake.

Most of the midwives I met in hospital were lovely but there was one African lady on the night shift...I was kept in because my blood pressure was mega high and was well over due my meds....she was really horrible never gave me them despite me asking (politely) a few times and quite frankly I would have been better off at home in charge of my own drugs!!

Hi it sounds like you have had an awful time. I have had three boys, one naturally although nothing natural about it! And two ceasarians which were fab, but of course midwives are still involved - admidetly there was only one woman in the threatre but she was supportive and the aftercare I recieved was excellent as well. But the first labour was awful and so was the midwife, 50 hrs and third degree tears! It could have happened with a nice midwife but it didnt help. Like you was relieved to hear I needed a casarian the second time. Because of so many complications I had one to one midwifery advise ..expensive but worth it...www.letstalkbaby.co.uk she is FAB and tells it as it is, few peole have a walk in the park but I felt as prepared as I could be and the antenatal classes I had been to the first time through the NCT were great to meet people but I really thought I would have a water birth and had no idea how awful it could be. I got it right the second time..I needed medical reassurance and kindness and was information hungry..I wanted a qualified midwife to tell me why exactly I would need a blood transfusion with one birth but iron would suffice with another, what a low lying placenta meant in no uncertain terms, no glossing over anything. Midwives are people and sadly you will get horrible ones and very good ones. I hope the next experience is a better one for you. I have to say that it took me a long time to recover from the natural birth but with the caesarian was home on day four feeling fantastic but I think elective caesarians are so much easier than having had the whole birth experiece and then a caesarian - that must be the worst!

preface: i havnt read thread. crap i know, sorry.

my mums a mw. to cut to chase, its bloody hard to be a mw these days - they are so undervalued understaffed undersupported (like everyone les in the NHS i guess) that a lot of good ones are being ground down... and there are some bad ones. which really is a damn shame, to say the least.

id have a mw delivery anyday. a good mw is worth her weight in gold. fact is, they are the specialists in childbirth. not doctors. id trust a mw over a doc in birthing matters. but hey; i had v straightforward births. hell, if i did it agin, all id need is a birth pool at home and my partner to hold onto and feed me snacks. id have a mw there, just in case though!

fwiw - my mother does her best to hound bad ones out of the job!! hehehe

I hope my experiences of them are not fully typical either:-

I had three different midwives during my labour due to their working patterns (they were called away to others) and going off shift. Two of these people were clueless and argued with the doctor (they between them could not get the probe to work), the third midwife though was a star.

I ended up with an emergency c-section under GA. This was done when the doc said, "right emergency caesarian NOW!" and was given a piece of paper to sign (I'd love to see that signature of mine!).

Anyway DS and I were placed on a ward known by the staff to house the "problem" cases post birth. The midwife care (I use that term advisedly) was frankly substandard due to understaffing. Any compassion these people previously possessed had been sucked out of them by this system. Women were left in a distressed state and call buttons pressed at night went unanswered. I got out of bed one night myself to help another lady clean up her son's bassinet.

Think the icing on the cake though happened when one of the midwives stood at the head of our ward of beds and said, "oh some of you will be back in a year's time" .

I never returned.

Our midwife was,to be completely frank,bollocks.

Se arrived when we were 10 days overdue and started talking about how our due date was soon, she gave us no information, what we know about pregnacy we learned from places like Mumsnet
Then after the birth she got the sex of our daughter wong, twice.
To say we were mightily happy to see the back of her is an understatement.

I've really appreciated all the responses to this post. At least I know that I am not alone in this ..

I am aware that midwives are over-strtched but I just don't feel this is a valid excuse for some of the incidents described by people on this board.

As I was two weeks over-due I had a midwife with me in the labour room at all times,she had no-one else to deal with - just me. I had to have continuous monitoring after an induction etc. I realise my birth was not an ideal one to start with. Some people have mentioned about having too high expectations - all I wanted was to have my baby safetly and get home, I don't feel that is asking for much! I didn't even bother getting my birth plan out of the bag when I got to hospital, I just thought I would see how things turn out.
When I had to sign for the c-section I remember them trying to explain what I was signing and I just said "I don't care what you do, just get my baby out safe!"

A few people have commented on tarring all midwives with the same brush - I do hope anyone reading all my posts in this thread can see that that is not what i am doing. I have encountered some good midwives, and realise there must be a lot of very good midwives since most women would opt for midwife led care given the choice. I just cannot bring myself to trust them and this is an individual gut-reaction to my circumstances. I'm sure the other women who have posted about bad births and subsequent lack of trust can empathise with this.

I really tried to get myself to attempt a VBAC this time around. But once I had decided that I would give it a go the panic attacks and flashbacks kicked off again, I was weepy and depressed and I just couldn't do it. The idea of being in the hands of midwives scares the crap out of me!!

As a nearly qualified midwife it is sad to read all these posts. During my training I have met many great midwives, but also a few 'old stamp' ones (you know stay on the bed,...). More importantly I've met some incompetent doctors too. Mws are more experienced a number aspects of obstetrics: they perform more vaginal examinations, abdominal palpations than many doctors and are more used to seeing how women's behaviour changes as the labour progresses. This means that personally I would trust a mw's opinion in these matters more than many doctors'.

I have witnessed first hand how overstretched midwives are and the Trust where I'm training has a job freeze too. This means that although I know of many mws who have left and retired in recent months, I am still not guaranteed a job. I do think there are plenty of students out there, but no one is willing to give many of them a job, because there is no money. And so the sad situation continues.

And finally: my own personal experience with mws during my pregnancies and chilbirth were both positive. I only met 1 'bad' one, who told me to try for an hour and if it still didn't work to buzz her, when I asked for help with bf'ing. My own cmw actually inspired me to join the profession myself.