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...

but what can you do, at the time, if you get a nasty midwife? (am giving birth at St Thomas').

theprecious,

dont go in thinking about that, create your own 'space' for your labour, let you husband/partner/birth support know what you want, they can then take this worry away from you.

cx

thank you - it's all a bit overwhelming!

it is!!!!

make sure you know what you want and so does your parnter, be realistic, be empowered and informed in all your choices.

happy birthing!

cx

bless you creena x

it is overhwelming..but so exciting too !! give yourself clear space to think about things and don;t rush into anything x

I know a lady who had a HWBA2C 6 days ago, I have to warn her to stop posting on the other board I go to and get some rest! We also have a VBA3C there...

VBAC, of all sorts is so possible that it is a crying shame that the HCPs seem to be doing their best to thwart it.

Amongst my VBAC cronies, you can just see our hackles rise when we hear of anyone being told that they are not allowed this or must do that....

our HWBAC lady had an amazing but hard labour, her Doula kept us up to date online so we could follow progress and all the other ladies in waiting have found the experience inspirational. Especially as her second CS was only 13 months ago, what a difference a Doula makes and a bit more time to learn.

I had my own VBAC 21 months ago but next time it will be a HWBAC!

Redfraggle,

here is a fabulous site for inspiration when doing a Birth Plan

VBAC Birth Plan ideas

HTH

Muminfife, I'm in Angus and have just been to Adela's workshop. I imagine you'll be on the list we all got emailed recently....?

Redfraggle, I can see that you are taking all this in and gaining some strength. Well done, you will be able to make good decisions regarding your future care.

I have a huge resource file of collated links (mainly VBAC but all relevant to a good birth whether VB or CS) which I would be happy to pass on, please just ask.

RedFraggle, there is loads of advice here which is great, I'm so pleased for you.

I do understand about your homebirth fears but you see I felt that if I was in a hospital it would all go wrong again - ie this nonsense about only 'trying' for six hours etc - I mean how relaxed are you going to be knowing that?

I felt that if I was at home with my VERY supportive doula who was very experienced with VBACs, then it was much more likely that things would go smoothly because I would be so much more relaxed. And that was the case. I also hired a water pool which made it brilliant as well. You also don't have the worry of being parted from your DD. DD2 was born 10pm and was introduced to her brother and sister the next morning in our bed. So memorable.

BUT I did have huge faith in my doula and the hospital is 3 miles away. I don't know your medical details but I would say really think about the independent midwife at home IF she is 100% supportive of VBACs.

hiya, sorry hav'nt read the whole thread, i remember having a negative birth experience with my 3rd, so when i was expecting my 4th (unplanned) baby i was terrified. when the time came, my midwife was wonderful,she remembered me from in the community after my 3rd and remembered things i had said to her during antenatal appointments. my faith was restored! there are some good midwives out there.

i met the most fantastic midwife at a homebirth i was at on sunday morning. she was totally supportive, totally in tune with a womans body and amazing. if i was allowed id post her name as she was amazing and made a difference to thw whole birth exp for my client, and me!

cx

Sorry to say, I have a fear of midwives after my first. I found them callous, bitchy, and useless.

Can't go into it, as it will bring it all back, and it's taken 4 years to forget!

kt, this thread is almost a year old... if you have strong feelings about the birth, there are steps you can take to address it..and of course complain about shabby treatment you received. the birth trauma association and sheila kitzinger;s birth crisis both offer help with traumatic birth experiences

Old thread but me too!

I went all water birth & candles first time around (stand alone midwife-led birth unit, no doctors in sight). They were utterly useless, the 'care' I received was incompetent & resulted in an emergency transfer to local regional hospital where I was assaulted by another midwife before I eventually got an emergency section (by far the best part of the birth).

Second time around I had consultant care only (didn't see a midwife) & booked with a consultant who specialised it caring for women who've had traumatic births, she was absolutely wonderful, the most compassionate HCP I've ever encountered. I opted for an elective section rather than a VBAC primarily because I have zero faith in the midwifery care I was likely to receive (ds's birth was brilliant btw )

I saw about, ooh, must have been 15+ different midwives throughout my pregnancy and time in hospital giving birth, and none of them made me feel supported, gave me good advice or were even very nice to me. Actually, tell a lie, there was one very nice young Somali midwife who I saw for one antenatal appointment - if she had been my MW the whole way through I would have been very happy - she seemed clued up and was a lovely person. All the others - miserable, rude, gave shit advice. A few of them actually reduced me to tears.

didn't realise it was so old!

We are new parents (8 days) and we have started to lose faith in some of the midwives we've seen. The wide range of inconsistent information we receive is so confusing, and we get told something new every time we meet. Our baby's weight has dropped a little and we have now altered our feeding pattern to combat this (using formula).

However, when we were there, there was a student midwife who joined a more experienced midwife. They weighed the baby before declaring the weighing scale broken because it was showing an inaccurate reading. They found another weighing scale which gave another result which they deemed correct but still showed some slight weight loss. It didn't fill us with confidence. Previous conversations were also forgotten and there seemed to be a lot of confusion between them.

Separately, we contacted a breastfeeding support specialist who said the amount of formula we were recommended to use was ridiculous and we should use expressed milk and half the amount the midwives had recommended. We just losing faith with the midwife advice.

We are going for a re-weigh tomorrow at a different location where I hope the weighing scales are accurate!

Has anyone else experienced this?