Thoughts about your birth experience?? (potential trigger warning)

[ifIcouldwalk10000miles]

Hi, I'm a newish nhs midwife, I love my job. Currently work on labour ward, have also been on a lovely birth centre. I'm very aware I look after women during birth and then move on quickly whereas that experience stays with that woman for ever.... and I know that I need to hear women's own perspectives on their experiences once recovered, in order for it not to become just a job. Wondering if you would be happy to tell me what it was like for you, what maternity staff could have done differently, what you would want your midwife to know.... I'm especially interested in experiences of induction. Very aware of potential triggers of trauma or planting fear for those who haven't birthed yet, so please respond / scroll with care. Thanks so much x

Explain things to women! DS was born by planned section but I was completely overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. He was reluctant to feed and by day 2 I was feeling a lot of pressure to give him formula. There was this constant: "he needs to feed every three hours" "we need to see him feeding properly". I had a tiny amount of expressed colostrum for him and didn't understand where all the pressure was coming from, as I'd been told colostrum was all he needed. I had no idea that you get far less from hand expressing than when a baby latches on. It would have been so helpful if someone had said that they were worried he would lose too much weight because he wasn't latching on properly and that he just needed a bit more than he was getting from me. Instead, I felt I was subjected to some arbitrary hospital rules. Oh, and for heaven's sake, if a woman asks you to help her with her pressure stockings, just do it, instead of telling her she'll have to manage by herself when she gets home so she needs to learn, that's just spiteful

Being treated with dignity is definitely a big thing. I rang the maternity ward asking if I could come in as my contractions were very 5 minutes and I was told I had to wait until they were 3 minutes apart before they would admit me. Eventually when I was allowed to come in I was already 8cm dilated. However the labour didn't progress and I was told I wasn't pushing hard enough and was told to do purple pushing. Turns out the umbilical cord was wrapped around my baby several times, no amount of pushing would have got her out and purple pushing was the last thing I should have been doing. I ended up with forceps and missed IUGR (my notes said my baby had stopped growing at 36 weeks but nothing was flagged) left me traumatised from the birth.

I had 2 lovely labours. The first was natural just gas and air, I remember my midwife before the shift change, can’t remember the midwives who delivered me I was in the zone and he was born less than 2hours after shift change.

The second I spent 10 days in hospital with gallbladder issues. I loved the one who spent time trying to get on top of my pain relief, the others just left me to chase it.

I was induced with my second, 2 pessaries and nothing to speak of I was already 4-5cm. They took me to labour ward broke my waters at around 5.45 lovely midwife could see things were progressing fast lots of positivity at how well I was breathing through it, had I done hypnobirthing (no!!) started on the gas and air at 8ish, shift change at 8.30 totally in the zone baby born 9.15 and once again I wouldn’t be able to pick them out of a line of even if they were the only ones in it. Sorry!! I obviously felt cared for and comfortable.

I remember with my first a student midwife told me I was using the gas and air wrong as it had made me sick, I’d been using it for 4 hours with no problem and in hindsight I was transitioning.

I had lovely positive experiences because they left me to it and didn’t try to manage me just supported as they could see I was coping well, the one negative experience was when they tried to tell me I was doing it wrong.

Actually OP if you are part of a profession that is unkind and laughs at women's private parts and thinks it's a hoot if they are in pain and on top of that misjudge the position of the baby and nearly kill him - may I please venture to suggest that you may not use this woman's first name. You may call me Mrs exactly as you address the consultant in charge. For the very simple reason that no matter how unkind a midwife may be the patient is not her subordinate and she (or he) need to bloody well remember it. You provide a service that is only free at the point of delivery (ha ha) and too many of your profession need to remember that and every single woman needs to be aware that she need not be made to feel grateful for care that is frankly too often sub optimal.

I hope you are a good midwife. Don't forget women are your clients and you get paid a salary. You do not deliver babies for a favour.

@OhTheRoses why are you attacking OP?

I didn't mean to attack the op and don't think that's what my post implies. I do however think it is imperative that a good midwife treats women with respect and dignity and that the profession as a whole loses the notion that any woman should have to feel grateful because the service is NHS and "free".

@OhTheRoses but OP has said nothing to warrant your response. You are taking your anger out on her just because she is a midwife. Your post is very accusatory.

Oh and please don't call the women you're looking after "mum". It felt really lazy and distasteful when the midwife knew that I thought I was looking after someone else's baby, having failed motherhood at the first hurdle.

This is fairly minor, but I was being assessed in the midwife led unit during labour as my BP was high. I had vomited a few times already and asked for a sick bowl as I was now being attached to continuous BP monitoring and couldn't go to toilet. I made a joke about being too big to clean vomit off the floor and that someone else would have to do it if I didn't have a bowl (not v funny but first baby, v nervous etc) and the midwife said that she was in charge of the unit now and that her days of cleaning up sick were over and she just left.
I was moved to labour suite due to ongoing high BP after maybe three hours in the hospital and the new midwife there asked how dilated I was. She was horrified that I hadn't been examined at all, only thing that had been checked since my arrival was my BP.
I am sure it was because of my lame joke!
No drama related to this but it was poor care nonetheless.
Two people I know were both left traumatised (I don't use the word lightly here, they both get wound up talking about it years later) after being left alone in a bath during labour, in a room with no clock, nobody checking on them and no access to their phones. Won't go into details as it is not my tale to tell but they were both v scared and the lack of clock seems to be a major factor - neither of them knew how long they had been in bath for, couldn't time contractions and were left feeling abandoned.

1. Be honest from the start. Do NOT tell women an induction is their only option when their Bishops score is 0. Tell them it will almost certainly fail and they don't have to consent

1. If a doctor comes to examine an exhausted woman whose notes clearly state in capitals no consent for further internal examinations, and he does it anyway, despite her crying and begging him to stop. Don't just stand there, make him stop and, even more importantly, do not try and justify inaction with the phrase "it would've been worse if I'd stopped him as he'd have had to try again later"

1. If you are asked to give a woman an IV, please do so as soon as possible. Don't put the cannula in then leave it unattached for the next 5 hours until she's wheeled into surgery

1. Probably the most important thing you can do is believe the women you're there to help. They are perfectly capable of making informed decisions. They may not be midwives but they are still entitled to informed consent. Disregarding their wishes and removing their agency causes damage that lasts years, no matter how perfect their baby is.

Duggee your last point is what bothers me most, still after many years. And it was almost as tiring as the labour itself, trying to 'play the game' and read the midwife and gauge how best to behave/speak/what to say to make them believe me during two births. During my first, a midwife was actually tricking me and playing mind games. My mum said she wanted to knock her out afterwards for how I was treated.

I was induced at 37 weeks due to small baby. My experience was 2 pessarys 6 hours apart then my waters were broken on antenatal ward and I was in immediate agony. Then had to walk up stairs to labour ward in total distress. My midwives were lovely and ran me a bath even though I was high risk and said they shouldn't of? They were very accommodating. The birth came and went and the lovely student delivered my daughter only 5lb but needed and episiotomy. The trouble started when my placenta wouldn't detach and was coming out in pieces. The doctors came in and no one could agree on how best to proceed so I was meddled in for over an hour with only gas and air. It totally ruined the memory of my birth.
Eventually I demanded that they stop and we went to theatre for a spinal block, it still took a further hour to remove. It was a male doctor telling me basically to get on with it 'give us 5 minutes the placenta will be out' he said. Well he was full of shit. My midwife said she was going to make a complaint about the way he was treating me and speaking to me. Who knows! It does fill me with dread for next time.

I was another one who was told that I 'definitely wasn't in active labour yet' and very patronisingly told, when I said I needed to push, that 'you'll know when it's actually time to push'. I was left crying and screaming in pain on the triage ward, surrounded by women and their partners having routine CCGs and things (one of whom, memorably, complained that he couldn't hear the football commentary because of me). When DH finally convinced them to examine me the midwife just shouted 'I can see the head' and started wheeling me towards the labour ward! Looking back it's actually very scary because it had been classified as a high-risk pregnancy, told I mustn't have a MLU birth because I'd need too much monitoring, and then just left to do almost all of labour completely unmonitored.

When I did get into labour ward I gave birth 40 minutes later and then the placenta didn't deliver - this was also a real palaver and ended with the doctor having to manually extract it, which I'd describe as worse than labour BUT the midwife throughout this, and who did my stitches was amazing - lovely, so supportive and reassuring. I still remember her name and face and told her the next day that she'd turned a really awful experience into a good one. She was really kind to DH when he was struggling to dress DS, she was funny but also said all the 'wow, you did such an amazing job' stuff that you want to hear (whether or not it's true!) and she just generally was such a positive part of it. I'll always remember her.

LaGoulueRevenue that's awful 🙁

I really, really hate that some midwives appear to be on power trips and seemingly revel in being able to deny women everything from prescribed pain relief to the right to consent.

The staff who looked after me during labour were great. Except for one woman who clearly didn’t approve of me having a c section. I’d been struggling for over 24h, the midwives had decided that I couldn’t have a natural birth, and I’d seen the specialist and signed the consent forms for a c section. But I had to wait a couple of hours for a theatre to be available. The midwife who looked after me during that period kept repeatedly saying “Are you sure you don’t want to try for a natural birth? We can induce you and you can still give birth vaginally? I can go and tell them you’ve changed your mind about consenting to the c section?” DH was furious. He said “my wife has seen a specialist who’s much more qualified than you and he’s decided that a c section is best. You’re stressing my wife out and putting doubts in her mind, please stop”. At the time I found it upsetting that she was undermining the specialist, but with hindsight it’s disgraceful.

The other big problem was that I didn’t get any help after giving birth. The midwives kept saying “you have to look after your own baby” and wouldn’t help me with anything. No food or drink offered after a 24hr labour - how dare I give birth at an inconvenient time of night when breakfast isn’t till 7am! And I have food allergies so I couldn’t eat the meals, and they just shrugged their shoulders and told me there’s nothing we can do, go and get some crisps from the vending machine.

With my last baby, the midwife I encountered when I was finally allowed to be admitted seemed to put me on a pedestal and kept saying what she wanted for me. She was saying things like 'a lovely looking girl like you should have a natural birth', 'I really want you to have a nice natural experience' and batted off everything I was saying or asking for. She kept putting me off until the point where I wouldn't be able to have any pain relief and I knew what she was doing because it had happened both times before. I tried to assert myself by saying I'd been through labour enough times to know what I need/please can I have some pain relief/I really am at the point where I need some now etc and she just getting smiling and saying no, she wanted a 'natural' birth for me and I would be able to walk straight out of there afterwards.
Not knowing whether they genuinely don't have the resources but can't be honest with patients, or whether they just enjoy the power is a head wrecker.

Agree with PP that the most important thing is to listen to women (and therefore well done for starting the thread!). I was refused any pain relief for DC2. For some reason they decided it was my first birth (No idea why! My notes and birth plan were very clear I already had a child) and assumed I was going to have a long labour. I was told “you’re not having that baby any time soon” and when I started crying and begged to be examined and/or given pain relief it was met with sighs and rolled eyes. I ended up giving birth in a complete panic with no pain relief and it was horrible.

Oh, one other thing! After I had DC1 the MW said something along the lines of “so do you want stitches or shall we just leave it?” I said to leave it because I didn’t really understand the question. Hence a massive tear through my labia forevermore! Had I known the purpose of the stitches (I hadn’t actually seen what was going on down there) I would have opted for the stitches!!

I’ve had two VERY different birth experiences.

The frankly horrendous experience was down to:

• constant turnover of agency staff who obviously weren’t invested in the hospital and couldn’t have given less of a shit

• no continuity of care; having to explain things again every time a new midwife came on shift and things getting missed because of it (in my case quite serious things)

• midwives who didn’t seem to understand how important the caring part of their role is, especially for first time mums, and thought it was acceptable to be brusque, rough and impatient

• lack of clear communication, feeling like I didn’t know what was going on and that I was being unreasonable to ask (especially during induction)

The most traumatic part of my birth experiences were being told (during induction) that they could feel a fold or something when they examined me and were concerned about breaking my waters in case it was a vessel and needed a consultant to examine me. Unfortunately it was a Sunday night so they Waited until the Monday morning, and I had google so I could find out actually that if it was a blood vessel they had limited time to get me into theatre before baby bled out. I asked a midwife how long they had and how long it would take to conduct the section and 10 mins was the answer to both - I spent that whole night wide awake lying completely flat terrified of moving and killing my baby. My husband slept on the toilet floor of the room I was in on the labour ward. As it happens it wasn't a blood vessel but I have never been so scared. I wish they had explained it better, they'd examined me and someone had been with me - the midwife assigned to me went to another case as I was just there to be monitored really and I was alone for hours until the next shift came on.
I will also never forget the consultant who did break my waters looking at his colleague and saying: Bring me the hook. I was high on gas and air but the words still chill me.
Other than that though, I had a student midwife the next day and the care was excellent. Induction failed as baby got distressed and wasn't keen on coming so I had an EMCS and everyone was fantastic. On the whole I still think I got off lightly compared to many of the stories I've heard.

I was induced at 39 weeks with my first baby. I didn't react well to the peasant but I was 3cm so they took me to a room on labour ward where I first met 'my' midwife. She explained everything to me like a caring mother would, I remember that so vividly about her. Contractions came immediately when she broke my waters and she promised she wouldn't leave my side, which she didn't. She came running when I wanted to push half an hour after my contractions started and checked me straight away to find I was 9cm.

My birth ended up quite frantic from that point as baby didn't cope well with the speed of the labour and the emergency button had to be pressed and a whole team of people came running in. I remember my midwife coming right in close at my head and holding my hand and telling me exactly what was going to happen and not to be scared because I was doing brilliantly and baby would be fine, and I believed her.

I ended up with a very bad tear which had to be stitched in theatre and she came with me, got me ready and explained everything. Then sat with me in recovery for 3 hours and helped me bond and feed DS while she was writing up my notes. She arranged for a private room in the postnatal ward for me and came to find me after her shift the next day to give me a hug and make sure I was ok. She even offered to talk to my husband and explain everything that went on as he was basically left alone holding DS the whole time I was in theatre and felt a bit traumatised by it all. I just vividly remember how well she cared for me and I'll be forgever grateful to her!

I had a traumatic birth but I don't feel traumatised by it and I think that was down to how well supported I felt during and after labour!

My births were relatively straight forward but jaded midwives who treat their birthing mum's to be like pieces of meat should really consider a different career (easier said than done I'm sure etc etc). I was not out of it during first birth was pushing on all fours and the (tmi warning) midwife kept ticking my anus!!! Ffs, I can't see what she's doing and dh did not realise. I ask her not to, she stops for a brief moment then just as a contraction kicks in she does it again! I tell her to stop, she takes no notice. I order her to stop, she does, briefly. She tickles me again so I reached round and punched her arm to get her off me! I'm a lover not a fighter but having your anus tickled when you're trying to push a baby out and you are being ignored forced me to it.
Turns out she had a wad of cotton wool hovering within a hairs reach and this was the source of the tickle. All she had to do was communicate, if she has asked me I could have told her I had evacuated my bowels only two hours previously and she needn't have done that. Simple isn't it. She also kept tugging in the umbilical cord after the birth which felt like I was being electrocuted even after I asked her not to, placenta came along without problems in usual time anyway. As a ftm I struggled to assert myself as I was deferring to her professional expertise. She didn't deserve it.

She was busy, probably over stretched but apart from that example in many other ways she was heartless, rude, dismissive and a bitch. I was so grateful the birth was straight forward as I would have hated to be in her hands otherwise.
My second midwife was an angel, courteous and wise.

At the end of the day, the best person to get that baby out is the mother midwives are the support for that, so many seem to think it's the other way around.

Pessary not peasant

One thing that really bothered me was the lack of privacy/dignity, especially once any extra staff were needed in the room. It felt like a free for all and nothing was done to retain any privacy and dignity for me at all.

For example- big team came in when baby heart rate dipped, was uncovered and had my waters broken and then nobody bothered to put the blanket back over me. I was just laying there, feeling the air on my naked private parts whilst a huge group of people stood at the end of the bed. Asked twice to be covered back up and ignored. In the end DH spoke up and they quickly threw a blanket over me, why couldn’t that just have been done in the first place?

In the same situation some of the staff stood at the end of the bed were talking about me in third person like I wasn’t there. One was saying ‘oh look at her lack of stretch marks she’s not got that big a bump really’ so nothing particularly negative but it just felt so humiliating to have all these people brought it to gawp at you, nobody has time to answer your questions or Chuck a blanket over you yet they can stand there chatting like you’re a bloody animal in the zoo without introducing even themselves.

Second labour going into theatre for forceps. Strung up with legs in stirrups, so many people wondering around the business end. Would have been nice to have an explanation (even afterwards) of who they were and why they had to be down at the bottom end. And staff who didn’t need to be there should always stay up the other way.

And my pet hate- DH being told to come down and watch me push without me being asked first if that’s ok!

I don’t know... I guess just acknowledgment that even in the throes of labour easy little things can really make the experience more dignified and a lot of women absolutely do care about this.