Non exsistant anti natal care

[LauraTil]

Why do British women no longer receive post natal care? From the 40's until the 1980's women had a choice of short or long stay in hospital after child birth. My mother was offered a lot of help with her three births and hospital was a santuary to recover and bond with all of her three daughters. She is now a grandmother to five is is horrified at how her three daughters have been immediately discharged without adequate care or follow up. Is there anyone else out there with strong views on this?

Ante or post? or both?

money. cost to NHS. Staff cutbacks. Changes in working practices.

yes, I'm shocked hospitals don't run postnatal clinics. It seems once you've had your baby that's it, all care ends. After my first dd I had a lot of health problems as a result of giving birth and was shocked to find that I was just put on a waiting list to see a gyna rather than referred to e.g a postnatal cinic. In the end after having my appointment with a gynae cancelled 3 times I had to pay to go private to repair the inadequate stitching I received after giving birth. However, I have heard on hear of people attending perineal clinics so maybe some postnatal care does exist out there...

In the 60s the state paid for home helps to come in and do the housework for the first couple of weeks

Personally I found it quite a nuisance having to wait in every day for 10 days for the midwife to come round and eat biscuits do nothing.

Foe people who can afford it there are doulas and maternity nurses. Again the less well off (who are probably most in need of support) suffer.

My MIL got 2 whole weeks in hospital both times. she said it was bliss, was a small town hospital with a small maternity ward, everybody knew everybody. Even her local Dr visited everyday. She was horrified at me being chucked out 3 days after 90hour labour ending in C/s and blood transfusion. Said maternity ward is now closed and all maternity care given at massive understaffed general hospital 30 miles away...

My mum hated staying in the hospital, she was in for over two weeks with her first. She had very uncomplicated deliveries but was denied her request for a homebirth for her 3rd baby. She would have been an ideal candidate nowadays.

Money. The NHS no spends far more money on medications and high-tech interventions that can save lives (e.g. those used when someone has a heart attack). And there are now far more medications available than there was when the NHS started. So priorities have had to change.

i guess it's down to money, but also (and obv this relates to it in monetary terms too) there are a lot more people in the country.
so back then they had less women to care for, and maybe more funding to do it
we also have less care at home from our family/friends than we used to when people often lived with/close to their extended families

do i feel strongly? not on a personal level. I didn't want to be in hospital, and i didn't want/need help afterwards either
however, i realise other people do want these things and yes, i think they ought to be able to get them

The aging population because of Baby Boomers has and continues to mean that NHS priorities have had to change also. So in a way, if the people in the 50s and 60s hadn't had so many children, they'd be less pressure on the NHS now.

I was really shocked at how little postnatal care there is for new mums. I was out of hospital within 7 hours of having ds and had no checkup at all. I thought the midwives would check my tummy, bp etc but there was nothing. I even had to pull my own stitches after asking 3 times for midwives to check them!

Sorry meant to say had to pull out my stitches

Umm. I you sure you were meant to do that ?

OP, I think you are being a bit moany and unrealistic tbh. To be fair, have no idea what the PN care is like where you are and appreciate it may not be as good as mine (where I live the maternity care is fantastic: an/intra-partum/pn all brilliant.

I have no desire to stay any length of time post-natally in hospital. I also think that it is inappropriate tbh; in a hospital you and your newborn are vulnerable to hospital-acquired infections, apart from anything else, and really, CS/complications aside, there is no clinical need for it.

The NHS was founded on a myth; that healthcare is sustainable. Guess what? It's NOT. The sky is the limit when it comes drugs and various other treatments.

I also think it shouldn't be all about want new mums WANT; it should be about what is needed and clinically proven to be helpful. OK,you might fancy 2 weeks in hospital being waited on hand and foot, but actually that is neither helpful nor affordable. The last few generations are, imho, abominably spoilt and selfish. This is not about your "rights" as a healthcare "consumer"!

I am not saying that postnatal care shouldn't meet your postnatal needs and if your "horrified grandmother" really feels that her daughters WERE discharged without ANY follow up (which I am a bit dubious about) then of course a complaint is only right and proper.

But I think we should all be a bit more grateful and a bit less grabby. And try thanking God you are not poor and uninsured in the US.

Was that aimed at me littlesilver? Obviously I wasn't meant to do that but I didn't feel that I had much choice! I know women who had great postnatal care so I'm not saying thats always how it is now but in my case I felt massively let down.

But why on earth didn't you see your GP? And are you certain they were meant to be removed, many, many are dissolvable now? And more to the point, have you had that area checked out since?

They were dissolvable ones but they felt too tight and were really painful. Looking back I was obviously not quite myself from hormones and lack of sleep, it didn't occur to me to see my gp . It still upsets me to think about how overlooked I felt. I haven't been checked there since but I think I've healed up.
I'm not trying to generalise but pn care can be that bad unfortunately and sometimes women don't get the help they need.

No, I totally agree and I wasn't suggesting otherwise; I just felt that demanding the right to 2 weeks in hospital was ridiculous. Sorry you had a pants time.

Waited on hand and foot is not the message here.. but when a new mum can't even walk, let alone lift her baby, is it right that she should be discharged from hospital?

Um, if she can't walk how would she be discharged? Carried out by relatives..?

I left on crutches, and my sister left the day after her caesarean. It just seems that some women leave hospital like war victims. Surely they deserve a little more respect...?

If they don't have the space or funding to keep you in, and you can safely leave (lots of people leave hospitals on crutches or even in wheelchairs, come to think of it - ever had a broken leg before?) I don't see how it's disrespectful to discharge you with crutches.

Still, did you or your sister complain? What was the response?

After one night on a post-natal ward, most women I know have been scratching at the door to be let out, never mind wanting to stay in longer!

I wanted to be out of hospital ASAP after both hospital births and discharged myself at the earliest opportunity. Why on earth would you want to sit around in a horrible uncomfy hospital bed, with other babies yelling and exposing yourself and your baby to the kind of infections which lurk around in hospitals for any longer than necessary?

In California, there's a booming business in postnatal doulas. In the UK, you surely get health visitors, midwife visits etc. free? I had to pay for my midwife to come out to me here (still considerably cheaper than OB care).

Not to mention all the Homestart type of schemes for people who need them.

I don't know if you have ever had an extended stay in hospital - it is pretty grim. I don't know if I would have wanted to spend the first 2 weeks of our life together as a family, with me and the baby stuck in hospital.

I was, however, pretty shocked when they stopped doing home visits as part of postnatal care, when I had dd2. We went into the hospital for the postnatal/baby check 2 days after getting home. I personally felt fine, but there were new mums there in their pyjamas and in tears. I don't know if this is going to start being standard practice.

I read somewhere that they are looking into extending the remit of midwives to cover the first 6 weeks after birth. Nice idea in theory, but not sure how that fits in with the midwife shortage.

Another important issue is that paternity leave is now a legal entitlement whereas years ago, you were lucky if your husband made the birth and could pop in for an hour in the evening. Now, many women do have more support in the first 2 weeks*

*subject to husband being actually helpful and not just creating more work

CarmenSanDiego, I had a midwife visit every PN day up to day 10 (no, I tell a lie, may have been 1,2,3,45,7,10) and then 1 HV visit after all of mine (3), except that with dd1 I had a mw visit every day for 10 days (they do it less frequently for subsequent babes). I count myself very blessed.