UK women forced to wear face masks during labour charity finds.

[MercyBooth]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/may/14/uk-women-forced-to-wear-face-masks-during-labour-charity-finds

Fucking barbaric.

@Racoonworld

No one is playing top trumps. You can’t even begin to compare the two, it’s like comparing a paper cut with your arm getting sawn off!

Oh do get off your high horse. I’ve had a vaginal no pain relief birth and in some respects that was easier than some of the smears I’ve had. Smears for me are excruciating. I have to take vallium for them and even then they are very very painful. I am sobbing, muffeled screaming, making in pain noises during them. I am currently 18 months late as I won’t go whilst masks are required. Breathing techniques are required for the nurse to even get the speculum in, never mind opened up. So please, you know nothing if you don’t have this phobia.

There’s just no way I could’ve done this, especially with my first (Pre-covid thankfully). Labour (all in hospital) lasted 3 days, I had two failed epidurals, baby in distress, then emergency forceps and a PPH of 3 litres, baby not breathing/ straight to PICU. I had to have 2 transfusions and was on the ward for a week, shuffling down to see DS whenever I could.

Wearing a mask would have been physically extremely uncomfortable during that extended process and mentally I probably would have lost it (even more than I actually did!).

These poor women. I can't even imagine what that must have been like. Trying to bare a mask going around the supermarket is horrible for me. Childbirth would be torture.

@OnTheBrink1 i totally get it. With me it feels like razor blades.

@bumblenbean that was stressful enough for you without a mask in the equation.

“ if you chose to get pregnant and need care in a pandemic then you do so knowing there are restrictions and policies in place to keep staff and other patients safe”

There are no policies that state that women should wear masks in labour. Forcing women to do so is against policy. But you won’t come back and admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, will you.

FWIW my relative who undertakes smears, and coil insertions too, says she has had several patients struggle with the mask during procedures and she has not forced them to continue to wear them. It’s a medical procedure and reasonable adjustments should be made. I realise that’s just one HCP but there will be others.

I gave birth in Feb and had to wear a mask until I got to the actual delivery suit. I was put in a room while in labour, ut expected to keep the fucking thing on, even although me and dp were the only ones there. Thank god it didn't take long to go down to the labour suit.

I was forced to wear a mask during birth last may

I had a massive panic attack because my husband nearly didn’t make it in time and I had been on my own there since the morning because he wasn’t allowed in until close to birth

I wear glasses and couldn’t see a thing through the steam from crying and hyperventilating
My mask was full of snot and tears
I felt like I was drowning

The midwives didn’t let me wear my own mask I had to wear one provided by them. They made me wear one of those nearly rigid ones that was fitted so tightly to my face I ended up with red marks

None of the healthcare team I saw wore those type of masks themselves

This was after subjecting me to my first ever Covid swap that morning where the one up the nose was pushed so far that it hurt and I couldn’t hold back the tears

The midwife doing it said that she knew she went far enough if it made my eyes sting

I’ve since had many more Covid swaps administered on me for other hospital stays and they’ve never been painful like that

It will be a year to the day next week

I am looking forward to celebrating my babies birthday but it’s also bringing up a lot of bad feelings from last year too

Following on from that I refused all health visiting services and follow up 6 week post birth check because I was still so traumatised by it all

I never want to talk to a health professional about my birth
I’m angry

A fucking disgrace. Though if you refused...would they allow you to freebirth at home...? I very much doubt it.

I gave birth 7 weeks ago. Wasnt expected to wear a mask. Unless walking around corridors.

I gave birth in September 2020, my husband was only able to attend one scan. I was high risk and had extra scans/visits to the consultants at my local hospital. The walk between both areas is about 10 minutes, it was awful waddling along alone 8 months pregnant, boiling hot wearing a mask.

I was induced due to my waters breaking early (36 weeks). I had to keep the mask on during all examinations and the 2 sweeps I had. Following this I was moved to the delivery suite and placed on a drip, my mask was only removed when I had an adverse reaction to a epidural and my blood pressure dropped.

The birth was horrendous and my partner had to leave an hour after birth due to covid visiting hours.

Following this we were readmitted to hospital with jaundice, I was put in a room on my own with my baby. No visitors allowed, still in an awful lot of pain following the birth and extremely tired. A nurse would pop in every 2 hours to examine the baby. Apart from this I was alone, my mental state was all over the place.

8 months on I still have flashbacks to the birth and feel like I'm grieving for the pregnancy/birth I should have had.

Wearing masks during childbirth and smears is an extra level of anxiety women don't need.

I gave birth at the end of November and didn’t have to wear a mask, thankfully. Horrendous.

I think basic maths should indicate that anyone who gave birth in 2020 didn’t know that they were going to give birth in a pandemic work it out.

My birth experience wasn’t a whole lot of fun but at least I didn’t have to have a mask on. I did for scans though, like a PP said it wasn’t fun waddling round a hospital heavily pregnant!

Just to be clear though, this is definitely not the NHS policy.

For some reason the staff at these particular hospitals got the complete wrong end of the stick with it and insisted women had to wear a mask when all of the guidance said they absolutely did NOT have to.

I don't know how it happened and they need to investigate and sort it out because yes it's horrendous!

I can’t really talk about my birth during the first lockdown but at least I did not have to wear a mask at all.

My home birth was cancelled due to the ambulance service no longer supporting them. I wasn’t prepared to go it alone at home though some women did

I don’t think “but you knew there was a pandemic when you got pregnant” is a good excuse for shitty treatment in pregnancy and childbirth even if that is true, nor is it a fair response to someone who perhaps wants to just vent about the difficulties and restrictions they experienced whilst pregnant and having a baby during a pandemic. But that poster comments exactly the same way on all these threads and you won’t get any sort of response to challenges because they basically don’t give a shit.

Thankfully the trust here was clear that mask wearing didn't extend to mothers in active labour.

There was a comment on here in March 2020 that those of us who were pregnant should be grateful not to be giving birth in a refugee camp. Genuinely, women were just expressing worries on a thread in the Pregnancy section, and someone who was not pregnant decided to come along and tell women that they were selfish to worry about what level of care might be available to them and their babies during a pandemic. That’s the kind of behaviour some people think is acceptable.

OUTRAGEOUS!

I’m due to give birth later this year. I sure as hell won’t be Wearing a mask even if we’re in full lockdown again.

What are they going to do if you refuse? Kick you out?? My labour, my choice. I can’t understand why no one refused?

They wanted me to wear one in an empty room while I waited to go down for my c section after a negative PCR test. It was summer so boiling hot and I just said it was ridiculous and pointless when in a room on my own and that it was coming off, no one argued with me. I wore it in theatre (fair enough) but as soon as the baby was handed to me it came off again and didn’t go back on again for the 24 hours I was in hospital.

Assertiveness and the ability to argue against nonsensical rules has really been lost this last year, I know some find it hard but if something is making you that uncomfortable speak up!

How inhuman!
Midwives should be equipped with at the very least N95 mask or a higher grade and a visor to be protected from potential positive pregnant mums.
The surgical mask that people wear are good for general population to stop droplets from their mouths/nose, but it’s not air tight so if it were a the women in labour happened to be positive, the surgical mask will do nothing to hold back the droplets whilst panting a screaming in pain for hours in a closed room. Mind you windows won’t be open for obvious reasons, and projecting the voice whilst wearing a mask (like screaming singing) will still drop a much bigger viral load than someone masked up at her computer in an office or at school. I know they have air conditions etc but when someone is panting and if positive the air condition filter won’t do much.

Covid is airborne,
The hospital ought to allow women birth maskless and give the midwives proper high grade PPE.

I completely agree with the post above. The issue is with the crappy masks we have been provided with. It absolutely is high risk for us with women panting, vomitting, shouting, grabbing hold of our arms and pulling us close etc. But its all part of the job. I absolutely have not ever asked a labouring woman to wear a mask - it isn't expected at all where I work and if it was I still wouldn't have done it. However myself and many of my colleagues did catch covid during the height of the pandemic (when we weren't anywhere else except work) so it certainly was a risk for us. I was very unwell and still not 100% 6 months later. I am now working in clinics as I can't manage 13 hour shifts/ night shifts just yet, but I still offer for women to remove their masks during the appointments if they wish, especially for sweeps, just in case any woman cannot cope with it for any reason. Women in America have had to wear masks in labour, though the UK is the only country that uses gas and air in labour (due to risks to the staff of its use) which in turn leads to less vomitting, so I think there are slightly less issues with masks in labour there.

^ exactly. I feel that both the midwives and the women in labour have been let down massively by lack of high grade PPE for the midwives.
The nation as a whole has been let down by the bodgit and scarper covid approach.
I’m sorry you have been unwell @PrivateHall