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.

I have the same issue @MercyBooth luckily I found a lovely nurse who couldn't have cared less if I was wearing a mask or not! My dd1 had her baby at home in March (decided home birth due to mask and other restrictions!) she had her baby with me and her husband present none of us wore masks and the midwife that attended was very grateful when we told her we didn't expect her to wear one of she didn't want to! Thank god for common sense! Xx

@BooblePlate
Thanks!

I gave birth September (so no, I didn't choose to get pregnant during a pandemic, considering my history, I wouldn't have risked it) anyway, they didn't want to allow me in hospital because I didn't seem far enough along. Got there and had to wear a mask. When they assessed me I was 8cm.
Thankfully they didn't tell me to put it back on while being moved but it was awful contracting while wearing one.

I’d have taken the bloody thing off, what were they going to do? Throw you out?

I'm due to have baby in just under 3 weeks. Booked c section and having read up on it (thanks to Pregnant then Screwed posts) I will not be agreeing to wear a mask during surgery. I'm petrified as it is and whilst I'm totally happy to wear a mask in normal life for however long society asks me to (I believe they serve a useful purpose and am not at all anti-mask) I cannot face surgery and panicking with a mask on. I do not want my baby to see my masked face as it's first sight of me.

I'm Aware that I "chose" to get pregnant during a pandemic. I've had countless messages on MN telling me how selfish this was of me and how as a result I have no right to complain about any of my maternity care or otherwise. It's hurtful how little we, as women, are standing together on this though.

It's awful.
I'm a double master who won't be going indoors any time soon. But women should not be in masks in labour.

@WaitingForNormality
Congratulations. Fingers crossed things will be fairly normal for your maternity leave. It’s disappointing that you should have people telling you that you’re selfish to get pregnant during a pandemic on a parenting forum. I wonder if they would say the same about the millions of women all over the world who give birth in less than ideal circumstances.

Utterly barbaric.

I hope that labouring women who are asked to keep masks on whilst in hospital can find the courage to stand up to this twattery and refuse to wear one. Not only is it t potentially dangerous, it is against all guidance and isn't NHS policy.

They won't throw actively labouring women out of hospital.

It’s not so much “finding the courage” though. I gave birth during the first lockdown, so masks weren’t required, but birth partners weren’t allowed until it was agreed by an HCP that you were in established labour. I arrived in transition, but no one believed me and I was left alone in a waiting room with nothing but plastic chairs, labouring hard, until a random midwife passing in the corridor looked in and saw me and asked if I had an urge to push. She then got me to a delivery room and my husband could join us just in time. I couldn’t advocate for myself, I couldn’t understand questions being asked of me very well, I didn’t really know where I was or where anyone else was.

So it really needs to be both HCPs and birth partners looking out for women as well as women being aware of the fact that they don’t have to wear masks - women who have kept the masks on despite distress aren’t lacking in courage - the whole scenario is one where a woman is vulnerable and hospitals shouldn’t be misapplying policies in the first place.

@BooblePlate completely agree with your sentiments. It's lucky that the midwife passing by checked on you in time. Was thinking what a lovely lady she was; but then realised she was just doing her job and it's crazy you were put in that position. Labouring women should always be allowed a birth partner.

I imagine it's equally frustrating not knowing what to do for the best for your female patients as a midwife. It's an unprecidented situation and really has brought out both the worst and best in people.

Plus at the start of the pandemic it was genuinely terrifying not knowing what was happening and putting your life at risk working with patients. Can see why health professionals would be scared at the start when faced with screaming women more easily spreading the virus; but it's the nature of the job and unworkable/cruel to get women to keep them on during labour.

Yes, my (selfish) concern at the time of the first lockdown was that there would be so many midwives ill or isolating or caring for unwell/isolating children that they would be too short staffed for decent care. (And tbh the tone of some posters (who were not pregnant) on here was a sort of gleeful prospect of women giving birth unattended in corridors or tents in car parks as though we were finally getting our comeuppance for thinking we might have some sort of choice).

There was/is absolutely a balance to be struck between making sure that staff are well and that women and babies are cared for properly. After all, there is likely to be a greater risk of intervention required if a woman is stressed and anxious behind a mask than if she could labour more comfortably without one - and that then means more staff, more postnatal care, and so on.

I think if we were in a situation where under normal circumstances women in labour do feel able to advocate for themselves, postnatal care is adequate, services are well funded and staff are not hideously overworked, then adding in restrictions such as no birth partner until a certain point, all that, wouldn’t make so much difference. But we don’t have that, so we have some much more seriously traumatised women than we would have had

That's horrible that some people said that because people have babies in all sorts of circumstances the world over and that doesn't mean it's their fault for planning a baby during a war or other conflict or whatever, the same as during a pandemic. If everyone had that opinion, the human race would die out!!

Good point re maternal care. It's hard because I'm sure the staff want to do their very best but are so hideously understaffed it isn't always possible. Plus being well aware that being understaffed and so overstretched on a normal ward means one person is at risk, whereas on maternity it's two.

Well, I dunno what women wore them, but I could fucking stand anything touching me when I was in labour. Everyone had to get the fuck off, I was in nothing but a bra and that didn’t last long.

I was swearing, shit, bastard, fuck, agony for days. I would laugh in their face if they told me to wear a mask..

Couldnt* argh