to think these are words you never need to hear from a Midwife ? (only slightly lighthearted)

[CheshireDing]

Midwife said told "I can definitely feel a big head".

I am nearly 35 weeks and disturbed is not the word. DC2 had a big head, so what the hell size is this one's ??!!

Seriously practising my hypno now so get DC3 out shortly

I also had baby with a huge head but he was the easiest birth of all my four, at home in just a couple of hours. Helpful GP told me during a check at around 3 months that his head was so big that there must be something wrong with him. My fourth child weighed in at over 10lbs 8oz and was the only one for which I didn't need stitches. All down to the skill of the two midwives involved I reckon....

Well said zzzzz

I too didn't share my worst birthing experiences. I kept my story lighthearted and 100% true.

Not words as such, more of an action, but I'm joining in anyway....

On the table having had a (very calm) emcs, DS1 had come out and was I was happily staring at him being held by DH. All was good, I'd been stitched up and the professionals in the room had stepped away from me and started talking about the weather / their weekend / Coronation Street and all of a sudden there was a huge kerfuffle and EVERYONE jumped back towards me with worried faces and started doing stuff that I couldn't see as it was behind the big curtain partition thingy.

DH looked at me, stifling a grin and quietly said..... "Your leg just fell off the table".

I was having a sweep at 38 weeks with my enormous twins. Previous labour ended in emc as I didn't dilate. Nothing was happening. My (terrifying) obs was away so this posh stranger waltzed in, looked at me, looked at my notes. Looked over his glasses and said "my dear would you like to have your babies now?" I sobbed like a baby. He handed me a huge (clean) hankie and proceeded with c section. My regular obs came back next day fuming. "Well, you were silly, they were only 38 weeks, they are far too small." Then looked at my 8lb each boys and said "well maybe not". The phrase nerr nerr nerrr, was on the tip of my tongue.

DrKarenMorton Mon 28-Mar-16 14:38:25
I am sure that some of these stories are apocryphal or at least I hope so. Midwives are wonderful people and I work very closely (as an obstetrician) with them.

You haven't met all midwives.

And I find it worrying that you are effectively hoping that people are all telling lies on this thread. Many of the problems and issues described here come about precisely because women are not being listened to, are patronised, and made to feel as if they are being expected to put up and shut up regarding appalling behaviour from medical professionals.

Dr k m,
I am both outraged by your response and, on reflection, find it entirely typical as it would appear that your profession refuses to listen to feedback, hence why these stories keep coming. You yourself may not be party to any of this. As a number of us have pointed out, exhaustion can be part of the issue for the health professional. And what happens to a woman infrequently is frequent for you and your colleagues.
If you want to comfort yourself you can point out that this is a self selected group, that it is a very small proportion of those who give birth.

But at the very least you might have the grace or humility to recognise that things are not good in too many cases.

cows in labour are treated better . Have experience of both.

Well I am medically qualified as it happens, I still got the comment about "staying for bed and breakfast" after a traumatic miscarriage with a lot of blood loss.

My impression was that the quality of care was very variable, my own "regular" midwife was fantastic, but I seemed to encounter a fair few people who possibly were a bit burnt out along the way.

PS am happy to provide some more worrying examples of "care" if you would like them

After an emergency section I told the midwife I felt like I'd been oozing all night. She told me not to be silly and walked off. Didn't check me at all. Turned out I hadn't been sewn up properly as the person doing it had more important things to do and I ended up with it still not been healed more than a year later and had to have an operation to fix it. My body was left weaker resulting in very near womb rupture with a subsequent Baby. Potentially that could have been avoided if she hadn't felt she knew better about something she hadn't seen against something I could feel. I wasn't able to have more children.

DrKarenMorton

FFS. Not only are you accusing women of lying about their experience, you're also assuming that you are the most qualified person here to tell them they're lying. You have no idea what profession any of us practice, shock horror, there may be other OBGYNs or MWs among us!!

Why have you used your real name? Or did you google for it? Odd.

Ds2 had a stitch in place and the medical professionals had trouble accepting I was once again delivering early and that the stitch needed removing before delivery. I was eventually sent to theatre where the conversation went a bit like this
"I can't cut it. She is trying to dilate. Why was she not brought down sooner?!" Silence from midwife
Increased panic "I can't cut it" more increased high pitch " I can't cut it ! Where the hell is the consultant"
Consultant walks in and takes a look between my legs "no time to scrub. Pass me gloves" then manages to cut the stitch. The looks at the midwife "next time read the notes otherwise you will cause real harm instead of just real pain" and walks out.

Mine was my first, I'd been induced as my waters had gone but contractions hadn't progressed, so I'd gone from 0 on the pain scale to 10 in about an hour with the contractions coming thick and fast...After about an hour of pushing the midwife said 'I can see the head.. ummm, did you have any growth scans while you were pregnant? Did you get told you were having a particularly large baby?'!!! Not what I needed to hear was the head got stuck! Eventually she said baby wasn't going to get out and was getting distressed so she grabbed the scissors 😭 three cuts later and she was out. A perfectly average 7.3, apparently I had (most definitely now past tense!) A very small exit! 😂 am now pregnant with my second and already terrified of the impending birth. Have asked for growth scans but they've said no as the firsts weight wasn't really excessive.

During CS for DS as he was transverse breech midwife said "gosh you have the biggest blood vessels I have ever see inside a womb, would you mind if we photograph them for training purposes!?
Go ahead I said, so she takes a few photos and suddenly it's panic stations as suddenly blood starts gushing out and I lost over 4 pints and needed an emergency transfusion. Never did find out if if the bleed was anything to do with the size of my veins or something else!
Very surreal!

DS was ventouse and awkwardly positioned. He wedged his shoulders a bit at one point.

They had got his head out and were waiting for a contraction to try and free him when the consultant started a conversation with DS. It was pretty surreal, my legs in stirrups and this small Italian man between my legs going "well hello there little one! Look at you with your big eyes open! Having a good look round are you? This is a bit of an odd angle for your first look of the world huh?...."

Everyone had just kind of stopped and all focused on this blinking babies head sticking out of my fanjo... It was very odd!

NB however, if one is writing as a medical specialist on social media, it is actually good practice to use one's own name, in defence of DrKarenMorton in this regard.

And with DD my midwife was really mean. I asked that we didn't do yet another bloody examination as I was sore and fed up of having to get out of a comfy position for her to do it. The doctor popped her head round the door to check how things were going and she said held up one hand and said "well apparently she's concerned about this going up there so she's in for a bit of a shock when something much bigger makes its exit"

I may have purposefully dropped my sick bowl in her direction as payback for that and many other bitchy things she said!

And, because of Dr KM's response I am now going to tell another horror story. Happened to my cousin. In a famous London hospital.

First baby. Waters started to leak. Went to hospital, aware of possibility of infection. Midwives pooh poohed. Went back two days later. Ditto . got fever, at this stage low grade. Ditto. Eventually admitted, high fever in both cousin and baby, virtually no fluid left. Highly traumatic birth, thought they had lost both mother and baby. Several times, and also in ICU afterwards. After ten days became clear that they would survive but that baby would never be mentally or physically ok...

In fact, after several years of patterning etc, said baby is beautiful and bright.

Would like to add that I wasn't stitched up properly, came undone and got infected, I was in agony for weeks. But no one would look at it down there, they discharged me from the hospital without checking and said it would all be fine down there (it wasn't) have been back and forth from the hospital about having a reconstruction to put it right but they said they will wait until I push this one out and 'fix it up while they're down there!' 😢😨 I've not had the best experience but to be fair (a few) of my mum friends didn't have traumatic births so I'm hoping the next will be better!

Not really if you're going to go on a forum to dispute women's childbirth experiences though herecomes.

Midwife told me to dump my husband as he was "not a good man" before the birth of my first daughter 11 YEARS AGO!!!

After the birth of my DD the Midwife stitching me up commented "You do realise you'll never look the same down here again". I was nonplussed but DH decided to respond "That's the end of your modelling career then". It was a bad time to burst into laughter what with her trying to do neat stitches and me with blood shooting out from laughing, but...laugh we did :-) I don't suppose I do look the same 'down there' but luckily it hasn't been an issue...

It is GMC doctors on Social Media good practice advice (I am posting as a patient not a doctor so didn't feel the need to identify myself, my point was that people can be both)

Yes, I know. I know it's good practice for doctor's to ID themselves when posting in a professional capacity on social media.

But Karen isn't really posting in a professional capacity - except to say that all these women's stories must be wrong and she knows that because she works with midwives.

Can hardly be great for her public image.

Mysteries, what did you have in your birth plan about the cord? It hadn't occurred to me that they would do anything but remove the cord from a baby's neck if it was wrapped round?

Halfway through stitching me up after 10lb 5oz DS "Oh, just bear with me. I need to pop my specs on". Fuck knows what the first half looked like