Postnatal midwife care

[Troubh]

What support did you get once you were home?

None.
The midwife comes the day after you come home and then the Health Visitor takes over (optional).

Yeah virtually none. One or two visits I think? Ridiculously breastfeeding help isn't until day 10 when the HV comes...

Think the midwife came the day after we got home and then again about 2 weeks afterwards, she discharged me to the HV. Think she came after about 4 weeks or so and came to the house. I could book appointments at the local children’s centre to see the HV whenever I needed.

Yes it seems quite a poor service really! Feeding changes so much as your milk comes in and yet no one offers help!

Where I am, I got a visit the day after I came home, then you went to an appointment with them on day 5 and day 10 after which they discharge you to the HV if they're happy with everything (eg back to birthweight), if not then you keep seeing them for a while longer. With my 1st they discharged me after a month when she got back to birthweight, with my second it was at the day 10 appt. They also had specialist feeding midwives I could see if I needed to, up until day 28 (after that the HV would need to refer you)

Depends on where you are. In my trust you should get a primary visit from a midwife the day after you get home and a day 5 midwife visit (or a clinic appointment) for your baby's weight and blood spot test. At both visits both you and baby happy a thorough check over and they should assess how baby is feeding.

If you need more visits then you get more. That could be for extra physical health things or mental health or anything really that you need.

In addition to this, every day for the first 10 days if breastfeeding or on days 3 and 7/8 if bottle feeding you should get a phone call, usually in the morning, from a maternity support worker just to check in on how feeding is going and offer advice and support. If you are struggling with anything then they come and visit you so in theory you could have a visit pretty much every day if you needed it. For breastfeeding mothers the day 3 is usually a visit if the MW isn't going in on that day because it is often a tough day for breastfeeding with milk coming in and full breasts.

If all going well then you are discharged to the HV around days 10-14. If the HV coming around day 10 then your discharge might be by phone after she has been but if she's not coming until a few days later then you would likely have a face to face discharge to weigh baby again. If you need to be kept on for longer for any reason the the HV still starts coming out but he MW keeps.you on so you have both checking in and supporting.

We also have things like a specialist feeding service for additional support.

Same experience other than they only do home visits. Had terrrrrible baby blues with my second & so they kept coming weekly until I was about a month PP, really helped. HV another story, to my house once 6 weeks PP then the clinic once a month later, never found any of their visits useful other for them to ascertain my children were well looked after.

Where I live you get a visit first day home, when baby is 3 days old for weighing, when 5 days old for blood spot screening and further weight and when about 12/14 days old as a blanket amount of visits. If feeding support is needed after day 5 you get more visits or referral to the feeding team and have an appointment with them in the hospital.
You can also ring the midwife team at any time until baby is about 21 days old even if you have been transferred to the health visitor at about 14 days old. also you aren’t discharged from midwife to health visitor until baby is above birth weight so extra support is given to support feeding. I think it is very much a postcode lottery with postnatal care.