Am I expecting too much from my midwife care? Bit upset

[user59457812]

I had my 28 week midwife appointment today and I was in and out in literally five minutes - she just did the basic checks and tests and packed me on my way.

I haven't seen a midwife since 20 weeks, and it's my first baby so I do have some questions about the birth, how things work, what I can do to prepare myself etc. I started trying to ask her things but she gave very curt answers while looking at the computer screen and really just hurried me out. My next appointment with her isn't until 34 weeks so my questions regarding getting the baby into position etc. will be a bit late!

Am I expecting too much? This is the second midwife I've seen in the practice and they were both the same - only really interested in ticking the boxes on the form. Other ladies in my area do seem to have had better support and much more in-depth conversations - I've never been asked about my birth preferences for example, or been told anything about my options - and apart from being given a leaflet with local services, no information about birth preparation.

I really felt like crying when I came out today. Yes, I am capable of reading all the books etc. and preparing myself independently, but as I first timer you don't know what you don't know, if you see what I mean. I just feel like baby and I are being left to ourselves a bit...

Starjules - shocking! I can't believe they told you to Google things! Not surprised you are going to kick butt. Mine aren't that bad (so far...) although I don't really have a way of contacting anyone out of hours which does worry me - I've decided if needed (God forbid) I'll just call the maternity ward direct. Really sorry to hear about the MC - I have been through it too twice (thankfully much earlier than that) and didn't get much hospital support during those either. Maybe I AM expecting too much based on previous experience, come to think of it...

And Bonbon that all sounds awful. I have heard others on MN being told really weird things, well off current guidelines. The giving blood thing takes the biscuit, I thought because of risk of anaemia they wouldn't let pregnant women do it. Good work for complaining - did they do anything?

It was someone else in my antenatal class that got told to google, but it does show that the care across the board is pretty crap! If they treat people who are classed as high risk this badly there's no hope for anyone else. My advise to anyone pregnant would be to forget the community midwife and just speak to your gp and the hospital. The difference between the community midwife and the hospital ones is like chalk and cheese so I don't believe the fact its down to being short staffed either. I think its just one of those professions that the community midwifes have become complacent. There needs to be a bloody huge change though and soon. Grrr this is one of those subjects that makes me soo mad as the care we have had has been so, so shocking. My DP thinks we should right a book about it!

Starjules I think one of the reasons I'm disappointed in/shocked by the midwife care is that through work I see a lot of the Government policy with regards to community family support. Midwives have been focused on quite heavily as a central point for all sorts of 'early intervention' from domestic violence, family problems, to other serious health and social care issues (the idea being they see pregnant women more than anyone else so have a better chance of recognising a problem that might affect the child later on).

I don't have any of those needs, thankfully, but I did wonder how on earth my midwives would spot any kind of issue - they didn't even look me in the eye properly let alone ask questions about home and family...goes to show the massive gap between the theory on one hand and the practice (and funding) on the other.

As you say I'm not sure it's all cuts as I live in a rural area and the case load is neither huge nor particularly 'challenging' in terms of social issues...

You should write that book!

I am really shocked by some of the things on here but it really isn't all community midwives that are so bad!

As I said mine is really nice and I have had really good feedback on the antenatal classes they run in my area from other people, I'm starting mine in the new year.

Even when I had my mc last year my community midwife (a differant one from the one i have now) was really great, she organised a scan for me when I first starting bleeding and then changed that to an emergency one the same day I called them when I started getting pain. When it was all confirmed she phoned to make sure I was ok and then sorted out cancelling all my future appointments and scans without me needing to think about it at all. All the midwives I have had have been really supportive.

From what I hear it seems to vary a lot in different areas. I think it makes a huge differance that I see the same midwife throughout the whole of my pregnancy so after a few appointments I now feel pretty comfortable with her and have a good relationship. I also feel she knows me and my pregnancy. I was really quite surprised to learn how rare this set up is!

Good for you hiding - it's nice to hear the system works somewhere!

Agree about antenatal classes as they were helpful. But my last pregnancy was 9 years ago (nearly) and the MWs were fine as well. The classes (those were nearly 16 yrs ago ) just gave us a chance to find out things more generally and spend time with people in the same boat.

I think you are being a bit unreasonable and possibly a bit precious. You are still relatively early on in your pregnancy. I remember sharing your sense of dismay and aggrievement that my midwife did not want to sit with me and chat about my pregnancy when I was expecting my first . To you, it is the biggest thing in the world; to her, you are just another client.

During the third trimester, you will have more appointments and more opportunities to talk things through. In the meantime, be grateful that you are healthy and have a healthy foetus that means you don't really need to see the MW more often or for longer.

Tryharder I take your point, but I've had three miscarriages and was initially high risk due to another factor early on (thankfully now back to normal risk), so yes, I am enormously grateful that all is fine to date but it's been a pretty worrying time none-the-less.

I don't want to sit around and talk about the pregnancy, just a few quite basic and practical questions, which would have taken all of an additional two minutes even if she was just going to sign-post to other information. I have literally been told nothing about options/locations for birth, or been given any health advice whatsoever by the midwives. I know nothing about what happens when in terms of midwife care so it is a bit worrying and 27 weeks doesn't feel that early TBH - second time around I guess you know what to expect and that there's a while to go before certain things need to be thought about.

Another poster mentioned that her midwife comes around to the house for an hour and a half - which sounds amazing - but that's not what I'm expecting. The fact that compulsory things that are in the medical notes pro-forma have never been touched on (but still have been ticked and signed) does suggest they are cutting corners, if nothing else.

To be honest, I think you probably are expecting too much, but I don't mean that in a nasty way and think it's a shame that we shouldn't get a better service, but that's just the way it is with NHS services as they are. I'm just back from my 16 week appt, where I waited an hour and a half and was in with MW for a max of 3 minutes! Totally agree I've no idea how they would pick anything untoward up.

I find it disappointing, but have come to understand that just how it is. I guess although not ideal, at least I am someone who's proactive about pregnancy, reads the books and goes on the Internet, including MN! But I do wonder how less proactive/poorly educated/non English speaking M2Bs get on. Or maybe those groups of women get a bit more hand holding. Also agree that for someone like yourself who's been unfortunate enough to have had MCs, you would need more support, but sadly it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that this is you experience.

I used to work in the NHS (not in maternity) so maybe have a more pragmatic approach to it!

HotPinkGingham I would love to know what was said to her, as my GP and Practise Manager were not impressed when told. The thing is she was fairly mature perhaps even approaching retirement so you'd have thought she would have known better. All I know is she seems to have move practices and we have a shiny new MW who is lovely.

On another note, has anyone read over their maternity notes only to think- really? I was looking over mine recently and apparently I 'demanded to hear the heartbeat at 16 weeks' (did not- ftm so didn't know about that) and that 'sickness stopped at 12 weeks' (I wish- was sick in the post office last week!)

My community midwive has been pleasant enough, but definitely focused on the box-ticking and essential tests; she is not interested in talking about birth options. Fair enough if it's because it's too early, but would it really kill the MWs to add some context and say 'we usually discuss this a bit closer to the event (because xyz), but if you are anxious to find out more in the meantime, classes are a really good source of information'?

I'm under consultant care (only because of age) and mentioned to my MW at my 25wk appointment my preference would be to use the birthing centre, assuming I remain low risk (other than my age) - her response was 'well let's wait until you've done your classes shall we? And the consultant would have to agree'. I'd explained I'd been looking into the options, understood their admission policy, so I felt really patronised - and slightly anxious about what horror stories I'd hear at classes that would change my mind (there was I thinking I've read most of them on MN)!

There's very little in the way of ante-natal classes where I am, so maybe the MWs aren't used to first-timers having done any mumsnetting research or expressing an opinion on how/where they would like to give birth.

I should add, the reason for mentioning my choice of birth location to my MW was because you have to pass a screening appointment at 36wks if you want to use the birthing centre - miss it and you don't get the option, so I wanted to make sure she was doing everything required to get me a screening appointment. I only found out about the screening deadline by chance from someone I know who works at the birthing centre. It doesn't seem to be common knowledge.