Anyone else find their midwife useless?

[Tantrictantrum]

On DC3 now and still don't see the point of them

i totaly agree with this as far as my experience goes and im only 24 weeks im having a terrible pregnancy and have had no help from my midwife and shecant answer any of my questions about birth, sickness and high blood pressure and these where what i thought they where there to help with? all she said to every question i had was ask the ob. i know its not just me being difficult i believe the midwifes are especially bad where i am as after major surgery a few weeks ago its took the nurses where i was 4 days of calling the midwifes to come and check the baby after i woke up and this was planned surgery and i heard the nurses on the phone to them 2 or 3 times a day so ive had very bad experiences and agree completely>

I haven't had a named midwife this pregnancy, have seen 6 different people. Am sure all but 1 (who sent me home with a kidney infection and no help despite me being in so much pain I couldn't sit up and no one around to help) very nice and competent but no one knows me. Have to go through history every
appt
and certainly does not feel personalized care. They are also very under pressure time
wise and keep giving me great 'choices' like of course you csn choose not to go to local hospital to give birth, if you are prepared to take toddler 1 hour drive away to chosen hospital for every appt rather than to local doctors surgery.

Waste of time I'd say - thing that most annoys me is the fact that she has no understanding of how my work is still important and I don't want to be off work to go and have 5 minute check ups which I could do myself! Whenever I say I've got work commitments all she says is 'it's a legal requirement that they let you out' although she doesn't get that I don't want to be out - I want to of my job! Idiot!

Mine is lovely. Very motherly and kind.
I do think she is about ready for retirement she was scatty last time round but this time she is really really bad! I'm consultant led so only have a few checks with her so it doesn't really impact on me. She seems so over worked and tired.

I resuscitated two babies last night and helped to save a mothers life after she lost most of her circulating blood. I'd like to think the families involved thought I was moderately useful.

I completely understand where you are coming from bellyrub and I work for the NHS myself so am aware of the pressure everyone is under - my issue yesterday was it would have taken no longer to say 'yep - 24cm bump, that's perfect for this gestation' and 'babies heart rate is 148 which is fine' as she was going along, than it took to say nothing and just write it in my book, and it would have just provided a bit of reassurance to a first time mum.

She took the time to moan at me for not booking my antenatal classes (they are all daytime and not practical with my job) but couldn't just go over the results of the checks as she did them. If I weren't the type of person to come out of the surgery and look on the internet to see what the results should have been, I would be going another 4 weeks till my next appointment with no idea really how my baby was doing. I also needed to know when the next place of birth workshop is - I will have to call someone to try and find out now, thus wasting their time when it wouldn't have taken a couple of minutes for her to find out for me.

My normal midwife is fab, and so I will just call the surgery prior to my next appointment and be sure she is in before I go - otherwise I will reschedule.

I can' fault mine. Ive met her three times so far (25 weeks), always greeted with a big smile and a hug. She's had loads of time to discuss/answer my questions and I feel very confident in her knowledge. I have had to go up to the labour ward out of hours once (had a mishap at home) and had equally good treatment there too.

Tantric. If you checked your own BP when was the machine last calibrated? At what point would you think your bp was high enough to warrant seeking advice? What would you do if you developed some random, rare symptom such as itchy hands. Would you think your hands were just a bit dry or would you ask someone?

And even if you would, what about the rest of the women in the country who may not be as educated, etc as you?

I didn't have a named one 13 years ago but remembering thinking the same OP. I was given appalling advice and ended up consultant led,I would choose not to see a mw and doctor only if I had my time again.
The fact that the majority of them had acrylic nails and had no idea about pnd was more than worrying. I spent over 5 weeks in hospital and can think of only 2 or 3 that I met during that time that I was happy to see. One was very young, had no children but was extraordinarily sympathetic and really on the ball.

The other was a male mid wife who was brilliant.

I'm sure there are some brilliant ones out there.

But not in my area. As I said in my earlier post mine were more than useless. All the checks they did we're done at the hospital anyway. They never had a clue what was going on.

And quite frankly the care and knowledge they attempted to provide paled in comparison to the consultants.

I feel sorry for anyone not under a consultant around here. If I hasn't seen one my care would have consisted of someone doing checks a nurse could do and filling out a green book whilst reciting leaflets at me.

I have just met mine after being consultant led for the first 2 trimesters.

She has been very helpful and reassuring. Did all the requested checks.

My community midwife is excellent. I'm a high-risk pregnancy and she has done almost every check at home, is really friendly and reassuring and has been out to see me every 4 weeks, and will be seeing me every 2 weeks now I'm getting near the end. After my first baby was stillborn she came round for weeks, didn't discharge me at 10 days, arranged a different GP for both me and DH as we were both struggling and she wanted us to get joined-up care. She was incredibly supportive in my second pregnancy and now in my third she takes just as much care.

That said, my first baby might not have died if the hospital MW had been on the ball - I went in at 41 weeks in early labour, she listened to hb and said I should go home. I wanted to stay so she gave me a room to wait in and left me to it. 3 hours later I made DH find her to check me, she didn't listen to hb but said I was 3 cm and could go to labour ward. When I got upstairs they tried to find the hb and couldn't. I still don't understand how a baby could be apparently fine one minute and then dead 3 hours later with no sign for a MW to pick up.

I wouldn't want to have their job. Everytime I've seen a midwife they have been exhausted and too busy. The fault doesn't lay with them.

When I had my dd she nearly died and the aftercare was non existent if you quietly muddled through without making a fuss. I saw what they where doing and it wasn't sitting drinking tea. They were physically running up and down the corridors. I'll be forever grateful to the one that eventually came to monitor dd rather than nip for the wee she needed so badly because if she hadn't I wouldn't have her.

I think some people have hit the nail on the head. I've had fantastic and not so fantastic care with the nhs. Ultimately I blame the government for their poor management of the nhs. It all comes down to cuts in funding which have impacted on care. All of the issues I've ever had come down to lack of staff which has sadly resulted in sub-standard care.

All the midwives I've met (7 in total, 24 weeks in), have been very nice people, but I don't know any of their names and I've never seen them more than the once each, so I doubt they know who I am.

My biggest issue with them is that it takes SO many calls to get them to call back. 5 calls last week before someone actually called me back, and it was a really simple 2 second answer to a query I'd left on the answerphone 5 times. That's frustrating.

I've hired a doula for the birth, since I really, really want some continuity of care.

Well said, Bellyrub. Think you may have it spot on there.

Viva - my point exactly - women who need the appointment are welcome up m

To mine

But how do you know that you know everything they teach in a three year midwifery degree Tantric? You can be well read and think that you're well informed but how do you know that there isn't some obscure thing which you wouldn't notice but a midwife would?

Anyway I don't believe antenatal appts are compulsory. So put your money where your mouth is and stop attending if its all such a waste of time.

Viva - I went to visit a friend with a newborn today. She had had such fantastic support from her midwife through her 2 pregnancies that she named her after her (well middle name anyway).

I've had the same experience as ohthegoats. we've hired an independent midwife for the remaining weeks, the birth and postnatal care. I need some continuity, a call back when I have a concern and a familiar face during labour.

I don't trust my midwife to pick anything up; that's the issue. If I thought she would pick up some mystery issue then fine, but I believe she wouldn't. If I had an issue I wouldn't speak to her. I would speak to the hospital.

I have to attend or I won't have urine and blood checked. A midwife though is not required for these basic things.

A large part of the reason why the NHS is failing is because there are too many patients and not enough clinical staff. This isn't the fault of the midwife who would dearly love to spend more time making you feel you were getting a good service. Do you really think they wake up everyday thinking "I wonder how many of my patients I can give a substandard service to today". They don't call you back because they're snowed under. I expect they start early, go home late, work through their lunch and with the added pressure that they are responsible for the health of hundreds of pregnant mums and their babies. Like viva said, saving lives is actually a part of their job and surely you can understand this has to take priority over calling someone back about whether or not their UTI results have arrived. I agree it's not great, but the first people who desperately want the system to change is the midwives themselves. I think they're doing the best job they can under the circumstances.

They're referral rate will be increasing with the gradual increase in population, but numbers of midwives are being cut. This isn't their fault. Slagging them off really won't do anything but encourage them to pack it in, work privately or just get a different job entirely where you don't have to slog your heart out, bringing babies safely into the world day in day out but with absolutely no thanks other than an ear bashing from an angry patient, a measley 1% pay rise (if they're lucky) and bad press all over the papers.

(In fact in my area, I've never felt let down or kept waiting so I guess I'm lucky, perhaps we're better funded in this area)

So in my mind, if you don't respect the service, think it's a waste of time and could do the job better yourself, please free up the midwives time for those who do feel they need it and respect it for what it is: a completely free service which is adequate most of the time but amazing when it needs to be.

You could also stand a fighting chance of making a real difference and vote for a government who proposes to keep and find vital NHS services.