About your Pregnancy/Birth/Aftercare

[ebrggs24]

Hi there, I am a 21 year old student and support worker currently applying for midwifery. I am interested to speak to as many mums and mums to be as possible and was wondering if anyone could share their birth and pregnancy experiences with me? What do you feel makes a good midwife and what did/would you want from your midwife throughout the time you are being cared for? Any information, opinions or experiences you wish to share would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for any time anyone takes in reading or responding to this post x

Sympathy and kindness, as well as professional competence. The ones I've seen up until now (39 wks) have been very good.

the community midwifes I saw whilst pregnant were awful. I saw several different ones so never built any kind of relationship and they were always rushing through the appointments so I never felt I could ask questions.

the hospital ones I had when giving birth were excellent. calm, nice, and did a good stitching job!!

I am currently 12 weeks i have seen my midwife once at 6 weeks and she didn't send any of my info of to the hospital, she wasn't very engaging when we meet and seemed like she didn't want to be there with me that is so far my experience is with a midwife! I am meant to be under consultation care due to high bmi but don't have an appointment with them until i am 22 weeks! This is my first pregnancy and it does not feel like i'm actually being bothered about, just like i'm kinda being left to it :(

luckily my pregnancy has been smooth so far fingers crossed it stays that way, as i don't have a clue what i'm doing :)

The staff who did my ultrasound though were amazing and lovely :)

I think id like someone to just be there for me a little more and to be kind and care about what's happening with me :)

Absolute professionalism, kindness, understanding. Listening to your patients.
I had okay community mws during pregnancy, but the majority of the mws during my birth were poor. They didn't care, they treated me like an inconvenience (one complaining she wouldn't get her break while I was in active labour - I wasn't that sympathetic, TBH )
Above all, be clear in what you tell women. They need to know stuff - where they find tea, blankets, cot sheets, the loo, etc.

Good luck!

A good MW is someone that has an empathetic, non-judgemental and caring nature. She/he must be able to assess a woman's needs using verbal and non-verbal communication. A good MW asks for consent. A good MW respects a woman's right to refuse examinations and tests. A good MW does not bully women. A good MW knows when to hand their notice in when they become too jaded to care.

The MWs I met during my first pregnancy were lovely, cheerful and I felt that they actually listened. The MWs I had the misfortune to encounter during my first birth were incompetent, cruel and made me feel that I was a terrible inconvenience. One in particular seemed to take pleasure in my pain. She refused to give me any pain relief as "I didn't need it" and threatened me with forceps. She waved them at me and told me I would be "cut" if I didn't hurry up. I had an episiotomy without consent. I was stitched me up without pain relief. and the MW slapped my leg and told me to keep still, or she would "rip them out and start again".

Good luck OP.

To be spoken to likean adult and not treated differently for being a young mum also confidentiality especially if on a ward that was awful I knew everything about the other women including stds they had.

I'm sure we have had this thread before, a few months ago. It might be worth doing a keyword search OP. Either way... I have a community midwife team and never see the same mw twice in a row, so there is no consistency.

When I was pregnant with ds, who was diagnosed with a serious heart defect at our 20 week scan, they never seemed to read the notes prior to my appointments. Which meant I had to explain the situation from scratch every time, usually in response to a breezy "so its all going well then?" type of question when all I wanted to answer was "no, it's f*cking not!". Emotionally, it was really hard as I had to go through the same pitying looks, loss for words and frantic back-peddling every single time, unnecessarily. A quick flick through my notes first would have saved a lot of upset as the mw would have been prepared. and not asked me stupid questions about homebirths

What a good idea op.

I'm currently only 4 weeks pg with my second and to be honest I'm dreading having to go to a midwife appointment.

With DS who is now 6 I never saw the same midwife twice. They always rushed me and never let me feel like they had time to speak to me. They just didn't seem to care.

Also a very important thing - do NOT dismiss first time mums when their waters break and tell them to go home and wait as they definitely won't be giving birth for another 12-24 hours.

This happened to me. They didn't bother to check me when they swabbed me after waters broke.

I went home assuming I wasn't even 1cm dilated and I was in agony. I was so upset as I had been so calm but freaked out knowing I would be in this much pain for another day!

I went back 2 hours later and they said 'get on the table and we will see what the fuss is all about'.

His head was coming out. That was what the 'fuss' was about!!!

4 hour labour. Not everybody is the same and not all first labours are long. I had to go through it all without absolutely any pain relief, no gas and air nothing and terrified that something was wrong!!!

At least I will no better this time!!!

Thankyou all so much for input and advice! Sorry for not replying sooner to acknowledge your comments, i'm new to the site and didn't realise people had replied to my thread. Sorry to hear the awful experiences some of you have had, I will take all your comments on board for the future :)

Be a good listener. Being in labour can make some women quite vulnerable. I didn't feel listened to during my first labour & didn't get the pain relief I wanted when I needed it.

No matter what else is going on, being totally 'in the room' for the patient. I was in labour during the 2011 riots & after 4 days of labour my midwife sticking her head out of the window of the delivery room saying she could smell burning was hardly going to help!

Clarifying you are there to help in every way - in post natal I was made to feel bad for calling for the nurse to change my pee bag, however an orderly type person was amazingly helpful at helping us change the first nappy. I know which I'd rather be.

Be understanding. I still have no idea why my labour was so long & why it was so painful, but it really was & I'm not usually a wuss. I guess some people just feel it differently.

Good luck in your training. By asking these questions I'm sure you've got what it takes x x

I've actually been very lucky with my midwife. I had the same mw up until my 36 & 38 wk but that was only because I changed the day I was going (there were only 8am slots on my usual day and I'm struggling to sleep....). They have always made my appointments there for the next time, told me what would happen, given me contact details for the local birthing centre, booked my labour/breast feeding classes and passed on all info to the hospital for scans and such.

They have all answered all questions, even some which with hindsight were daft. I've always been told what they are doing and why also, such as what different blood tests were for and alike.

I was weighed at 36 weeks and the mw did make me feel pretty bad for the amount of weight I had gained, but I got reassurance from elsewhere that all was fine. This mw also measured my bump in an unusual way, giving a inaccurate (in my opinion and that of my usual mw) reading, so I measured smaller 2 weeks later... Definitely wasn't mind!

I have an anterior placenta and the main reason I am grateful to the local birthing centre and mws there is because everytime baby had vanished (right from 22 weeks) they have invited me in, calmed me down and never made me feel like an inconvenience. Even when I had to stop the monitoring halfway due to sickness from heartburn.

I think as others have said not being made to feel like an inconvenience, being kept informed, listened to and also the mw having people skills.

I think I have been quite lucky, my area seems to have a good team and facilities.

Hopefully I will be lucky when it comes to the birth with which mw is with me.... Fingers crossed!

I think that a good midwife separates the clinical (treat the patient, follow protocol, act according to medical need and urgency, be utterly reliable) from the individual (listen, don't condescend, remember how much this matters to the woman on front of you, be nice).

I had amazing care from the local home birth midwifery team, they were extraordinary in how much they managed even though they were totally overloaded. They were very experienced too, which made me feel safe.

Good luck with your training, we need more midwives!

I had a very good team of midwifes both in the community and when I was in labour. The one thing that I would say is when you are on the post delivery wards, try and spend a bit of time with the mothers. I know that wards are busy places, but it is nice to know that you haven't been forgotten about and that mothers feel that they will only be seen when it comes to drug rounds or when it it change over.

Be understanding of their needs and to give them help. I wish I had a bit more help when it came to feeding as my lb was very badlly burised over the face so could bf. they wanted him to, but could never do it so they cup fed him tiny amounts as they wanted me to keep trying

I've had mostly lovely care throughout my pregnancy. It's been straightforward but even minor niggles (as minor as just feeling fed up!!) have been treated seriously and with respect. The only exception was yesterday at my T+10 appointment when I was rapidly strapped up to a monitor and left for an hour instead of the discussed 20 minutes with no offer of even passing me a magazine from my bag before she left the room. I think it's important to think about what you as a person would appreciate in that situation rather than solely focussing on the medical necessities. The whole experience made me feel upset and stressed, which can't have been good for the baby and actually made more work for her as I ended up with raised blood pressure!