Put off all midwives?

[notsureaboutmaternityleave]

This is my third pregnancy, but first in the area I moved into. After two brilliant community midwive-led antenatal care and homebirth experiences in another London hospital. I loved that even when the London hospital was crazily busy, we still had home antenatal appointments, very easy to talk to midwives and I had phone number of every midwife. Could always text them with questions, which they replied quickly and attentively during one particular scare (although did not end up abusing the privilege too much).

Now? All antenatal appointments are GP surgery visits, all appointments were very rushed and midwives were cold and uninterested, dismissive. Just one mobile number (as I am deaf I pushed for more). And all postnatal checks I found out are to be done at hospital too - I saw a whole reception room full of mums and very tiny newborns. Whereas, I enjoyed having same midiwives doing postnatal checks with the previous babies.

I'm aiming for homebirth, but I'm completely put off by all the few midwives I met (at 16, 28,34wks) :( It is hard to imagine that they can be different when it comes to shove?

I know it's normal NHS experience for the majority. What did you do? Didn't it matter too much in the end?

That's not my experience, maybe it's your particular surgery?

This is my 2nd pregnancy and all the early antenatal visits were at the surgery but my next one is at home when I'll be having a sweep and the postnatal ones are at home then we're signed up with a health visitor who also comes to the house regularly for a few weeks.

Although the appointments are 10 minutes I've often been in there for 20 and never rushed.

Funnily enough I did come across one off hand and disinterested midwife this time and that was at the local MLU which I had to attend when our doctors surgery flooded.

As for does it matter I'd say yes it does, pregnancy is a very personal time when a lot of women can feel vulnerable and it's very important for me to feel happy and confident in the care I receive and to build a good relationship with the same midwife throughout, in your shoes I'd look into swapping to a different surgery.

I believe that there are not enough trained MW to offer the services that a lot of women would like. IME, having a baby was like being part of an assembly line in a factory - being passed from one HCP to the next at each stage of the pregnancy. I didn't form a rapport with any of them. They had a job to do and it didn't matter that it might be your first baby or your tenth, I wasn't shown any kindness or empathy. As soon as my allotted appointment was over, you could almost hear them shout "NEXT"!

Unless you are willing to have your baby privately, this is probably the best you can expect.

I have had three homebirths and it didn't matter to me about the attending MW as my babies turned up before they did.

Go ahead with your homebirth, you may get a lovely MW as there is no guarantee that you will see one you have seen before. Good luck.

My previous hospital didn't roll in the funding either (heck, it was a super busy London hospital with cuts to it), but thankfully it still hasn't accepted that treating pregnant women as assembly line in a factory was the solution. Heck, even if it were, I can't see how it can stop genuinely good encouraging midwives from being encouraging.

36wks now and still stuck at crossroads...it doesn't help it at all finding out that many local mums who planned homebirth ended up having to go to hospital because midwife not available/reserve too far away. Yet at last appointment midwife said it's been rarely an issue, because so few people want homebirth, it's so rare. How rare? 20% or 0.00001%...she wouldn't say.

Finding this out with my third pregnancy too, after moving to a different region from where I had my first two children...things are not as good where we are now. You have to book your own antenatal appointments at the GP surgery, this is not done for you. It's a HV who will visit when my baby is born after I'm discharged from the hospital ward, not a community midwife. I'm completely stumped as to how that works? I would prefer a midwife to see me in the first ten days post natally. Seems there just isn't the same funding in each region. They don't seem to have community midwives that do home visits.

Mw services are a bit crap here too.Well, not crap, mixed and over stretched, but yours sounds awful. Here the mw is supposed to visit on day 1 at home and day 2 at home then you take your baby in to surgery at 5 days for weighing and heel prick, then at 10 days for weighing and discharge. With ds I had to go into hospital several times in between these because ds wasn't gaining weight and bf was a nightmare and wasn't discharged until 18 days.
I'm 21 weeks with dc2 and have only had two mw appointments and both were with a mw who wasn't "my" mw. I've yet to meet "my" mw!

Maybe they are just very busy, and if it is the third straightforward pregnancy, you are not a priority, so less time for the appointments, etc. It is may sound harsh - but that's how NHS works - it has to prioritise resources.
Honestly, I had various high risks during pregnancies, and I was much happier when finally medics were "loosing interest", i.e. the risks dropped.
Obviously, it also depends on the general culture in the hospital. If you are not happy, can you transfer your care?

I agree with daluze- I'm a low risk pregnancy (same as with ds) and they seem to let you get on with it. My friend had several problems and they were all over it- lots of monitoring, appointments etc, so I can understand it during pregnancy. I think perhaps post natally it's a bit different though?? I thought coming to you at a couple of days pp was the norm??