Midwife

[teabagfreak]

My midwife is very quiet and hard to make conversation with. She asks all the relevant questions and does her job correctly but not really feeling a connection with her, few awkward silences during my reviews. Other midwifes I’ve met at scans etc have been lovely but just not feeling it with her.

This is my first baby so not sure how it works... will she be the one that is with me when I give birth? Or will it be the hospital midwives.. not really sure.

It'll be whoever is on shift. Also, the community midwives you see for your appointments are not the ones who will deliver your baby unless you have a home birth. Then it'll be a case of whoever is on call.

Community midwives have nothing to do with the birth of your baby, the person who delivers your baby you're highly likely to have never seen before.

I did wonder that.

That’s fine, just feel awkward at my appointments, she may just be shy ☺️ pleasant enough just not very chatty.

It does depend. It some areas you have the same midwife all the way through (my source for this is One Born - seems to be really rare and I expect you would have been told if that was the case). But generally, it will just be whoever is on shift, and would only be a community midwife for a home birth or some MLUs.

She is doing her job. If you ask her question does she answer it? Does she do what she has to do and is she efficient? What would you rather someone competent but a little quiet or someone who chats on but may fail to pick up on something (very similar to a bad experience I had chatty midwife who repeatedly missed/ignored a problem with blood pressure until a less chatty/pleasant but shit hot midwife picked it up and queried why nothing had been done sooner). I know who id rather have. Seeing the new midwife made my appointments better because even though she didn’t chunter on or act like my friend I trusted her.
She is just be human at the end of the day she may have other things going on that you don’t know about so as long as she is polite and doing her job.
On here all I have seemed to see lately is people moaning about teachers or nhs workers saying the wrong thing or in this case it’s because she hasn’t said enough. I don’t think they can win. No one is perfect.

Tipsytopsyturvy I don't think OP was complaining or even moaning about the midwife, she was asking a question and sharing her experience. Its tricky when its your first and you don't really know how things work or what to expect.

I asked a midwife if NCT classes were run by the NHS as I had no clue about any of it, she was extremely insulted and then ranted for 10 minutes giving me her very frank (and loud) opinion. I was then too frightened to ask her anything else haha. Not the outcome I was expecting to an innocent question but I laughed it off.

The community midwives also worked in our hospitals labour ward, when I went into labour I had three different midwives across three shift changes and none of them were ones I had met before.

Afterwards when the midwife was coming around to my house she mentioned she happened to be on shift that night and planned to pop in and see how I was getting on but she didn’t get chance - so even if you’re giving birth and they are on it might be that they are with someone else.

Would you say the same thing about your dentist, GP or consultant? She’s a medical professional, she’s not there to chat, she’s doing her job. If she’s polite and professional she’s doing it right.

It’s exciting for you having a baby but she isn’t there to gush and have a natter and she does this day in day out, so it really is very factual and not at all exciting. Sorry. She has to focus on asking the right questions and answering any of your concerns, etc.

I get on REALLY well with my midwife. I actually think I love her but there are still times during our appointments where it goes quiet because she needs to focus on recording stuff on the system, filling in charts accurately, keeping records, etc.

God, sorry if that sounded harsh- it wasn’t meant to come across like that!

I also didn’t mean to sound harsh but I really think at times people expect perfection from midwives/teachers etc.
All I would want from a health professional is a reasonable degree of friendliness/pleasantness so I’m at ease a willingness to answer my questions and to keep me and my baby safe. I think people get the idea of call the midwife type thing in their head but in reality it’s not like that. She probably has had many patients before you and will have many more the same day and she wants to keep them all safe and healthy. Chattering won’t be in the job spec, I doubt it anyway. Plus once your in labour you won’t care if midwife is chatty all you would want to know is that they know what they are doing.

Thanks for your replies, I actually agree with you. I’d rather her get everything correct than miss stuff by being overly chatty. However not moaning about her just wondered everyone else’s experiences. She is polite and always asks if I have any questions etc so that’s the main thing. 👍

I can see where people are coming from about midwives doing their job but I found once i felt like I’d made a bit more of a connection with my midwife I felt more comfortable talking to her about my worries about work while pregnant. Apart from the first appointment all my other ones with her were quite short (as they don’t need to be longer) so I think it can be hard to make a connection in that time.
It’s very different when you’re in hospital having your baby though as you spend a lot of time with your particular midwives and the emotions and what is happening make it quite intense and help form that connection

Mine was very chatty but took blood and didn’t change the tubes so I got covered in blood (think like palm size stain on jeans) and couldn’t use the computer and kept having to redo all the questions (booking in) I was horrified and hoping she was just having a bad day. We shall see ! But would prefer a quiet one!

Mine is very chatty which makes it easier to talk away to her. Plus since the midwife comes out to your house when baby is born it will make it less awkward. Just how I see it. No your midewife now won't be at the birth

Also when she's adding information onto my file she concentrates and goes quiet, so she can get all the info down correctly.

ah, Toast so youre not in active labour yet then?

having literally just given birth last Saturday and having prior knowledge before that of midwives, Id say it is important to have a connection or at least a comfortableness with your midwife-it makes sharing any worries easier. My antenatal midwife took a liking to me and me her but she didn;t really back me in my decisions, my friend said the ones on the delivery ward were different and she was right-I went in for a booked induction that I had said from the beginning I would refuse but was told to go in to be monitored and they were pretty horrible and it made me feel crappy, then my waters broke and the ones on the ward I was monitored on were 99% lovely and supportive as were the ones on recovery. The community midwife who came to y house the next day was nice-she was friendly ad experienced but the one who came today was frenetic and criticised how I was feeding.
Basically they are all different but its so supportive if you get the right one for you!

I wasn’t vastly keen on my community mw when I was pregnant with my first. She was alright but same as you OP, not into chitchat and I didn’t feel she was particularly supportive. But tbh in the end it made no difference - she was a perfectly competent professional, she did all the necessary checks to make sure me and DD were and remained healthy. Her friendliness or not made zero difference to birth outcomes or anything, and I didn’t see her during labour or postnatally. My current midwife (DC3 now!) is great, visits are almost like a catch up coffee with a mate - but end of the day the standard of care she provides is exactly the same as that first midwife. The rest is just window dressing, or a perk, or whatever you want to call it. It is nice when you get on really well with a midwife, but it doesn’t matter, so don’t sweat it OP.