Dispatches - Undercover Mother

[Naetha]

Did anyone else here watch this? It terrified the life out of me, but I felt I ought to know what I was going in for,

The question is, is the post-natal hospital care really as bad as it appeared in that programme? The communication between midwives and patient was appalling - not only jumbled up gibberish, but also treating the mother like she's an imbecile, and frankly a pain in the arse.

Please give me some positive comments about hospitals!

appaling as that stff is, from what my dm says, thats the least of your worries having ahospital delivery.
she is a mw in a london hospital and often has a dozen active births going on at same time on a ward with 2 mw's.

id moe mountains not to have to go through hospital birth.

OTOH - if you do have medical reasons for being in hosp, the NHS is the best place to be. their emergency care is much better thn private, apparently.

Nightshade, I don't really understand where you are coming from.

I didn't want a home birth. I wanted, and needed, a full medical delivery. Why does this mean I shouldn't expect that care to be good?

I am sure I saw on the news a while back plans to introduce more Health Care Assistants (I think that was what they were called)whereby if you have a everything is straightforward and you are seemingly coping well then you get seen by these people rather than a midwife, thereby leaving the midwife free dedicate time to people who may need it more. I think this is a relaly good idea, although I dont know that everyone would be happy with this, altho everyone would retain the right to be seen by a midwife if they so wish.

Again, though do budgets etc allow for this. I know I for one havign seen how the system works and differing experiences of friends would even look at the possiblilty of voluntary positions sort of like the Special Constables (sp) system within the police force. Again, tho would budgets allow for training etc???

Thanks for the link am checking out the AIMS website now.

m&j if you read my previous post, you would see where i was coming from.

to reiterate:

if homebirths were the norm, then medical births could be saved for those who NEED them, thus raising the standard of care in the hospital!

hope this is clear now.

Or maybe NHS funded Doulas - an extra person to help with straightforward things, esp for people who perhaps dont have a partner or family support could be offered one.

Not saying any of these suggestions are the way forward just ideas. Or volunteer doulas. Doulas could volunteer a small portion of their time per month.... I am not a doula, but I would be willing to offer 10 hours a month or something to befriend or whatever. (I dont have enough expertise, but if a small amount of training was offere why not).

But I don't know anyone who would have wanted a homebirth. I wouldn't have survived one (well, perhaps the baby wouldn't) and nor would my sister, my best friend or my cousin. Great if you want a home birth and don't have any reasons not to but I really, really didn't. I just don't see that as an answer.

I would love to have a homebirth but as I had a shoulder dystocia last time and my baby nearly dies I was told in no uncertain terms by the community and hospital mw's that they would not support me in having a homebirth. As the other poster says, why does that mean I should not expect to be cared for to a certain level when I am giving birth in hospital?

What about patients that do have a medical need for a Csection - should they not expect to get given breakfast? If you go into hospital to have a hernia operation or with a broken leg you get breakfast.

I agree that homebirths are a good way to avoid the terrible hospital care that happens too often but it will never be a panacea as there are always going to be women who cannot or are advised not to have them - not to mention the small proportion of homebirths where there is a problem and the woman is transferred to hospital. Are these women to expect to become second class citizens and put up with shoddy care just becasue they have not been able to stay in their own homes.

And as the midwife in the program hihlighted, if there are not enough midwives to properly staff all hospital maternity units - as is clearly often the case, how the hell are they supposed to make 2 midwives available for each homebirth (legal requirement) now never mind if the levels of homebirths continue to rise as youa nd the government propose. Surely this will make the situation even more stretched for the midwives left in hospitals and increase the chances of mistakes and poor care for those of us unlucky enough to give birth in hospital.

m&j
just because your circle did not want a homebirth, it doesn't mean that there aren't thousands out there that would.(look at the homebirth sites that are around).

if it was normalised then people wouldn't even consider going to the hospital.

it is only a generation away that it WAS normal to give birth at home.

my mother for example, is only 52 and was a home birth, as were many of my friends and relatives.

Clearly homebirth would help free up the resources in hospital, but I do think that I would be more anxious and I would prefer to be in hospital. Having said that there are plenty of patients who do not need to stay... after I delivered my midwife said I could go home and then said oh you may as well stay and I ended up being their for two days as they wanted to do a second test for jaundice but it wasnt terribly bad and could have been done by a visiting midwife thus freeing up more resources. I think there are many more people like me who dont really need to be there, but I just didnt realise I had other options at the time and just did as I was told.

I think most women would prefer to get home as soon as possible and be in their own surroundings and the midwives and staff would be able to spend more time concentrating on people who have had CS or further complications that necessitate them staying in.

I want a homebirth. I can't have one. There will always be some women like me.

I completely agree about de-medicalising birth by the way but I thought we were talking mainly about post-natal care. Women will always need this.

Although in the past when homebirths were the norm were the infant mortality rates not higher? I dont have the answer just wonder if this was the case.

Yep and it's only a generation away that thousands of women and babies died in childbirth routinely (my dad's brother being one of them). By all means, have a home birth if you want one. But don't tout it as the answer to the problems in that programme.

Personally, I am enduringly grateful for the medical services that saved our lives. I just wish the hospitals could get their act together a bit on the boring bit of healthcare - organisation, communication, food, cleanliness etc.

I think volunteer or "civilian" workers are the answer to the boring bits.

I'm sure that many women receive poor postnatal care in the NHS. However, this programme was clearly a hatchet job (not showing any of the positive care she admits she receives; clearly trying to make the evidence fit the conclusion she wanted, rather than the other way round) and that undermines any valid points she might have made.

Megbusset - I think that is fair.

ill have a look at the AIMS website too thanks.

re the food...Someone actually did come and offer the woman breakfast though, that was my point...she did then say ill bring you some in ten minutes.

I do empatise that that at this vulnerable time everyone does not receive excellent care and i agree with margoandjerry that the programme defo did not show great care or very bad care, but it was the manner of the reporting that i objected too in this instance.

Why did they not equally focus on the excellent care she received during labour/delivery (as stated by herself)...not such good telly that..it's the way they picked up smaller things and made them out to be major issues that irritated me.

As there is a shortage of midwives then surely it is right that the delivery room is better staffed than the postnatal ward as this is more life and death.

Re the jaundice, she said she had been told her baby was slightly jaundiced but they were ok to go home...she then chose to have a second opinion (understandable if she was worried due to previous baby), this resulted in her staying in longer. My point was that isnt this actually a good thing that she was able to stay longer to seek reassurance about baby despite taking up a bed etc. I guess she had to wait til the next day for the paed ward rounds. If the midwives didnt feel her baby was in need of more urgent treatment then surely not unreasonable to wait until the next set of standard ward rounds.

Anyway agreed that things could be a lot better but a programme properly looking at how this could be facilitated within the confines of the NHS would have been more useful.

MegB says what i'm trying to say in a much more clear and succinct way!!

I second the need for a programme showing the whole picture and ways with which to improve it.

Perhaps we should all write to the producers and suggest it. Cant hurt.

I didn't see the programme as I didn't think it would help me at this stage - I'm worried enough about the birth.

All I would ask is that they tell you things beforehand. I can bring my own food/pillows/industrial pack of pads/etc if they tell me in advance that I need to.

If I know there's a staff shortage I'll make use of my DH in order to get to the loo etc as far as possible.

I know it's not ideal and you shouldn't have to do this but at least I would know what I was getting into. It's being left alone and, as a first timer, not knowing what should be happening that scares me.

I felt the same about my care recently. I'm nearly 16 weeks and have only just seen a midwife. Luckily I'm the type who looks everything up on the internet but they don't know that, do they? I could have been eating pate and liver as if my life depended on it the last 11 weeks!

I had a horrible time in the London hospital where my dds were born. DD#1 took ages to arrive so we went through shift after shift until we ended up with the original lot, who by that time were fed-up with me and treated me as though it was my fault I was there. The 2nd time there was nobody there at all and I was abandoned with dh to a shower room almost until the baby arrived. It was horrible to be in that much pain and that terrified with nobody around. When a mw finally arrived she was brilliant.

the post natal ward was bloody horrible and the mws were rude. It was difficult to leave to go home, yet when dh came to see me I wasn't registered. It was a horrible experience. I would have been better off being looked after by my dogs.

I second the criticsms of the programme. Biased reporting helps no-one Homebirths are a good thing but they don't magic away medical emergencies, and they're heavier on staffing. Good after-care seems essential for keeping women healthy, and given the wealth of the UK economy I do not think it is excessive to expect food or clean showers in maternity units.

i thought my post natal care was awful with my son born 5 years ago and heard from freinds that it still is. my baby was in special care unit and as i was bottle feeding they told me he needed feeding every two hours but as and when i did go to get bottle of them they would complain he was being fed to much which upset me as they told me i had to. my room was really dirty and few times i had blod on sheets and they would not change them. never told me were to get dinner from my room was filthy. very daunting experience for a 20 year old as i was at the time. i also think its adisgarce the way they treat u when it comes to bottle feeding they only interested in helping breastfeding mums the others can run and jump as far as their concerned

What had happened to the journalist during her 1st birth? From what I could gather, it didn't seem much more than it being long and painful. Nowt jumped at me as being too horrendous and negligent.

I thought she was a bit whiney and looking to make a negative programme from the outset. Didn't think it was too unreasonable that she had to wait to see a paed - who knows what more urgent, pressing cases were taking up their time that day.

That's not to say that her criticisms weren't valid - a lot of scope for improvement and little things really do make a big difference.

Having been in a high risk situation with my first pg, my experience overall were much better than depicted in this prog. Community MW's picked up on dd's IUGR (I've seen threads on here moaning about fundal measurents / referrals and uneccessary worry over growth), subsequent early induction, labour, NICU, and post natal experiences were on the whole good. However, I know plenty of people that through genuine negligence experienced terrible births which have profoundly and permanently affected their children.

I too felt let down by my post-natal care (did not see this progrmme btw...) although no complaints about care during delivery.
But after dd was born I felt quite neglected, did not see a midwife until the afternoon of the day after dd was born, and had to request painkillers 3 times before anyone would bring me anything. I am sure they were doing their best but they were plainly rushed off their feet. I also found it hard to get info out of anyone- they didn't seem to want to let me go home, but it took 2 days to establish that I was being kept in hospital because I was anaemic. I had the same blood-stained sheets on my bed the whole time I was there (4 days in total) and the toilet/showerroom had poo on the floor that was not cleaned up the whole time either.
Interesting piece here about how good midwife care can and should be for everyone. This in a relatively deprived london borough. And it actually saves the NHS money by cutting down the number of caesarians performed.

With regards to the OP:

Please don't panic! I recently gave birth at a NHS hospital and it's not all doom and gloom.

In terms of the communication in the programme, as far as I could see the journo just sat in bed whinging, and sending her rather wet DH off to get assistance.

I found that ringing the buzzer worked! Midwives on post-natal wards are really busy, so don't perhaps have time to be pro-active in meeting needs. But I buzzed if I wanted something (assistance breastfeeding, to know where to get a cuppa, to discuss health concerns), and they came to assist promptly each time.