Terrible first experience with maternity services

[Rosieposy89]

Hi all. I'm just after advice/rant. I'm 9+6 first pregnancy. My telephone booking appointment was supposed to be today at 11. I phoned at 11.30 and was told the midwife had gone into a meeting and they don't know when it was due to finish. My husband phoned at 12 and was told I would get a call today but they can't say what time and they've 'fallen behind'. I have now had to take the whole day off as A/L because I'm client based so can't just take a call midway through dealing with a client. I have used the NHS multiple times due to a disability and have never experienced such poor service. I feel upset at being messed around and don't feel I can trust these people to keep me and baby safe. What do I do?

I think you’re being at bit precious tbh. If you equate a late telephone appointment with a ‘terrible experience’ you’re in for a bad few months! A booking appointment isn’t a top clinical priority, the midwife may have safeguarding meetings, a lady with fetal distress or on a home visit with a new mum struggling. I know Thai appointment for you will seem like the most important thing in the world but try and see the bigger picture and stop being so dramatic!

'And don't feel I can trust these people to keep me and my baby safe.'

This is frankly, an absurd over reaction.

If you're being sensible, you could actually argue the opposite. Assuming the midwife didn't call because of an emergency. So, she prioritised the emergency over a complete non-emergency phone call. Imagine that emergency was you and your baby and the midwife went off to do a phone call instead.

As to 'what can you do'. I guess you could pay for private, to have your own personal midwife who only deals with you and is there at the exact second you want her to be.

@Rosieposy89

My letter didn't say anything about it being an approximate time otherwise I would have booked the full day. I know you're allowed paid time off for maternity appointments but I think 6 hours is taking the piss a bit. Its more the fact they haven't bothered to communicate with me that infuriates me because actually it has had consequences for my work too and I'm lucky my manager is understanding. I'm not being melodramatic when I say it made me nervous for the rest of my care because this is literally my first appointment, I don't have anything else to judge it by.

When you do speak to your midwife, talk to her about being nervous as lots of women experience prenatal anxiety and depression. Your reaction to an appointment being a few hours late is really disproportionate so it’s worth bearing in mind there might be more to it.

Sorry you had a bad experience. I was left disabled and nearly died due to the fact my mum wasn't given an emergency c section quick enough so maybe that's why I'm a bit wary but I know that it's unlikely to happen again

I'm not being melodramatic when I say it made me nervous for the rest of my care because this is literally my first appointment, I don't have anything else to judge it by.

You don’t but plenty of people have kindly taken the time to share their own experiences so you do have those. Take them on board or not, your call, but I’d seriously try and find some perspective or you’re going to find pregnancy extremely stressful and disappointing. They haven’t put you or your baby at risk by running late. Running late today doesn’t mean it’s inevitable every time. However if they are often or always late what do you expect you’ll be able to do about it?

As someone already suggested, if you find NHS antenatal care unacceptable then hopefully you can afford to go private. If you can’t, you’ll have to find a way to accept it.

OP, with no disrespect but a delayed appointment isn't a "terrible experience" I went through some terrible experiences with maternity services during and after my three miscarriages, then had a number of appointments in my current pregnancy that were either delayed or didn't happen and had to be rescheduled. It's not the way it should be, but it's the way it is and you can either brace yourself for the rest of your pregnancy and get on with it or seek private healthcare where things should be much better. It's obviously not great, but you need to be realistic.

And my brother was stillborn due to a missed diagnosis and delayed intervention many years ago, I saw your latest update but honestly you can't project this onto your current situation. Try to take a step back and calm down, it's not worth you stressing out now.

I'm 33 weeks and so far have been positively surprised how smoothly things have been running despite the pandemic. All-in person midwife appointments have been bang on time, scans at the hospital have had only minor delays. Telephone appointments they give you quite a broad timeslot, but the one time they called me at sn inconvenient time and i couldn'tpick up (i was presenting to my team) i got a callback later. We're in Kent.

@PurplePansy05 - I'm truly sorry about your brother. I can't help the fact I worry about what happened to my Mum because I live with the consequences of it every day.

Thank you for all your replies. It might be that I overreacted and I'll just allow more time for future appointments.

A lot of harsh posters here OP. It sounds very annoying and frustrating to not be given an indication of time, were they at least apologetic? In no way should you feel like you have to "suck it up". These are trying times and it's not helpful if you don't have any reassurance from the NHS.

My experience of maternity care during these times hasn't been impacted at all (other than one appointment being changed last minute to a phone appointment). It is a pain but it's good that you know now of the problems they are having so that you can set expectations.

@BlueTimes hey - the midwife text me afterwards to apologise, it was actually just because she forgot about our appointment as she works across practices. No emergency!

Time off for a/n appts MUST be paid for by the employer, it's law. If your job means you need the whole day off because of the nature of the job then they must give you the day off. You should not have to take annual leave for it, if they make you it's sex discrimination.

On the days you do have appointments planned- you should request more time off around them. Warn your boss that you’ll keep working untill the call/ but need added time in a window around it incase it’s delayed/ runs over. You could still take client meetings but warn them if you receive a call from hospital during your meeting you will have to suddenly call off. There really aren’t that many appointments during the 40 weeks of your pregnancy so prepare for the ones you do have in advance and try to relax!

Op - yes I learned pretty quickly that the NHS midwifery service take an incredibly relaxed attitude to patients' time. The hospital care was fine though (& sometimes they even bothered to tell you when they were running ridiculously late).

@BebesChamber - thank you so much for your kind reply. I agree, a lot of harsh replies. They were apologetic eventually. I don't mind if an appointment time is changed but it's totally unreasonable expecting people to take a full day off work at short notice for a 40 minute phone call. I think most people would be annoyed at that. Glad your care has been unaffected x

Lots of critical comments here, but this is OP's first experience of NHS maternity services, and it's okay not to have any idea what to expect!

I've found so far (22 weeks FTM) that the midwives/NHS maternity have been lovely people, but very overstretched and overworked and, frankly, crap with admin - especially on the everyday side. The best advice someone gave me was to lower my expectations. My booking appt was also very late, they lost my urine & bloods so I had to go back and do it all again, and basically dismissed when I was worrying about things, which made me (like you) concerned that I could trust them looking after me and my baby. These routine "niggles" I think have got quite a bit worse since the pandemic, as everyone has been overstretched.

BUT they are, generally, very good in an emergency. Mine never answer the phone to routine questions, but when I left a message with some questions one midwife called me back within a few minutes to say "hey, I got your message and was concerned, I think you need to go to A&E right now". (Luckily all was well, but it was definitely something that needed checking out.) Emergency services are still functioning throughout the pandemic, and you shouldn't feel bad about using them if you need them.

It is hard to trust that they'll be there for you in a crisis if they can't be there for you on the everyday questions/problems, but they will be. Your and your mum's experiences will have made you understandably wary, and please know that your worries are 100% natural. When you do get your booking call, do mention this to the midwife and she might be able to refer you to some perinatal mental health services - even knowing that someone will be on the end of the phone if you need them might reassure you!

Good luck and congratulations :)

I couldn't connect to my midwife booking appointment and they had issues with it all day so They rebooked...to be fair I don't care if that is true or if they just fell behind and couldn't keep up. They obviously have a good reason as to why it couldn't be that day.

NHS is a godsend, they are understaffed and try their best. I understand it's annoying for you and you had taking the day off but this stuff may happen. Just think if you were to go private it's around 8k for a basic package and that's if everything goes smoothly in birth.

I don't mean to sound like I'm having a go...I really do understand it is a inconvenience but just try to think of it in a different way. We are so lucky to have the NHS service at our disposal.

I remember being really shocked with my first pregnancy (some17 years ago now!) at NHS maternity services. I went off to my GP all excited to say I had got a positive pregnancy test and the attitude was very much ‘that’s nice dear, now call this number and get a booking in appointment’. I don’t know what I was expecting, really, but I thought it would all be more...serious, somehow? .

To be honest, that’s pretty much how it continued for the rest of my pregnancy. The booking in appointment felt rushed and was just filling in some forms. The scans and tests were quick and matter of fact. The midwives were quite brusque and just doing a job.

I got used to it with subsequent babies and realised it’s a busy service, they usually do their best, and you can’t really expect excellent ‘customer service’, as that’s not what the NHS provides. When the NHS comes in to its own is when something is wrong. I got brilliant care and treatment with a more complicated later pregnancy and birth.

I know it’s disappointing, frustrating and AJ be quite anxiety inducing for first time mothers, so no judgement from me. But try not to worry and just get the appointment rebooked. It’s an inconvenience, but you will find this happens and probably will again during your pregnancy.

Congratulations, btw!

@Rosieposy89

Sorry you had a bad experience. I was left disabled and nearly died due to the fact my mum wasn't given an emergency c section quick enough so maybe that's why I'm a bit wary but I know that it's unlikely to happen again

This is something you should be given the opportunity to discuss during your booking in (so if you weren’t or didn’t mention it next time) to ensure it’s in your notes so that if there is a medical reason why what happened to your mum’s labour could affect your labour then your antenatal team will know about it.

We do have an unacceptably high number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the U.K. (I know because one of my babies was one) but I promise you that waiting a bit for a midwife to call for a scheduled appointment is not going to impact your pregnancy or labour.

Again, I would suggest you talk to your midwife about anxiety support for your pregnancy. There should be a maternity or perinatal mental health team available to you.

@BigWindow

I remember being really shocked with my first pregnancy (some17 years ago now!) at NHS maternity services. I went off to my GP all excited to say I had got a positive pregnancy test and the attitude was very much ‘that’s nice dear, now call this number and get a booking in appointment’. I don’t know what I was expecting, really, but I thought it would all be more...serious, somehow? .

To be honest, that’s pretty much how it continued for the rest of my pregnancy. The booking in appointment felt rushed and was just filling in some forms. The scans and tests were quick and matter of fact. The midwives were quite brusque and just doing a job.

I got used to it with subsequent babies and realised it’s a busy service, they usually do their best, and you can’t really expect excellent ‘customer service’, as that’s not what the NHS provides. When the NHS comes in to its own is when something is wrong. I got brilliant care and treatment with a more complicated later pregnancy and birth.

I know it’s disappointing, frustrating and AJ be quite anxiety inducing for first time mothers, so no judgement from me. But try not to worry and just get the appointment rebooked. It’s an inconvenience, but you will find this happens and probably will again during your pregnancy.

Congratulations, btw!

This is exactly it. The NHS antenatal care is deeply inefficient, extremely slow (I’m consultant led and frequently wait an hour or an hour and a half past booked app time), and completely uncaring of anything else you might have in your life (work, childcare).

BUT when you need them, they’ll save your life and get you and your baby safely through it. It’s not luxurious and there is no customer service but at the end you have your baby safe.