Princess Royal Maternity Glasgow

[Sept2021Nmxxx]

Hi! Just looking for any stories from anyone who’s given birth here, preferably semi-recently but happy to hear anything!
The only thing I’ve heard that’s confused me is that you have to go to the dining hall for meals which makes me think of a big school canteen 🤔 anyway thanks I’m advance!

@2020mission aw god sorry you’ve got such a decision on your hands! They won’t tell you much about the induction but it’s 3 pessaries 6 hours apart and what they didn’t tell me is that 99% of the time it doesn’t work first time when it’s your first baby, after the first 3 gels they have to let your body have a 24 hour break before they start again. They also didn’t let me know that once I was admitted I couldn’t leave again, maybe that’s common sense but it wasn’t to me.

Just remember that if you stay at home and don’t go for the induction you can still go to maternity assessment at any time if you have any concerns xx

@MrsMcNtobe thanks! Yeah I'm not that far from the hospital I'm in Partick west of Glasgow city so I could get there quite quickly if needed. I'd prefer to wait until my due date before starting an induction as he's moving around and I think he's fine. I'm feeling ok too! If him being big is a problem surely we'd be booking a C-section anyway? I heard baby's growth slows at this stage so I don't think he'll get drastically bigger waiting another week. They didn't offer but I've asked for a sweep first to see if that works and possibly avoid the induction 🤞. Was this your first baby? Also haven't had the chance yet to say congrats on your little girl 🎉 💕 hope she's doing well?

I don't want to scaremonger anyone but I feel compelled to share. I did not have a good experience at all. The actual labour was not so bad although the whole pain relief given was bizarre and not terribly effective. The problems were in the ward. Both my partner and I are medical and I found that although the midwives were nice they were lacking in knowledge. I had to be induced due to preeclampsia so my baby was 3 weeks early, she was very small and couldn't latch very well (she did manage a few times), I was just left to it with very little help or input. After a few days a breastfeeding specialist came & gave me some breastfeeding advice, the midwives however then told me that I shouldn't follow that advice 🙄. Eventually I was given syringes to collect colostrum/milk, when I asked 1 of the midwives to show me how to give the milk, I had to ask several times (my baby didn't seem to be swallowing it) she had no idea, she couldn't wait to get out of my cubicle even tho I still didn't know what I was doing (I have since found out about finger/syringe feeding which is pretty standard practice....though noone showed us this). When my partner and I asked how much milk she should be getting via the syringe none of the midwives could tell us, but insisted however much she was taking from the syringe was fine, even though we were only managing to syringe feed tiny amounts. They also insisted I should only feed her every 3 to 4 hours like this, which sounded like absolute madness to me. I tried to feed her every hour. Even with this she eventually became hypoglycaemic and had to be given sugar. This happened twice. The 2nd time her blood sugar dropped it was evening and the student midwife that was on was not concerned and refused to do anything further (such as give her sugar or supplemental feeding), I had to have a melt down until she eventually called the senior midwife who consulted with the paediatricians and they treated her).
At her 'baby check' by 1 of the junior docs I pointed out that she looked jaundiced, they said no. I continued to say that to me she looked jaundiced, eventually they blood tested her & she was jaundiced & needed phototherapy. Her small size, hypoglycaemia, jaundice, phototherapy machine and bad breast feeding advice...she had no chance to be able to breastfeed. These were only a few of the things that were a mess. Eventually we were sent home, and assured that the community midwife would check her blood jaundice the next day at home, turns out she wasn't able to do this, so we had to go back to the hospital for blood tests then sent home. Once home we got a call to say she needed another 24hrs phototherapy, so we had to go back to the hospital. The staff also kept getting her notes wrong and never really seemed aware of her needs. I felt that they would often check on the mother's who's babies were absolutely normal but never come to my cubicle. I think they were out of their depth and my baby was in no man's land not premature or unwell enough to be in the neonatal unit but beyond the abilities of the midwives in the maternity ward. Eventually I got breastfeeding advice and a mild tongue tie correction from the midwives at Wishaw general and it made all the difference.

Missed this threads last post until now 😅

That sounds bad @Moonpuppy I have to admit I felt a bit unsupported with the breastfeeding there too! I had a postpartum haemorrhage and retained placenta after the birth in late December and it delayed my milk supply. I was kept in the hospital for 4 nights after the birth due to low iron from the haemorrhage and I kept telling the midwives that I was worried he wasn't getting any milk. They just kept saying that it was fine they can go for a few days in the first week with almost nothing! So no surprise on day 3 when they weighed him, the found he had lost 11% of his birth weight. They immediately brought some formula and a breast pump to me and finally ran me through expressing milk with the pump. I managed to express milk just not much so he had been feeding but just not well. I was disappointed that my worries for days were dismissed as not an issue. I don't know if it was because the midwives were busy and short staffed, overall they were nice but just lacking a bit in care. I overheard another women who wanted to breastfeed asking a midwife for help to get her baby to latch and the midwife simply responded "I can't make your baby latch" quite firmly. I really felt for her as it was just harsh. Maybe it's true but she could have been kinder and at least offered to send the breastfeeding specialist as they sent one to me after I continued to raise concerns about the latch and feeding.

Anyway if anyone is interested; the induction went super fast for me. Gel pessary in and 6 hours later I was 4-5cm and contracting fast. I pushed him out 11 hours after the pessary went in 😅 although I will say I believe it went so fast and likely contributed to the retained placenta and postpartum haemorrhage. I was rushed to theatre and had 2 blood transfusions and manual removal of the placenta. It also meant I had to stay in for 4 nights for monitoring and then ended up having 2 further transfusions before getting to leave on New Year's Eve.

@MrsMcNtobe and @Mabelhc hope you and your little ones are doing well. And anyone else who's had theirs recently too!

That's shocking, that they wouldn't help that woman with latching, it is literally their job and also if you are not caring why go into that profession?! Honestly the midwives at Wishaw general were brilliant, they even came to my house twice.
At the Princess Royal I also overheard midwives bitching about patients. In the end I was there for a week, and it was hellish. I was so sleep deprived and I got virtually no help, and bad care and advice to boot. There were also so many 'little' non medical things that contributed to my bad experience, for example one night the fluorescent light above my bed started strobing, couldn't find anyone anywhere, eventually when I did, she took about 40 minutes to stroll over to the nurses desk and flip a switch. In the meanwhile my baby was fidgeting and wincing, I had to take her out of the cot and leave the cubicle. Oh and my bed was broken, stuck in an upright position, took 2 days to do anything about that. The non midwife staff seemed personally affronted if you dared to drink more than the little jug of water provided and I got scolded like a naughty child for not taking my tray back immediately after dinner! I was directed to the room where you can sterilise your pump etc but wasn't given any if the sterilising equipment. Got scolded again when my partner brought me some soup...not allowed. Just not good or professional enough I'm afraid. Given the recent scandals in maternity care at other trusts, I'd like to see the PRMs statistics.

Thanks guys! I hope all the wee ones & mamas alike are doing well!

How upsetting it is, eh? I wasn't going to revisit the whole thing, but this thread brought it back & its better out than in I reckon. After 3 failed inductions (over 6 days), my daughter's heart rate was indicative of secere distress. I wasn't seen for 6 hours despite buzzing continually (after feeling like a total nuisance). My waters broke & were full of meconium, so I was desperately buzzing and I still was made to wait 1.5 hours until a consultant saw me in the labour ward. At which point, I was whisked straight in for a c section if I hadn't been totally freaked out and urging them to listen, god knows what would have played out. The whole experience was overcrowded, understaffed and just a bit miserable. Not to discount how wonderful some individual staff members are. I left 9 days after going in.... with a baby with severe tremours due to my 'caffeine use'.
I had to fight to have that removed from my file as I never so much as looked at caffeine throughout my pregnancy.
Turns out my daughter had low blood sugar.

Just found this and due my first scan there Fri, found pros and cons when selecting hospital and getting worried now having seen the last comments 😳

I feel for anyone reading this thread about to give birth here as we all seem to have had a bit of a rubbish time 😅

@Moonpuppy I was similarly just told to go to the room with a sink to clean the pump parts. They said "breast milk is sterile just use the dish soap" so I wandered to find the room with a sink and just hand washed the parts with the green fairy liquid and didn't sterilise anything. I didn't get any grief about the jugs of water as I was told to go and refill myself it if I wanted more at the same room sink so I just topped myself up. One non medical thing that bugged me was the 4th day when they suddenly asked me to move to another ward and gifted me the bay next to the toilets with a curtain that didn't fully close 😅 it seems the bay beside curtain was ripped (see photo) but it meant I had to sit and pump and get changed without privacy. I had IV lines in my hands from the transfusions right after the birth that got sore and were hanging off by the 4th day. My baby kept kicking them when I was lifting him and it was really nipping me. The midwife refused to remove them for me when I asked even though I had finished the second lot of transfusions and no longer needed the IV access. It was really annoying. I also had to wait an extra day for my blood transfusions due to staff shortages - it kept me in hospital an extra night.

@Mabelhc that's really shocking they blamed the tremors on caffeine. You'd think they'd investigate possible causes before just assuming and noting such a thing down! I also had meconium in the waters and I was induced too... is that the induction that was causing the baby stress I wonder? I did find with the antenatal care there was no discussion of pros and cons of inductions. My contractions were definitely intense at the start I barely had a gap between them. 5 hours after the induction gel was inserted I was in unbearable back pain and begged to be moved to the labour ward for proper pain relief. I was 4-5cm at that point so the induction either worked super fast or it was possible I was about to go into labour at the time anyway and it just sped that up. They told me the labour ward was full but then suddenly there was space for me 5 mins later when they realised I was leaking waters and saw that I was 4-5cm!

For anyone reading, overall I did find everyone was nice and given I'm here and well after the retained placenta and blood loss they definitely did a good job with me in theatre and topping up the transfusions when they saw my iron dropped. I'm sure most people would be discharged quickly and not be in long enough to experience the niggles some of us have experienced. It's likely been down to staff shortages.

Yes I had similar with IV cannulas...mine was clotted and bent and halfway out of my skin and the midwives were reluctant to remove it, even tho a cannula in that state is completely useless...and a potential source of infection...I removed it myself. I believe you that the care you received from the medics and treatment in theatre was good; I thought the care received from the doctors in the neonatal ward, on subsequent check ups, was good, it's just the midwife led maternity unit care which was not good enough.

@Mabelhc, my daughter's hypoglycaemia was also missed...a student noticed that she was trembly (I had to fight for her care the whole time I was in there, so I was annoyed with myself that I hadn't noticed but I was tired, post partum, and unfamiliar with neonates).

The second time she was hypoglycaemic I was more aware. It was about 8pm and that was when the student midwife did not want to raise any concerns. They have a hospital policy that if a baby is clinically hypoglycaemic, they have to do 3 consecutive blood tests to establish a trend, and they don't like doing that, especially at night .

@2020mission, you're more generous than me when you call it 'niggles'.