Substandard Midwife support

[WeGoAgain123]

To say I'm livid is an understatement.

Now, I could be overreacting due to the miserable time I'm experiencing due to my morning sickness so please feel free to talk me down if I need to.

So, having used the e consult system back when I was 4 weeks I was told to self referral at my local maternity ward which I did right away.

At said self referral I mentioned I thought I needed a higher dose of folic acid (my bmi is 32) but they just told me that anything like this would be covered in my booking in appointment.

I had my booking appointment this week over three telephone, I got all the way to the end when she asked if I have any question at which point I mentioned my bmi (obviously they can't see me or weigh me over the phone). At this point she got very serious and said I needed a higher foes as the FA I'm getting in my pregnancy vitamins is so tiny in comparison and there's a risk of birth defects. She agreed with me that I the absence of this one question being asked at the self referral should be something I should bring maybe write in about.

Anyway, fast forward to today. I call the surgery asking when I should know when my prescription is ready...they have none as the midwife as forgotten to request it for me! So that's potentially another 3 days without it.

I messaged the designated midwife I was given at booking and explained the situation and her response to me was "the gp could have prescribed this to me early on in the pregnancy" is she implying I should have ignored what the maternity nurses said and just gone to my gp.

To be honest, I knew I needed a higher dose but I didn't realise it was over 10 times more (confusion of micro grams and grams - I have thought just eating some folic acid heavy foods would suffice for the short term)

Am I being unreasonable, I'm so nervous for my scan now in case something is wrong.

To be clear I was never suggesting taking 10 Pregnacare tablets, folic acid 400 microgram tablets which you can buy in any supermarket or even Wilkos or pound shops are tiny. And you could spread them out if you wanted to so you don't throw them all up.

honestly I am 20 weeks and bar a very quick sonograph and a blood test I've yet to see a single person in person this whole pregnancy. I only knew about the folic acid thing (BMI 37)due to MN. I rung the GP and got the prescription the same day. Can you not do the same?

Honestly people get pregnant accidently all the time having not been taking any folic acid at all. neural defects are extremely rare so please don't stress out about it. x

@Unicornflakegirl

You're being unreasonable but you're stressed and pregnant so cut yourself some slack. If you've been taking folic acid anyway just take more until you get the prescription. 12.5 of the small standard folic acid tablets will be equivalent, I'd just take 12 rather than faffing around trying to break one.

How far along are you and when is your scan?

How is OP being unreasonable? Is it unreasonable to expect your midwife to prescribe what she’s said you need. No, it’s not. And then she’s tried to say it’s the GP - OP is under midwife care and she should be taking care of it.

The folic acid tablets I was taking are tiny, smaller than the contraceptive pill. You don’t need to take the huge pregnacare ones, they are vile to swallow

NHS midwife care definitely seems a bit disorganised especially when it's supposed to link up with GP or hospital.
You'll definitely need to keep advocating for yourself throughout your pregnancy as the NHS is super overwhelmed in all areas so the care isn't likely to be up to the standard you experienced previously.
I would definitely consider skipping the pregnancare tablets if you're feeling really sick, my prenatals made my nausea so much worse. So I focused on just taking folic acid as that's the priority really & had individual tablets for other suggested vitamins that I took when I felt able to.
Would recommend doing this if folic acid is really important for you as the other vitamins are more likely to be able to be taken from your food etc for the baby.
I wouldn't worry yourself too much about the time you weren't taking enough folic acid (though I do think the sensible thing to have done would have been to take several of the small folic acid tablets in the meantime), tons of women around the world don't take folic acid & their babies are fine.

So normal prenatal tablets contain 400 micrograms and you need 5 milligrams? Not grams surely?

Anyway, you’re right to be annoyed but it’s pretty standard. I’m anaemic and midwife is supposed to be asking the GP to prescribe me high dose iron tablets but she hasn’t even written to the GP yet and the anaemia was picked up weeks ago.