Ideal birth experience

[Julmid]

Hi I'm a French midwife and have noticed that alot of women from England are coming over to Europe for midwife services. My friend who is actually from the UK and I were discussing what the birth experience is like in the NHS and she showed me the reports that came out this week of mums feeling let down and the tragic cases coming to light.

I wanted to get to know a bit more about maternity care in the UK and my friend suggested mumsnetters could help me so here are a few questions...

My main question is what did you feel you "missed" during your pregnancy or post-partum that could've made it easier?

Ideally would you have preferred to have the same person look after you throughout pregnancy and postpartum?

Did you ever feel you needed extra consultations (outside of the NHS) to keep you feeling more in control of your pregnancy/birth/postpartum experience?

What other services do you think could've been added on to make you feel like you had the perfect or most ideal birth experience?

You don't have to respond to every question i will be grateful for any response to deepen my understanding of maternity in UK

Hm, the idea that any one looked after you post partum is a bit novel..,

I agree, there was literally nothing postpartum. I was on my own with my first baby immediately after placenta was delivered. The baby got a newborn check on day eight. I never got a check of any type, the second the baby was out that was it. No further care. I didn’t mind much but it is a bit perplexing.

What I found myself and a lot of my friends experienced is that the midwives refuse to believe you when you tell them that you're ready to push and just ignore you. It's happened to about 2/3 of the mums I know.

I’m in Scotland and I must say my experience was much better. I was consultant led and saw the same consultant every two weeks. I was induced for a second time but they were very open to listening to my views and concerns (following a previous induction) and agreed not to give me the hormone drip immediately this time. They also said if I wanted an elective section I could have one. After birth the midwife who was with me during labour helped me with the first feed and did my stitches and then went for a break (she’d gone a long time without one!) and another midwife came in and weighed baby etc and also discussed with me what had happened - baby had shoulder dystocia so the emergency button was pushed and baby needed assistance to come out. We stayed down on labour ward just doing skin to skin for the first couple of hours. Then on the postnatal ward they helped me with breastfeeding and on day 2 said that I could go home as long as I was happy with feeding otherwise I could stay to get more assistance. Then my community midwife came out to see us three times once we were at home.

I didn’t exactly have a perfect experience - there were lots of delays with the induction due to them being short staffed but overall I think the care was very good (and nowhere near as bad as I hear from some people being in hospital for 4 or 5 days or more waiting for induction).

Thank you for your answers ! How about the pregnancy did you enjoy the classes ?

I am in Scotland and I had my daughter in 2021 during the pandemic. I found my care from the community midwives pretty poor. I didn't see the same midwife twice, and was supposed to have telephone appointments which never happened.

My birth luckily was very straightforward but I didn't discuss anything with the midwives about labour until 38 weeks which was minimal at best and I actually went in to labour 2 days later. When I went in to labour I got to 5cm without contractions but wasn't taken to delivery as I wasn't in enough pain. It took 2 days before I was moved from prenatal to labour when partners had minimal visits. My midwives on the prenatal and labour ward were fantastic but sadly they were very understaffed and overworked.

I did pay for 2 private scans for reassurance.

I really think I would have benefitted from classes however due to the pandemic there weren't any nhs classes being run not even virtually and as a first time mum I didn't even know how to change a nappy.

Hope that helps 😊

My main question is what did you feel you "missed" during your pregnancy or post-partum that could've made it easier? Nothing during pregnancy. Post-natally I was really lucky my hospital had excellent breastfeeding supporters. I saw 4 of them and without their help would never have got DC (v. sleepy for 24 hours as he got pethidine via me) latched. Went on to ebf 6 months and carried on after that. Would have been gutted not to be able to. 2 years later that support had been cut but I knew what I was doing then with DC2

Ideally would you have preferred to have the same person look after you throughout pregnancy and postpartum? Absolutely not. This idea of continuous care is insane. I saw some lovely antenatal midwives and some lovely ones during delivery. They have their own specialties. Why would anyone want to lose that specialist knowledge or become dependent on one person who might be sick/on holiday/busy when you go into labour. Madness.

Did you ever feel you needed extra consultations (outside of the NHS) to keep you feeling more in control of your pregnancy/birth/postpartum experience? Nope

What other services do you think could've been added on to make you feel like you had the perfect or most ideal birth experience? Same answer as number 1, better breastfeeding support.