Declining antenatal care

[Casuallydresseddeepinconversation]

I've declined midwife appts,I had a call last week to try and change my mind and another today,I feel coerced and bullied,patronised and ignored,I'm 20 weeks today and just want to be left alone, considering not going to my 20 week scan now too, the 13 week one wasn't a pleasant experience either and I feel very anti NHS,tho I don't have funds for complete private care, just feeling very emotional atm

I had gestational diabetes detected in my second pregnancy even though I felt fine. No family history of diabetes. Not overweight. It was from bump measuring too big at an ante natal appointment with my midwife. Gd can cause excess amniotic fluid and make you larger. They thought there was no way I would have it, but turned out I did!

@Leavemealone2024 I did think critically. I refused an induction and chose to have a c section. After DS was born I found out his head was massive and wouldn't have got through my pelvis. I'd originally wanted to give birth in the midwife led unit, in the birthing pool and had hypnobirthing lessons, and I was quite happy to question things and be a bit argumentative. But there went all my ideas of a natural birth!

My midwife picked up that the bump was small. I got sent for a scan and baby was breach. Then shortly after went into premature labour, a month early. If I hadn't seen that midwife I wouldn't have known baby was breach and I needed to get to hospital much sooner than you would otherwise, I'd have left it until the contractions were closer and we'd both have been at risk. As it was I had an emergency c-section and she was fairly tiny but we both made it though OK and medics wasted no time working out what was going on.

And it did not occur to you that the consultant's assistant (himself/herself doubtless well-qualified) looked at you, talked to you and could see that you were okay because he/she was alert to recognising symptoms you didn't know existed?
Women fought for ante-natal care and it has reduced the death rate from e.g. pre-eclampsia. Women in many parts of the world are dying for lack of ante-natal care. The OP is foolish not to take what is offered - for her baby's sake, her other children's sake and for her own sake.
Maternity is over-medicalised, I think, but rather that than a return to the large number of women and babies who use to die for lack of medical attention.

At the very least buy a blood pressure monitor. I had dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy and felt ‘well’.
My friend found out at her 20 wk scan that her baby didn’t have a diaphragm, and therefore was not going to survive. It’s important to go to the 20 week scan. It’s also nice to see the baby.

I understand how you feel,OP, I hate being poked and prodded and treated like an idiot too. I refused all blood tests except one over two pregnancies and like you I feel much more in control if I am paying for the service I am receiving. I had my second baby at home at 38 and that was fine and the midwives basically did exactly what I requested. You are entitled to the attendance of a midwife so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You are sensibly getting a private scan. I’ll tell you the difference, I had a smear test at the local family planning clinic where the nurse was very cross with me and said she didn’t know how I managed to have sex . When I paid for the next one I literally didn’t feel a thing.

Unlike almost everyone else here, I agree with you. @AshLeaf tf that's the case and nearly everyone else doesn't have that bat shit attitude.

For the sake of your baby, dont ignore medical appointments and scans. You may feel they are pointless as you have had everything straight forward up until now but that can change in the blink of an eye and sometimes the only way you know if from one of your appointments.

Take it from someone who up until things went wrong has straight forward pregnancies and super fast labors. When things went wrong, I didn't get to bring my baby home alive.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Wow I am definitely an each to their own type of person but this isn't just about you and what YOU want it is about your baby and in all honesty I couldn't see how any mentally stable person would turn down ante natal care. If you do have mental health issues then see if you can maybe talk to someone about your concerns. I would hope that if you refuse ante natal care, social services get involved as you don't sound fit to bring a baby into the world - being a parent means you have to put the baby/ child above your own feelings sometimes and you aren't doing that.

Obviously if there has been some kind of abuse that you have suffered by helathcare professionals in your previous pregnancies then I can completely understand why you are so against the appointments but if this is the case please put a complaint in writing to the Chief Executive of your NHS trust or ask to change trusts for your ante natal care.

Hope you get the help you need so you can be a great parent to your baby

I know by the 3rd child you can have had some less than caring interventions by the NHS, and I know you are experienced, and I know you know your body well and you are not a naive first timer, but the NHS is still a machine designed to get a baby born alive. It has a high success rate. I would only go it alone with a LOT of private healthcare.
With your experience you can pick and choose when and where you go, what you will accept, what you will ask for. But there is a good amount of prenatal checks with planned neonatal care, I would advise you not to be too casual with your third child, it still not about you, although you might be naffed off with the NHS. Just suck it up for them.

I'm very glad we live in a country where we can access regular checks during pregnancy. 1st pregnancy I had placenta previa - picked up at 20 week scan, and monitored regularly from then on. It can cause fatal bleeding. I had no symptoms at all until 32 weeks when i suddenly started to haemorrhage, very badly, and was rushed to hospital. It was scary, but knowing what was happening helped me stay calm, and helped medical staff care for me appropriately.
Is maternity care perfect? No, and not every woman will have the birth or pre/post birth care she hoped for. But it's foolish to reject out of hand the care that is there, as it could save your bacon.

"To see if anyone else has not had midwife appointments and how they navigated it,there's lots of women on this forum so thought it would represent a balanced proportion of pregnant women"

Well the outcome of this thread is everyone saying they all had all the care on offer and why it's so important and potentially crucial to the survival of your baby.

So that's the outcome of your thread. What are you going to do with this information now op? Doesn't it ring any alarm bells? Literally no one thinks what you're doing is a good idea or has done it themselves, that's why no one is sharing 'how they navigated it'.

hi, it sounds like you are scared, i found out that one of the babies i was carrying, (twins) had gone to sleep, i was placenta previa and was supposed to have a home birth, i was 40, walking 3 miles each way i did not know! it was a supposed to be a quiet time and less stressful, they found all this out after the scan
please go for the scan and make sure the baby is ok , I hope you listen to everyone advice

Genuine question OP, you say you'll get a private scan. If that picks up something you will be referred back to your midwife/NHS antenatal care, will you engage then?

If you get worrying symptoms like reduced movement say, will you engage then?

If you will, how is that different to just doing the standard appointments? (Other than the obvious that in your scenario they don't have history and it's reactive)

You can decline anything you want, but you need to accept the risks.
I've known a couple of people who free birthed, one had baby (and older dc) removed from their care as concerns were raised to SS.
Also know people who had perfectly uneventful low risk pregnancies end in the death of baby and/or mother so personally accepted antenatal care and just ignored a handful of rubbish appointments.

That’s not my experience at all. The early scan I had where I found out my baby had died was horrific and handled terribly. The follow ups with the NHS were 100x better. I felt incredibly well looked after and supported though my pregnancy ended by the NHS, not the private scans.

I agree that pregnancy and birth are over-medicalised. There’s a strong relationship between maternal stress and needing more intervention during birth, and that can indeed lead to a dead baby.

Do you/did you take your children for regular appointments after they were born, even if they seemed well? Are you planning to do that for this one?
Would you be able to attend appointments with a view to this being about the baby rather than about you, and that your health needs to be good to facilitate the baby?
Also, do you really think that the same sonographer is politer to people who pay that to those that don't? Or do you envisage seeing different, private only sonographers?

It isn’t just about your health, it is about baby’s health. You can say “I’m fine” all day long, but you don’t know how baby is. It could end up seriously unwell and then that would result in you also being seriously ill. Heaven forbid it led to you and/or your baby’s death, and if something DID happen to you then what would your 2 other children do?

I understand where you're coming from OP my NHS antenatal 'care' was shite. Tick box exercise all the way through, no one was interested in listening to me and certainly no one cared. I won't list all the shit I went through but I got an independent midwife in the end and I can't begin to tell you how different the care was. Literally worlds apart.
If you can afford an independent midwife then I can't recommend it highly enough.

And yet, strangely, when I discussed it with my midwife she agreed that it was pointless for me to attend 🤷‍♀️

I imagine the stats would bear out that neglecting to avail of decent medical care is a much higher risk factor than stress!

I don't care if they are over-medicalised. I cared that my babies were born safe and well.

A lot of maternity services are on their knees atm through understaffing and various other pressures… no system is perfect and a lot of mothers feel do feel violated by antenatal, birth and hospital processes. Birth trauma is a very real experience but people are expected to be grateful no matter what…and I say this as someone who is very grateful to the NHS as my baby was very premature and needed interventions…

Have you considered speaking to a private midwife or doula OP?

Some midwives can be a bit dismissive of consultants in my experience - to the extent of making comments because I paid for private ante-natal care with one. Yet when I rocked up to one of my appointments with my obstetrician, who popped up beside me other than one of the said midwives, there for her own antenatal care!

They are not always right either! Nobody is always right.

@Casuallydresseddeepinconversation Has anything posted here actually resonated with you? Or are you just metaphorically sticking your fingers in your ears?