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

Hi there it's a labour ward midwife. It's highly unlikely you will get highly medicalised care if you had 2 straightforward pregnancies and births. It's not in anyone's interest to medicalise you, NHS has plenty of financial problems, they don't need unnecessary expense. As it's your 3rd child the National Institute for Healthcare Excellence recommends 7 antenatal appointments and 2 scans if everything is straightforward. Those are important to keep you and your baby safe. You can still decline any intervention offered to you. However those scans and appointments are offered for a reason. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure as the saying goes

OP please don't decline antenatal checks they are there for you and your babies health and well being. My younger 2 kids would have most likely died without these checks. It's also very likely I would have had a haemorrhage in childbirth with my 3rd baby had a scan not picked up an unknown issue at 32 weeks pregnant. I had 2 babies before and did not have this complication.

I could have got by with no care too. Until I needed it. Baby 1 could have died. Baby 3 and I could have died without it.

This is a selfish decision in the basis of your first two posts. Haven't read on.

All those women who would so desperately love a healthy baby and then people who just clearly aren’t fussed…

May I share a story. My first pregnancy I had a complete placenta previa. I never had an unusual bleed or any symptom. It was only picked up at 20 week scan. This was a very high risk - I could not go into labour (we would have both died). A bleed could have been very serious (in the last weeks I had to be an inpatient in hospital and wasn't allowed to leave as I could have bled out too quickly and even an ambulance might not have got me back in time). I was very well and had no symptoms. But I had a high risk pregnancy. Please do engage, even just for the bare minimum checks.

You don’t know that. It’s not picked up during routine checks. Often the first sign of my condition is a late loss or still birth, or IUGR picked up on a later scan. And you are being stupid. And reckless. And selfish. Put your baby first.

Crack on though. Poor kid.

Before modern medicine and all the antenatal checks, we used to have high rates of maternal and neonatal death. Women feared birth knowing they could easily die.

Humans are actually very badly designed for giving birth due to our large heads and brains - a high mother and baby death rate was the evolutionary trade off for being cleverer than other animals.

The reason we survive birth so well these days is due to the medical advances in antenatal treatment and intervention where needed during birth. You may be healthy but that doesn’t mean pregnancy and birth will be straightforward.

My first got stuck - only got her out with an episiotomy - and was born not breathing and needed resuscitation. If I’d had her at home she’d be dead or catastrophically brain damaged.

My second, I was diagnosed with GD. Slim and zero family history. Baby needed help with her blood sugars after birth.

If you have anxieties about hospitals then explain this and you can be helped. But please don’t dismiss medical care as unnecessary. Pregnancy and birth is a very risky process even for those who are healthy, and it only seems less risky because of modern medicine.

I felt healthy throughout both pregnancies. I actually had gestational diabetes - only picked up by antenatal care. I had no symptoms of note. But I was then able to manage it and further support was put in place to get my beautiful girl here safely.

Not attending antenatal appointments is just selfish really. And short sighted.

I know this is stating the obvious I think there’s added concern because you also have two children already, so if something happens to you what would happen to them? Additionally, if something were to happen to your baby, so NICU or disability that would impact them as well.

I think people are struggling to understand why you’d risk your babies health, your own and your existing children’s. If you make this wrong decision it’s you (and your children) that have to live with this consequence of something maybe preventable cropping up.

I wish you well op, I’m wondering if you could swap hospitals or midwife team.

Well surely the cord could wrap itself round the baby's neck at any point in the 10 weeks between appointments, and a midwife appointment wouldn't pick that up, you have a scan at 20 weeks then nothing until the end,surely they wouldn't leave u that long if it wasn't safe to do so?

You don’t have medical history until you do though. It can change in a blink of an eye and it’s such an unnecessary risk to take with the health of not only you but your baby too.

It is a harsh response but it's still a sensible response. It is everyone's right to smoke during pregnancy or drink during pregnancy, but I wouldn't hesitate to call someone out on that either especially on a public internet forum.

And actually social services can pick upon this situation and a MASH referral will be made if a woman has not engaged with antenatal services during pregnancy, I'm sure this will not just be specific to the maternity unit in my area. This isn't about bullying the op into doing anything. I don't know this person from Adam, it has no bearing on on my life whether she accesses antenatal services or not, however I do realize that there is an unborn child in all this and so I have responded.

Judging by previous posts, you have been classed as high risk.. is that what you are taking issue with?

I can't believe that someone who claims to be intelligent and educated can be so bullish and refuse proper ante-natal care - especially as you are already responsible for two children. I literally have never known any woman who refused it.

I don't think anyone here is going to persuade you because no matter what scenario other posters have shared with you, including life-threatening situations, you've just snapped back at them with snippy responses.

I wonder how the baby's father feels about this, or is he equally careless?

One of the things done at midwife appointments is to measure the bump and check its progression as an indication of baby size. How would you know if for some reason your baby stopped growing? This can be caused by issues with the placenta or cord and can cause stillbirth, disability etc.

Knowledge is power:

How can YOU make decisions/plans if you don’t know the full picture?

I also don’t trust the NHS, very thankful we have it as I cannot afford to go private, but I don’t have blind faith on NHS recommendation.

However, I did attend all my medical appointments/scans, and did participate in all antenatal until 40w…

My husband would be present in all appointments and would take factual notes. We’d thank the consultant for their time and say something along the lines of ‘that’s given us a lot to think about… if we do decide to go down (the recommended route) what would the next steps be?’

We found that approach kept myself in control of my body but also in the knowledge that myself/baby was safe.

Going to your 20w appointment won’t have you leaving with delivering your baby in consultant led care. If anything it will strengthen your case (and by case, I mean you always have control, it’s just less of a fight) that you and your baby are fine, and more likely to be successful for a home birth/water birth/midwife led birth etc.

Don’t be daft OP, you have two other children, women die in labour every single day without medical care.

I'm not high risk due to my age

@Casuallydresseddeepinconversation - will you at least consider getting a blood glucose monitor and a BP machine, as I suggested?

You could have high BP or high blood sugar without symptoms. At least this would give you early warning before you develop symptoms, so you can see the doctor.

I'm unsure why you think there is a 10 week gap between appointments?

You have an appointment (roughly) from your booking appointment, then 12 weeks scan, then 16 week appointment, 20 week scan, 25 weeks appointment, 28 week appointment, 31 week appointment, 34 week appointment, 36 weeks, 38 weeks.

The MOST you'll go without an appointment is 5 weeks?

And therefore no one else can have a different experience,view or feelings to you?

Hi Op
I'm sorry you feel you haven’t had a stress free pregnancy so far. As lots of people have stated there are very good reasons to engage with care during pregnancy.
why don’t you book for home birth if that is your preference and let your team know that you really want to build a relationship with a very small core group. You sound as though you would really benefit from that set up.
wishing you all the best for your pregnancy xxx

I also had pre-eclampsia with no symptoms, none at all. I only had it with one pregnancy and not the other.

OP you haven't replied to any of the posts asking what happened at the scan/earlier appointments to make you feel this way? I could add something to the list - I had a malformed placenta with my first which means at any moment during birth the umbilical cord would have detached and me and DD would have bled to death. Scans didn't show things like that then but fortunately I had a home birth with a very experienced midwife - she was astounded when the placenta was born. That condition was checked for in later pregnancies but DD and I were just very lucky. Can't remember off the top of my head what this type of placenta was called but it was taken away to show the trainees.

Who would you contact later in the pregnancy if for example you hadn't felt your baby move all day? You would probably have to wait around in A&E. No 2 pregnancies are the same. My DD pregnancy was different to when I had DS. As others have also pointed out your age puts you in the high risk category.

Only have this many appointments with first pregnancy in my hospital.