Has anyone ever requested a new community midwife

[WannabeMathematician]

So my first birth wasn’t great. But I’m pregnant again with number 2 and I’m worried about my midwife appointments. I’ve only had one but I just felt I wasn’t taken seriously and I didn’t get the impression that she had properly read my notes (she asked me if I’d been induced last time and if I lost much blood). I also asked how things could be different if I was haemorrhaged again and the answers were quite short and lacking in detail and I was told it was quite early to be the thinking about that.

Now I was quite ill with pregnancy sickness so I’m going to admit that coloured my view of the appointment but if my next appointment is like that I think I would like a different midwife. Is that possible?

Don't know about changing although I'm sure it's possible but most of those questions are probably for the consultant rather than the community midwife.

When i had my booking in appt, the midwife had barely any info at all about my first pregnancy/ birth

Hmmm I’m not convinced. She didn’t even know if I had been ill enough to talk to the consultant. I asked and she said she would have to check. Turns out I am going to see the consultant but I didn’t know that nor did she at the time of my questions.

Community midwives aren't given birth records. I don't know why, but they rely on the woman giving accurate information.

Yeah, I had a nasty post partum infection a couple of weeks after giving birth to DD1 which saw me admitted to hospital for a week.
The community midwife knew nothing about that so I had to fill her in.

I did recently.

I had an awful booking appointment with the most unpleasant midwife.

After the appointment I emailed to request a midwife change. I didn't give a reason and they didn't ask for one. They changed me to someone else immediately.

I would have happily gone into detail why I requested a change , how've she wa so unpleasant I suspect I wouldn't have Ben the first to have an issue with her,

My experience with my community midwife has been poor so far. I posted a thread on here a while ago asking this same question and listing my reasons for the change (messed up organising my booking appointment, messed up the paperwork for my combined screening resulting in a retest and almost missing the window for screening, didn't send my prescription exemption and ignored my subsequent queries about it, to name a few). I got slated by a lot of posters here to the point I unfollowed my own thread because the responses just weren't helpful (I wanted to hear from people who had made a change and if it was worth it, but most comments just seemed to be from people who wanted to tell me I was being ridiculous - my mistake was disclosing I thought her incompetence was due to lack of experience, which seemed to really offend!).

In the end I decided not to complain as the overriding opinion here was that my expectations were too high and that this level of poor organisation was normal. She went on to make further errors in my 16 week appointment (I repeated that I still didn't have my mat ex form, she alleged she'd sorted it, it wasn't sorted, she again ignored subsequent communications about it - it only got sorted when I went via my GP, who agreed with me that it was poor that I was having to chase a basic admin task 16 weeks down the line). I've since been told I'm getting a new midwife anyway as the one I had is now hospital based.

If you're not happy, go with your gut and at the very least flag your concerns about the system.

It's such a precious and special time - I'd definitely ask for a different midwife! X

I did and put in a full complaint about my first midwife - she was utterly vile to me on my booking in appointment and ruined an experience I’d waited 10 years for 😢😢

I was given a new midwife who was amazing and cared for me in my subsequent two pregnancies.

Good luck x

Yes I did, my first midwife was horrible, rude and quite intimidating so I rang up the health centre and they put me in touch with whoever sorted it out. I had the name of a nice midwife who I asked to be changed to, that seemed to make it easier.

Personally I would see if you can change midwife. I really wish I had with my first.

I have my booking appointment this week for my second and really hoping I get someone different. The positive thing is when you actually give birth then you have whoever is in at the hospital.

I remember this thread and did think people were being particularly unfair to you but my comments probably disappeared in the barrage of people saying it's normal.

When you have your first, you don't know what to expect and therefore just go with things. I have definitely learnt things which I'm doing differently this time around.

Hope things are improving with your care and if not do speak up.

Update. It went really well. I think that being super sick made the appointment worse last time. The community midwife answered all my questions in much more detail so I felt much much better.

I had about 6 different midwives across my pregnancy. Can’t remember any of them in any detail and it was only in 2023! It’s hard to imagine having a consistent person, good or bad.

Yes, I requested a new one after my booking appointment. It was fairly easy.

It must depend what area you are in as I've had the same community midwife for all appointments..... and I also had her when I was pregnant with DD1