Changing midwife at 34 weeks?

[Novembermummy25]

I’ve been wanting to change my (community) midwife since about 20 weeks - now I’m 34 weeks and I’m still moaning about her to my partner! Have I left it too late to change now really? My partner came to my appointment today for the first time and says he gets why I don’t like her now. Just to use some examples, I had to have my blood tested three times because she got my name wrong on the label twice, she openly admitted she ‘doesn’t know what she did there’ when she measured me incorrectly at below the third centile, when I was actually 50th! She’s not passed on info about home birth classes and then asks me how they went - to which I say you never told me it was on like you were meant to!

She’s just very scatty and all over the place, she won’t be there at the birth as she doesn’t go on call for home births which is the only reason I’ve kept her as I’ve been telling myself she won’t be there for the most important bit but now I’m wondering if I should even suffer through the next appointments I do have?

She’s also booked my next appointment at 36 weeks for in the hospital although I’m sure as I’m having a home birth it should be at home. I did also made the mistake of googling her and unfortunatly there was an article about a death of a baby under her care, I have been telling myself when you’ve been a midwife for 40+ years you probably are unfortunately going to have some stillborns but I’m not sure if I’m convincing myself?

You might as well change unless it's hugely inconvenient. I was hugely unimpressed with both of the community midwives I had though - one was hopeless at measurements and plotting graphs (I had to replot it most times because she had done it wrong and it led to growth scans etc) and the other would just forgot appointments full stop. So you may get an improvement but the standard just seems pretty low. This was with two different health boards too. The midwives in hospital were much better though.

Change. I did at 34/35 weeks. In reality I just saw a different midwife at the 36 week appointment and that was it. I explicitly said I don’t want to see my midwife in postpartum visits either. Luckily I got someone different. I did kindly explain why and they were reasonable and said it was fine.

I had lots of little things that all added up. She wouldn’t test my iron levels at 16 weeks when I was so tired and just said it was normal in pregnancy ‘because it was tested at 8 weeks and was fine’. I went to my gp and they tested me and my iron was very low. I was almost passing out driving to work it was bad.

she also didn’t know what rsv was, I had to ask my gp for an appointment for it. My gp at this point was a bit puzzled because midwife’s usually handle maternity but they didn’t turn me away.

The point that tipped me at 32/33 weeks was when she said ‘what is your reason for having a csection? They won’t let you have one unless it’s medically needed’. I got into my car afterwards and just cried. I knew she was wrong but for a moment I felt awful for saying I wanted one and also nervous incase she was right and I had to go through induction. That’s the moment I never wanted to see her again, and thankfully I didn’t. I saw a consultant the week after and she booked in the csection.

I have no regrets about changing at 34/35 weeks. The only minor downside is I ended up seeing random members after that. Although one was incredibly helpful postpartum when I was really struggling with breastfeeding pain and a tongue tie, she got my baby to be seen days later when the usual wait is 3-4 weeks. Another midwife was surprised when I said we were being seen a few days later.

As pp said it’s variable who you get. There was one great midwife who I met. My care was better in 2023 than in 2025 though, not sure what happened.

Dd2 is 33 weeks and saw a different midwife last week who said her baby had stopped growing and she had to get to the hospital straightaway. Obviously it was a bit of a panic and the hospital said baby was growing perfectly normal and the midwife must have made a mistake! Dd2 is hoping it was just because she went on a different day she saw a different midwife and next time will be her normal one.

I changed complete trusts at 10 days before due date with no problems so changing midwife won’t be a problem.
however, just to add, measuring fundal height is completely subjective, lots of factors that determine results- different midwives, fetal position, maternal position, and bladder and stomach contents. It is not unusual to have off the chart measurements, and even growth scans are not 100% accurate either.
that said, you should be completely comfortable with the midwife that is providing your care.

You probably only have a handful of appointments left with her.
I saw my community midwife at 36, 38 and 40 weeks. She wasn't involved in the labour and only called me once after.
Our midwives are attached to our dr's surgery, so changing is quite problematic.
However, if you feel you or your baby are at risk, do it. If it's just because she's a bit irritating, I would just suck it up personally :-)

Change now! My Midwife told me at about your stage to read the Preeclampsia pamphlets as she 'expected me in with it in the next few weeks' (didn't get it), she told me there was too much fluid using the 'tap test' and that this would result in my baby being born early so that their lungs wouldn't be fully developed (there is no such thing as the 'tap test' and no way for her to know whether there was too much fluid - but even if there was, this happens sometimes and usually just goes away without treatment) - I was given no help with this as I had a consultant appointment the following week - this meant I didn't sleep for several days with worry! The last thing she did was, post birth, come to remove staples but managed to get her 'instrument' the wrong way round so that she poked the staples further in to me rather than ping them out - and then fiddled around trying to rectify this with no pain relief ... I ended up stopping her and went into the maternity ward where they managed to remove it with a lot less trouble! I specifically saw one of my doctors and asked whether I would be able to opt for a different M/W if I got pregnant again and they confirmed that I would be able to...

Change. I am going to try to do the same. Mine seems almost unable to use her computer or retain info accurately in her head long enough to be able to fill in the computer forms. She had put my due date at a completely random date 3 weeks late