what happens if I don't go to my mw appts?

[elportodelgato]

This is my second pregnancy and to be perfectly honest, I am just far too busy to take much notice of what I'm meant to be doing. For example, I ate an enormous piece of brie over the weekend without even remembering that I'm not meant to but then thinking 'well why the hell shouldn't I?!' I mean really, my mum seemed to get through it all OK without these prescriptive guidelines. I had a very straightforward pregnancy and labour with my DD and no reason to think it will be any different this time.

Anyway - I have already had one very looooong and unproductive meeting with my mw where she asked me every question she could think of, and then a few more. It took about 90 mins altogether as she was late arriving, moved at the speed of a sloth, just took bloody ages. All the time I kept mentioning how I work fulltime, have a long commute, don't have much flexibility etc. Yes, I know my employer will give me time off for these appointments but IIRC from last time, they just ask you various questions, take some urine, prod you a lot (in the later stages) and I can't see the point. So what will happen if I just stop turning up for these appointments? Will the mw police come and get me? I'm assuming that as long as I am feeling OK and getting bigger then everything is alright and I don't really need to see them. I am ludicrously low-risk and not at all stressed/

Can someone tell me either a) that yes it is OK for me to ignore the blimming mw appointments or b) explain to me why it's so important that I attend them.

While we're at it, if anyone has any really good reasons why I shouldn't be eating soft cheese and drinking a glass of wine at the weekend, I'd love to hear those too.

Can you tell that I am feeling HORMONAL today??

I understand your frustration.

The MW appointment times round here seem to be between about 11 and 3, which like you say, cocks up a larger part of the working day than if you could put them either at the beginning or end.

I go to all my appointments as this is my first pregnancy and I feel like I SHOULD.

I do think they could loan pregnant women a blood pressure cuff for the duration of their pregnancy and give them some urine dip sticks and we could all save the NHS a pile of money. After all that's all they seem to check at the appointments.

I'm going to make a massive assumption here that you work in the private sector - because it sounds like (like me) you get frustrated by the lack of productivity of it all. e.g. MW's lack of time management (and I know emergencies happen, but when they're running late for EVERY app' somethings not right.)
I get really hacked off that the NHS waste resources (in this case the resource is time) in a way that would never be tollerated in industry and then complain about being short of staff.

Whether the milk is pasteurised is not really relevant, unfortunately. The general advice now is that hard cheese is considered safe as it has a high salt content and so bacteria of any description find it pretty hard live happily in it. Soft, mould ripened cheese (brie, camembert, stilton, etc) are made to allow bacterial growth - and its nigh on impossible to control which bacteria grow. Pasteurisation will remove bacteria before the cheese is made but pasteurised milk will not be resistant to colonisation if its infected at a later stage. Listeria is particularly concerning as the bacteria can multiply quite happily at normal fridge temperatures, which is too cold for most.

Everything in life is a balance of risk. If you decide the risk is acceptably low that's fine - but you're also accepting that you may have to live with the consequences. It is a free country

You have to remember here that in any risk there are 2 factors

1. How likely the thing is to happen
2. How serious the consequences are.

Getting listeria from cheese, toxoplasmosis from undercooked meat or salmonella from raw egg are all pretty unlikely (dont forget though in pregnancy your immune system is depressed so you are more prone to infection)

HOWEVER

the consequences are very very serious indeed if you do get the infection.

Therefore there are lots of people who have taken the risk and got away with it - as the incidence level is low. Hence lots of people are able to say they ate runny eggs/Brie/whatever and nothing happened. But for those unlucky few who do pick up one of these infections then the results are tragic.

At the end of the day its an informed choice.

Don't bother with the midwife but go to GP at a time that suits you at end of pregnancy, say at 28, 34, 36 and 38 weeks to have blood pressure and urine checked.

You could check BP and urine yourself but then you'd be labelled high risk for not having attended ante natal appointments.

The brie was probably pasturised - and so was fine.

I would go. I am also on pg number 2 and I have to say my treatment has been pretty haphazard and I've never seen the same midwife twice, but at the same time they did pick up on 2 urine infections at different times which both need antibiotics. If left untreated they could have caused serious harm to my baby or premature labour. I had no symptoms so if it hadn't been for the appointments I would never have known. Just because you feel fine doesn't necessarily mean that it is, don't want to sound all doom and gloom but probably worth going.

I too am very busy and this is my 4th pregnancy. I have had 3 low risk textbook homebirths so far.

However, no pregnancy is the same and I am not a qualified medical professional either. I do not assume, despite having 11 weeks left, that this birth will be as textbook as the last 3; because I know that just as each of my DCs are different, so are births.

Sometimes shit happens that is completely unbeknown to pregnant women, and symptomless.

Just because you are getting bigger and feel ok doesn't really mean a great deal!
Would you ever forgive yourself if by not attending these apparently tedious appts, you may have potentially saved your baby or yourself from something life threatening?

It may sound dramatic but think about it; I mean yes, we all have important business to attend to, but what is your priority exactly?
The MWs have important stuff to deal with also, and I realise everyone is individual/has different experiences, but their job is to safeguard you and your baby throughout pregnancy and birth.

It's a 2 sided thing, surely? I mean, you don't want to make the time for them, but presumably you want them around to help deliver your baby/ put your mind at rest if anything did panic you? Bit cheeky innit??!!

MWs are overstretched too and their job is probably a lot more time consuming and stressful than your daily commute.
Sorry to be so blunt; my hormones are VERY bad this time around...

All the stuff we're notallowed, might harm the baby... but probably won't

A glass of red wine... sigh..DO IT

A bit of Brie... Christ, it'll be fine. It's not like you're wanting crack

Missing MW appts.... Not much. Mine are fairly pointless. Checks my blood pressure, after i've nipped home in my lunch break and walked to the surgery, so it never represents my actual pressure. Dipstick urine... again, that's always fine too

nothing else really happens

'how are you?'
'Ok... normal pregnancy stuff... nothing special'
'ok, see you next time'

They always seem a bit disappointed when I'm not impressed by the heartbeat on the handheld thingy too, but I can feel baby wriggling and burrowing all the time now...

Isn't it weird what we find ace and what we're not bothered about imissredwine? The heartbeat was my favourite thing ever, the scans I could take or leave. Although I did have a lot of them, maybe I was jaded by the end.

I would go and have bp checked if nothing else, as I have had ludicrously high blood pressure at times and felt absolutely on top of the world- no symptoms whatsoever

also had no symptoms with pre-eclampsia, which was picked up in tests in 2nd pregnancy

It's weird that you see the tests as pointless because they come back as normal, imissredwine. The logic there is so twisted that I can't really be bothered to explain how ignorant that view of the situation is.

If you miss three appts in a row here (and at other trust I have worked at) then we refer to social services. They will then investigate you, very annoying and hassley. So make sure you go to at least every third one. During the course of your routine antenatal care, your midwife is checking for UTIs, early signs of diabetes, pre-eclampsia, anaemia, thrombocytopaenia, presence of antibodies, haemoglobinopathies, BBIs, essential hypertension, cardiac irregularities, persistent dehydration, IUGR, SFD, LFD, oligohydramnios, polyhydramnios, DVT, HELLP, malposition, malpresentation and DV. If you can be positive that none of these are going to apply to you in this pregnancy, then you may as well not go, I suppose.

Harder IF they were genuinely checking for those things it would be worthwhile.
However it seems that some of us just get the "how are you? " question then get our answer ignored anyway. e.g. last time I told her I was constipated due to the iron tablets (low iron picked up by my GP not her) and she wrote in my notes that I had diorhea (sp?)
I go to my appointments because I would hate myself if something went wrong, but that doesn't stop me being shocked by the lack of dilligence and professionalism shown by all 3 midwives I've seen so far.

The "My Mum ate soft cheese/liver/etc and there's nothing wrong with me" argument is interesting considering there has been a 20% reduction in stillbirths in this country since 1970...

Can you really not manage without brie and booze for a few months? I can still remember the ecstasy of eating almost my body weight in parma ham and other "forbidden" food after DS2 was born. Had I eaten any whilst I was pregnant my pleasure would have been tinged with guilt and worry.

Hi all, I'm sorry I disappeared off the thread today (work + toddler + husband away = not much time on mn). It's really interesting reading your responses and seeing how differently everyone feels.

HarderToKidnap, I really would not have known that they are looking out for signs of all those possible problems, and that's definitely something to think about. I am prone to UTIs so I probably do need to keep going and getting the urine test. I think I am resigned to attending the appointments

But my experience of mws generally is much closer to that of imissredwine. Last time with DD they would say 'how are you?' and I'd say 'oh my sciatic nerve is trapped, I'm constipated etc etc' and they'd go 'oh yeah, well you're pregnant, what did you expect?' and that seemed to be the standard response to any symptoms I mentioned. I just started saying 'fine thanks' because it was easier. And my God I wish I had not mentioned at my booking appt that I had mild PND last time round either, that just opened up a huge can of worms...

One thing I am really surprised about is those stats for listeria from Tangle - only 4 babies? the chances of miscarriage are about 1% throughout pregnancy anyway, this seems an absolutely tiny tiny risk, I had no idea it was so small. God knows what the chances are of me being run over in the next 5 months but I imagine much higher.

TBH I think I'm going to continue pretty much as I have been, I don't go out of my way to gorge on pate and camembert, but I will eat it on occasion. Similarly I am going to keep having my weekly glass of wine. Perhaps I'm just a bit sick of the feeling of being public property, where everyone thinks they can tell you what to do and what to eat and drink. It really winds me up and with this cocktail of hormones, I don't have much patience.

Mind you, I would draw the line somewhere. I had an acquaintance who continued to smoke throughout her pregnancy, often popping outside the pub for a fag, and then being geniunely offended when people stared at her in the street. I was pretty myself, I mean you (rightly) just don't see a pregnant woman smoking any more... it was a real no-brainer for me to stop as soon as we started TTC DD

It hadn't occurred to me you could just go and see the gp instead, I think I miht start doing that as I can book appts any day of the week any time which wokld be much easier.

I will still eat any cheese I fancy, the odds are tiny and as you say I am more likely to get run over. I am sure one glass of wine a week has a negligible effect but. Tbh foetal alcohol syndrome seems more likely to me than catching listeria from a piece of cheese as every time you drink alcohol you are technically affecting the baby and they don't know what the safe limit is so I don't drink when pg. Anyone who smokes is definitely adversely affecting their baby IMO and I find this pretty immoral.

I'm on pg2, and have just postponed my mw appointment as it clashed with the time i took my 14month old to swimming. they wouldn't offer me any other time even though i booked way in advance claiming that they fill the slots in order so the mw isn't waiting around.

My mw appointment takes 2 seconds as she has no interest in talking to me and i feel like its a complete waste of time, so i go on the off chance to get urine bp tested even though i feel fine and very low risk. I think most mw's are self absorbed and use the excuse about focuising on more needy cases etc, but i've had friends with tough pregnancies and they have felt like they don't get listened too as well. I think A HAPPY MUM IS THE BEST PREGNANCY, SO IF THE ODD GLASS OF WINE MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER THEN DO IT, IF FOLLOWING THE RULES TO THE DOT MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER DO IT. You have to do what feels right for you. But try not to put yourself at risk as it would be hard to deal with your conscience.

From a person who first time round worked 60 hrs per week and commuted about 600 miles per week right up until due date as i felt fine I do feel for you as my mw kept on my case that i should rest, when actually i felt a lot better working and knowing i was earning money to make sure i could enjoy the time with my ds.

Saw my midwife today for 36wk app.
She was running 40mins late with her appointments (which made me go over my parking time - would have been livid if I'd got a ticket)
Checked my BP, listened to heartbeat, took some blood.
I had a couple of questions to ask but she was rushing me out the door to make up time.
I was out of there in 6 mins. (Timed it as this threat was on my mind!)

my midwife is the most evil person ive ever met - extremly abrupt and insulting about my extremly bad stretch marks - she lost my blood group and hasnt bothered to refer me for diabeties testing which she said she would do cus of family history- she gives u the appointment with no choice of time (and its a pain as im self employed) she never listens to me - doesnt care and never even weighed me - she must have put my weight down from the last time i was weighed there which was god knows when - wen i got home she was out by 21 kilos!!!! i got the lady that took my blood to change it - im only going until i get my claim form for my health in preg grant then im not going to bother unless i have concerns - i feel i no my body better than her. on the other hand my friend has got her and she told her she was concerned cus her baby was 5 weeks bigger than it was supposed to be- after 2 scans it was proved perfectly the right size!!!