Antiquated attitiudes of Midwife's and Health visitors

[Sam29]

Am 36 weeks pg. and so attending Parentcraft and ante-natal classes all over the place. I am finding the attitudes of HV's and mwives really old fashioned in terms of how they present the relationship side of things. Me and my dh sit there in amazement as they come out with things like (and this is a quote from last night's labour talk) " and girls, make sure you have made some sandwiches for your chap for labour as he will be in there for some time with you" . MAKE YOUR OWN SANDWICHES I say, think as the one who is huge and nervous I will have better things to think about / do. And this is by no means the only example. When the general approach is that men are poor incapable creatures who will starve within 24hrs of us being "out of action" it is not surprising that they act like this is the case. One HV last week suggested that one thing the "boys" could do to "help" out in the first few weeks or months was to "BABYSIT"!!!!! Am I the only one who fails to see that this does not send out a good message on parenting / relationships to men?
Needed to get taht off my chest...
And no, my dh is not perfect but he certainly knows where the hoover is, how to iron and how to feed himself and me!

Agree completely. At my class they said "your husband can do some late evening feeds because he'll be watching the football then anyway" ! (that was the 2nd one and the last one I went to!)

Oooh goody... a whinge thread.

With apologies to mears and the other midwives on mumsnet.

We lasted one and a half antenatal classes before dh and I thought sod this, we can learn more from books. We sat, jaws dropped open at our first ante-natal class when the midwife's opening sentence was "Now you know your baby's floating in water." This was 5 minutes after introducing ourselves to the group as a whole and discovering that all of us were middle aged middle class professionals, perfectly capable of reading the most basic health information. I was p*ed off at the constant use of baby language; poos, wees tinkle...for God's sake what's wrong with the word genitals?

The midwife seemed taken aback when we asked questions that involved words of more than one syllable. The only amusing part was watching her evade the question about high caesearian rates with all the skill of a politician caught shagging his secretary.

You're right Sam29, they seem to live in some mad 50's world where men go out hunter gathering and women stay at home looking after the house. There seemed to be this idea that getting your man to make a cup of tea would be a great sacrifice on his part, but sooo appreciated by the poor worn out woman. DH ran into our midwife in the doctor's surgery last week. He said she looked slightly worried when he told her that he's the major caregiver (I work). She was probably itching to ring social services since she obviously wouldn't be fed properly, though you only have to look at her big fat belly to know that couldn't possibly be true.

I always thought the huge advantage of having placenta praevia was that I didn't go to a single antenatal class! Thanks for making me even more grateful. My midwife is a very sweet person, but totally, utterly useless at offering any practical help or information. Haven't seen her since since ds was about six months old. Someone else did his eight month check - and er, that's it.

Agree that these daft pronouncements are annoying and don't apply to those of us lucky enough to have good partners. But I do wonder whether the poor old HVs etc were trying to issue a light-hearted warning that some men WILL think of being left with the baby as "baby-sitting" and WILL get huffy if their needs are ignored...there are threads on this site in which brilliant, caring mums talk about being taken very much for granted by thoughtless partners post-birth. And, dare I say it, I bet a lot of those women did not think it would be that way either...
I guess in a largish group like hospital ante-natal classes the tone and content is going to be irrelevant and annoying to some participants... I certainly found this with ours. But I think they were trying to keep it jokey, however ill-judged!

In one of our anti natal classes we had a different midwife who specialised in home births. She opened with asking why more people weren't going for home births in an accusatory tone. To lighten the atmosphere I said "well, personally, I'm going into hospital for the drugs... I want the epidural".

Big mistake. She gave me a lecture about how wrong my choice was, telling me how women in africa she'd worked with only had half a panadol for a caesarian. (Hmm, if africa is so into natural home births, how come they were having caesarians at all?! Should have thought about that at the time). She then "picked" on me for the entire class, laying into me for my choice of birth, making snide comments all the way through not missing any opportunity to have a jibe and probably wondered why no-one in the class contributed or answered her further questions.

If I hadn't been hormonal and generally cheesed off with not seeing the same midwife twice throughout my pregnancy, I would have stuck up for myself more or reported her, but it just didn't seem worth the hassle at the time.

Marina - so agree with your post. I hear blokes at work, supposedly 'middle-class' referring to 'babysitting' their children and my mother alwasy reminded me that, one of the advantages for me of being a single mother was that I wouldn't have to take care of another 'child' as well. And my dad wasn't so bad round the house.

Midwives are probably addressing a reality. Mine was lovely, in her 50's, bike-riding, brisk, efficient, no-nonsense, seen-it-all, deeply reassuring about my daughter's hyper-flexible joints when the hospital doctors had panicked me into thinking she woudn't be able to walk, constantly telling us about her weak pelvic floor - I loved her!

Get stuck in everybody - nearly said ladies! Parentcraft kills me most of the time, it has hardly moved on for years. Some midwives are excellent at it and others are plain useless. I went to classes muself just to be treated like an ordinary mum, which I was. The only good bit was relaxation with the physio. Didn't have couples classes in my day Dads only came for the tour of the hospital and labour ward. When we did a tour of the hospital my poor dh got such a slagging. He had never seen the place before. Difficult to pitch information for everybody but a lot more could be done to improve the service I think.

One big issue I had was that the midwives and health visitors gave contradictory advice - they took alternate classes.

went to private ante-natal classes run by fairly commonsense woman who put lots of emphasis on support esp. from spouse/partner during first few wks. the hospital class I went to was much more trad. The only thing I would have liked would be to have a midwife who was a mother doing the classes - lots of ours were v young, childless but keen!

Ha!Sandwhiches-mine didn't need any sandwhiches,he was too busy scoffing my roast chicken dinner and watching kojak in the delivery room.

My complaint was not actually the midwifes, it was the other women. Sorry but it's true. I went 2nd time around (1st was prem) and couldn't beleive some of the women there. They were so concerned about the actual delivery (to the point of worrying they would get pulled off the bed by a forcepts delivery!) that we never ever managed to get any useful information.

Went to parentcraft classes and felt they dealt too much with the birth and nothing about taking the baby home etc. Found them pretty useless. Also if anyone had decided to bottle feed their baby then they wouldn't have found anything out there because they refused to even discuss the subject. After my other thread whinging about my HV I would like to point out that I had a wonderful midwife, she'd had children herself, was extremely sensible and answered any daft questions I had to ask her. She was fantastic and if she'd been my HV I certainly wouldn't be complaining now. If we decide to have another baby I would ask for her again.

I LOVED the knitted womb and cervix that the MW's are issued with (or do they have to make it themselves!) for these classes. I was rather embarrassed during the class because it seemed that I was the only mum-to-be there that could answer any of the questions during the Q&A etc, perhaps because I'd had several friends (and their daughters) with new babies a few months before me, and read a lot. I don't recall being offered any parentcraft classes.

I was lucky in that the MW who took the antenatal class at which I was "star pupil" was actually on duty to deliver DS! I hadn't discussed it with anyone (thought it would be impossible due to medical problems) but she pushed me to have a very active birth, perhaps for the benefit of the student MW's present, which was really great.

Our parentcraft classes were great. She gave out a list of chores in the house and asked us to discuss who does them now and how we thought that might change after the baby arrived.

Unfortunately for me, dh already did most of them (although we disagreed on how much, I was sure I did SOME stuff around the house...)

Oh I am glad to see Dh and I were not the only ones - we lasted one night and that was it .. and I must agree - some of the other faters were horrible - it was like my worstnightmare - stuck at a class full of 'essex boys' just like my 13 - 16 yo pupils at school. That night they focused on giving birth with the knitted whatever - and for me it was a total waste of time - emergency caesarean at 37 1/2 weeks and baby fed with a nasal gastric tube for the first ten weeks of her life - first three in special care then home for two and then back to hospital for another three weeks.

No one mentions what happens if your baby ends up in special care - the hospital tour was not even worth the hour!!

My midwife was great - in the appointments I had with her - because I read so much - I felt better prepared by the books i had read, close friend and sil who had given births two months prior.

Agree with Crunchie. I went to only one antenatal class when i was expecting my dd. I didn't go back to any more because I was frankly more scared and upset by some of the comments made by other mums to be. I decided to read up on anything that was worrying me and put any questions to my own midwife who was absolute brilliant (as are all the midwives in Plymouth & Tavistock )

At least you didn't all look fools at your classes. I was definitely regarded as the class dunce - I got the time for the first class wrong, and wandered in oblivious, half an hour into the first session, with all the other mums looking at me....then to make matters worse, we got to the bit where she talked about the physiology - showing the womb opening up, and, I swear it was the heat and not queasiness, but I suddenly began to sway - the mw looked at me kindly, but in a kind of 'Oh it would be you' way, and suggested I went outside. So I went out and didn't quite faint (it was REALLY REALLY hot in there), and she said something at the end like 'well we always have one'. But then, imagine my embarrassment when the following week, again due to the heat and number of ladies in the room, I again had to leave the room in order to faint. All the mums were very sweet, but definitely condescending and superior. It wasn't helped that I look really young, and they all thought I was a teenager, when they were all mid-30s professional women!

I agree with the sentiments expressed on this hilarious thread.
I can't remember much about our antenatal classes, but I do remember a pregnant mum of one I ran into recently telling me she had arranged for her sister and mother to come and help out while she was in hospital after giving birth to number 2, because her husband would be left alone with their child and it would be so hard on him. Whaaaaaaat?

My favourite story (true!) is a friend of mine, an aspiring actress, several years ago, had been offered a job as one of those National Trust Tour Guides who dress up in period costumes and act the part of lady of the manor or servant girl etc. She was invited to a 'workshop' where they would all be given some training and a sort of initiation. I must add here that she is terribly, terribly short sighted but didn't want to wear her glasses out of vanity. The journey to an unfamiliar part of London was horrific, so she wasn't at all surprised that when she found the class she was already late and tried to sneak in the back. The other 'actors' were already doing trust & warmup exercises when she got there, including lying on their back and deep breathing. She just quietly go on with it for a while. They a woman starting talking about the importance of breathing then did some other strange exercises. Eventually he thought it was a bit odd and peered about her. Everyone was heavily pregnant. She was in the wrong room and, yes, it was an antenatal class. She made her excuses and left, a nice shade of scarlet.

I attended daytime classes without DH who was working overseas.

I left two of the classes in tears - one because we were just left in front of a birth video. Another because it was the 'here's the instruments we use to get your baby out' class.

The classes stripped me of the little confidence I had in my ability to give birth and the midwives debreifing their own experiences was not very professional IMO.

This is interesting reading. I didn't go to any antenatal classes, glad I didn't too from reading some of these stories. Mainly because I couldn't be arsed, not because I thought I knew it all. My midwives were absolutely brilliant and fantastic and supportive and everything I could have wished for though, I have to say. I sent them a case of wine in a fit of post natal euphoria and gratitude. HV was another story though, told me mango was fattening (for ds at 8 mths or something) - err, no it's not you daft moo! I was so not with it at the time though I didn't disagree with her, just nodded blankly and went home to look it up.

I agree that the only useful part of the antenatal classes was the woman who came in to teach breathing.

With regards to the feeding issue, I was made to feel like a leper becasue we were made to put our hands up who was going to breastfeed and I was the only one who wasn't. Everyone turned to look at me as though I was the worst woman on earth. This pressure actually made me even more determined not to try when I had been wavering.

Apart from a video on breastfeeding the classes did not cover anything after the birth excpet for a little bit on pelvic floor and the 6 week check.

I also saw a different midwife every appointment so was unable to build up enough of a relationship to discuss my fears.

DH and I arrived at the hall for our first NCT class and were shocked to see many of the people standing outside smoking. We went in, took our seats and, looking around, realised there weren't many bumps. Seeing our puzzled expressions someone kindly pointed out that NCT was next door, and we were infact attending an AA meeting.

Azure, that's a great story.
If your antenatal classes were like mine the AA meeting would have been more helpful