Have you recently used antenatal, postnatal, or early years services in the UK? Tell a Cross Government Group on Early Years Family Support, about your experiences - £300 to be won!

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As lots of Mumsnet users will know, having a new baby can be incredibly exciting and rewarding - but it can also be really challenging, and lots of new parents make use of classes and services to try to find information, get support, or just make some fellow new-parent friends.

A UK Government Ministerial Group on Early Years Family Support has been set up to improve these services, and its members want to hear about Mumsnet users’ experiences. They want to hear your feedback about pregnancy, baby and parenting services offered across the UK by the NHS, local government and charities. This includes (but isn’t limited to) help from health visitors, ante- and post-natal classes, breastfeeding support, parenting classes and peer support groups; the sort of thing you’d access if you are expecting a child or have a child under 2. Part of the Group‘s focus is perinatal mental health and how to effectively support wellbeing for babies and new parents.

Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons and Chair of the Group, says: “The importance of the first 1,001 days of a child’s life has been a personal passion of mine for a long time. I am so looking forward to working with Mumsnet to hear about your experiences as an expectant or new parent. Your feedback will help us shape future services for other parents and babies.”

So please tell us about what services you are currently using or have recently used, how you came to find them (and how easy this was), whether they were compassionate, effective, fun and/or useful (or not), and how you think support for new families could be improved.

If you’ve got any suggestions for additional services you’d have liked to use that don’t exist or you couldn’t access, please let us know about those too. We’d also love to hear about the importance of location for you when you choose between services.

Everyone who shares their experiences of pregnancy and baby services they have used will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks

MNHQ

Terms and conditions apply

Sorry long post but quite passionate about some of this!
I had good antenatal care from both the midwife and my GP (I had severe sickness which they ended up medicating). I attended 2 antenatal classes, the first one about the birth was with my husband and was mostly useful, the second was about looking after the baby. My husband was not allowed to attend the second class which frankly in this day and age is appalling (who was to say it wasn't going to be him staying at home?!).

I had hoped for a birth at our local (stand alone) birth centre as I was considered low risk. Sadly this was not to be due to my labour progressing very slowly. The staff at the birth centre were lovely and saw me several times whilst I was in the early stages of labour and encouraged me to go to the hospital. My experience in hospital was mixed; I asked to speak to an anaesthetist about an epidural (due to previous complications I'd had following a lumbar puncture) when I was admitted at 7am (4cm dilated) but didn't see one until 6pm (still 4cm!) by which point it just needed doing. I'm also unsure as to why they left me so long before intervention. Eventually my DD was delivered in theatre by forceps - the doctors, midwife and theatre team who delivered her were all amazing. DD ended up in SCBU for a few days and both of us spent 5 days in hospital after her birth. I can't really fault the care I received (although I had to wait over 8 hours to meet my daughter as they wouldn't let me out of the delivery room to go see her for several hours). The midwives and nurses in SCBU all helped me initiate breastfeeding and were on call night and day to help me latch.
Once out of hospital the community midwife was super and wouldn't discharge me until we were up and running with feeding. My health visitor has also been fantastic, made several visits and stayed in contact via phone or email. I gave also found the staff at the local children's centres to be fantastic. I've had a love hate relationship with breastfeeding but at all times I've never felt judged or pressured. Ive had support to keep going but equally felt that if I chose to stop it's ok.
I was diagnosed with PND by my GP at 6 weeks and has been on anti depressants since about 9 weeks. The GP support has been amazing. My main concern is that I was referred for counselling in October but did not receive an appointment until February. I'm fortunate that I was able to afford to pay to go privately (although that was all my maternity savings gone!). Other women may not be in such a position and that is simply not good enough, mental health desperately needs more funding.

My first child is now nearly 2 and I am pregnant with my second.
I found the antenatal care first time round good - regular checks, some with a midwife and later on with the GP. I also went to antenatal classes which were fine at covering what you'd need to know but there was a lot of emphasis on breastfeeding and dismissal of some of the reasons why you wouldn't go down that road. I felt like there could have been more opportunity to encourage building relationships with the other mums. Why should we have to pay for NCT classes to get this?

This time round I've had hardly any antenatal appointments being a second pregnancy which seemed odd at first but has been fine. They've still be quite thorough at checking me for UTIs etc and have a birth choices appointment coming up as well as another scan at 36 weeks because of a potential complication.

The midwifes at my chosen hospital were actually excellent during and post natal. I was well looked after and they were particularly good at making sure I was comfortable breastfeeding before leaving the hospital.

Health visitors were also great. I had a tear and they were good at checking on how well it was healing. Also spotted jaundice in my baby. A week after birth appointments were made at my nearest children's centre which isn't actually that close. Good thing we had a car and my DH could take me. It's a bit daunting travelling with your newborn for a set appointment so soon.

When my baby was about 6 weeks I did a baby massage class at another children's centre. Although the techniques I learnt were good, the teaching was pretty lacking and again I felt like there was no opportunity to chat with other mums.

This was one thing I really missed after the birth. I felt pretty isolated. In my borough they had recently decided to make stay and plays and other activities in their children's centres only available to the people who really needed them. Although I could understand this decision it seems unfair that just up the road in another borough there are lots of activities for new parents (restricted to people who live in that borough). I feel like it should be more consistent across different boroughs - maybe a top up from central government would help combat this?

Oh please could we also have more support with sleep problems? I also missed out on a session to help with weaning because the timing was all wrong. I wouldn't have even known it existed had I not gone to the children's centre for a baby health check.

I actually don't know what other services I could have made use of from a health visitor after my child turned 1. I haven't contacted them at all in the last year. Better advertising of these services would be great.

Brilliant.

2014 1st pregnancy all well, as was birth and labour. I was in a violent relationship and with the health of my amazing health visitor we fixed everything ❤️

My youngest was born in 2017 (will be 2 in Oct), I was diagnosed with pre eclampsia at 35 weeks, the hospital were extremely vigilant, seen my consultants who were fab and very thorough. Induction was successful, and baby born safe and well. I had a hemmorage after birth and was taken to theatre and the staff were brilliant there too. I was incredibly anxious, and given one to one care by a brilliant midwife, then when I was moved up to the wards the staff there were fab too.
I developed PND and PTSD and my health visitor was amazingly supportive, as were my GP, and my local mental health team. The only person I can fault in all of it is the midwife who delivered my son, I think it all happened so fast she didn't notice a piece of the placenta had come off inside my womb causing the hemmorage! Very scary stuff but we're both here ❤️

I cannot fault the support I've had for both my DC. From the very beginning with the GP confirming my pregnancy through to the Midwives & HV, I had no problems at all and always felt supported.

I did have a change of midwife part way through my pregnancy which initially I didn't think was good due to lack of consistency / continuity etc. Buy it wasn't an issue at all (I actually preferred the replacement!).
The only very slightly negative thing I can think of was when I was in labour with my second DC - I rang the hospital to say what was happening but the midwife I spoke to said I couldn't be in that much pain as I was still able to talk?! 🙄
Bit random but overall the pre / during / after care was fantastic.

This my first pregnancy and i was scared at first but just had ( saturday) second ante-natal ( with the purple hippo ante-natal group and im more exited about giving birth than i probably should be)but i dont care my son/baby will make me the proudest parent in the world and i cant wait to meet him and that is thanks to the wonderful group im in

Congratulations to @Sarah8418 whose name was pulled from the prize draw to win the £300 voucher!

Thank you so so much. I just screamed in the office at work! We're on a tight budget as we had to buy a new house for more room with our baby boy and all my spare money goes on him. This will enable me to get some new clothes for myself and make me feel better about myself. I'm so so happy. I never win anything! Xx

Hi Everyone

The Chair of the Early Years Inter-Ministerial Group, Andrea Leadsom would love to say the following:

"I want to thank all those who have taken the time to respond in this forum and help inform us about your experiences. Your personal testimonies are invaluable. I have read every post and will share them with ministerial colleagues as we work to improve the support available to families. I look forward to keeping you all posted in the coming months as this important work continues".