The NHS is run by misogynists, say women forced to give birth alone

[MillyMollyFarmer]

Tory MP Alicia Kearns has been running a campaign to make all NHS trusts change the policies around women giving birth and for pregnancy check ups during Covid. It’s horrific but I didn’t realise it was still ongoing now. This includes women who have lost their babies and have to proceed with the process alone as partners wait outside. I’m so utterly horrified at the inhumane way they are dealing with this. It’s unnecessary. Apparently Boris has backed calls but some trusts are just ignoring women’s requests. I find this so upsetting.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8751493/How-one-pregnant-MP-fighting-stop-trauma-lone-births-caused-Covid-rules.html

Being in Labour with a stillbirth is horrific and a woman should be able to have someone of her choosing with her for support.

But having had 2 difficult labours I didn't find my husbands presence essential, I was much more in need of the support the midwives provided and he was tucked away in a corner whilst they got on and did their job.

I appreciate I don't speak for all women (or partners)

For women who have had a traumatic birth in the past, particularly if the trauma was mostly or partly due to the way she was treated by a midwife, the support of midwives is absolutely not sufficient.

I would have refused to go into hospital alone, without either my DH or my doula, because although rationally I knew that it was unlikely I would be so unlucky with my midwife second time around, the prospect of having to negotiate with an unknown midwife alone was too anxiety inducing for me.

She's my MP. I'm really surprised that she is standing up for women here,because in her correspondence with me,it was painfully evident
that she had been thoroughly Stonewalled.
She is due to have a baby in January,so she has a dog in this fight. She's all over local social media trumpeting her campaign,( which I agree with) but I do find it hypocritical.

It's not her campaign as such. She's just joined in. Probably because she's pregnant herself.

A woman has recently died, alone, after being in hospital alone and not permitted visitors for months.
During that time, she had numerous procedures, alone. If that same woman had, among all the procedures and scans, had a pregnancy scan, would it be appalling to exclude her husband, just for that single one, out of all others? What it be more, or less, appalling than spending months in hospital without a visitor then dying, alone?
The words 'sense of proportion ' and 'sense of entitlement ' may come to mind.

So it's ok to restrict the rights of pregnant and birthing women because other patients have been treated appallingly?

What is wrong with you people?!

What happened to that woman was wrong. All seriously ill patients should be allowed to have visitors.

But it's actually not relevant to this particular campaign.

As people often say, it's not a race to the bottom FFS.

Why does every thread about women and/or race have so much whataboutery on it?

I actually needed my DP when I was induced due to the fact the staff refused to listen to me. He noticed it himself that when I said something they didn't listen but when he repeated it they did, so it got to the point where he just went to talk to them. In our case it was a sex and race issue.

When I told my DP about the Covid antenatal policies he was pissed off. He's had lots of shit when it has come to the birth of his children plus knows other people who have, if Covid was going on it would have been far worse.

Why does every thread about women and/or race have so much whataboutery on it?

Because we must always think of others first and we must never, ever complain.

The fact is that people campaign about single issues that they care about, and sometimes those campaigns are powerful precisely because they are focused on a single issue. So why can't health care be a single issue?

So it's ok to restrict the rights of pregnant and birthing women because other patients have been treated appallingly? No, nobody should be treated appallingly.

What is wrong with you people?! They (you?) can only focus on one thing and the big picture eludes them?

So why can't health care be a single issue?

It is for some. You can start your own health care post. My post is about this very specific campaign.

So why can't health care be a single issue?

Because it isn't a single issue. Healthcare is a huge umbrella, and ranges from mental health care provision, through to someone going into someone's home to change their bandage everyday- and everything in between. To count it all as a single issue doesn't account for the fact that it's actual people involved, encompasses a huge breadth of provision, and the issues etc will vary immensely.

If I had a community nurse visit daily for example, my needs would be very different to someone who has just been sectioned. What provision would you say was fair? If the nurse cannot visit me in my home anymore because of the risk, do we then just withdraw medical care from the person has been sectioned too, as it's obviously all the same singular entity? Do we all go without because it's not possible in one area? Of course that could be argued to be the 'fairest' way, but as anyone who has worked in healthcare knows, life isn't fair. And justifying not doing something because of someone else isn't fair either, ie well they aren't allowed visitors we will justify no one else being allowed them either by saying they would be annoyed.

If people are concerned about other areas which is understandable, why not start a discussion about it? Engage your MP?

@MillyMollyFarmer

I think that she was politely requesting you don't derail a discussion specifically about women and birth to talk about something else

Yes. Thanks Queen 👑

But the discussion isn't about women and birthing. It is about what the NHS can currently, safely, provide.

It doesn't matter how much you try to make it a feminist issue it isn't. Some elements affect women, some affect men. It's not targeted at women, women aren't being singled out and yes, sorry op, you're frothing and rude.

Dispatching someone's experience of cancer diagnosis under these restrictions as "man's trouble" (because it was a man but could easily and equally have been a women) is no better than all the dismissal of women that has happened until here. Dont beat em join em is not a philosophy I'm going to sign up to - as a feminist, mother, women or even human.

'Was it meant to be polite OP? Because on first reading it read to me like it was snarky. Perhaps that wasn’t intentional, and that is the problem with the written word I suppose. But it certainly didn’t convey sympathy for a woman whose husband is facing a life threatening cancer diagnosis, which is a horrible situation for somebody to find himself in regardless of whether you think it is relevant to this thread or not.'

I agree with this. OP, I have sympathy with your argument (although across nine pregnancies, six of which ended in loss, I have been to many, many scans with good and bad outcomes, had ERPCs etc alone and I gave birth to one of my three children alone due to lack of other childcare). But you're being quite abrasive and you've been very belittling and dismissive towards another woman who is clearly going through somethng awful with her husband.

I’m afraid you don’t decide what a thread I started is about. This is about a specific maternity campaign.

It people are at the pub drinking, I think we can get partners or doulas in the birthing room and that is currently allowable under the restrictions. What is happening is some Trusts are not following the guidelines that allow this.

But you're being quite abrasive and you've been very belittling and dismissive towards another woman who is clearly going through somethng awful with her husband.

I don’t capitulate to emotional manipulation. I’m not abrasive, I’m just sticking to my thread topic. I don’t think it’s fair to come on a thread and introduce another topic as a way to dismiss the concerns women have. I don’t feel the need to compare women’s issues with other terrible or sad problems out there in the world. You don’t think I could one-up that post with another terrible thing happening in my life not relevant to the thread? It’s not fair to use something like that to get the conversation going in a different direction and to attack the OP for not responding in the way you think they should, by prioritising someone else. It’s simply not the same as giving birth, but I thought it would be far worse to try and create a hierarchy with pain and trauma stories by comparing them in a list. So I tried to stick to what I want to talk about. This maternity campaign.

Of course care of women during labour and childbirth is a feminist issue. Absolutely mad to suggest it isn’t.

I totally agree with you, OP, it is appalling that birth partners are restricted to this extent. It doesn’t even make much sense - most birth partners live with the mother, so surely if one had COVID the other would?! Plus, there are COVID tests which can get rapid results - other countries are using them at airports. Absolutely no idea why this isn’t considered a priority.

most birth partners live with the mother, so surely if one had COVID the other would?!

Yes, the spread between the mother and birth partner is not the issue, I guess it’s making sure the partner doesn’t bring it to hospital, but that’s true of a lot of people and measures to limit this risk are in place.

Ok, it's about women and birthing only. Nothing else shall be mentioned. 😇

So, under the current restrictions and issues the NHS is facing some women are not getting the same service they were previously for labour and birth? just like lots of people are not getting the same service they were before for many, many, many things aside from the lack of birth partner - in some but not all cases - what precisely is lacking?

It's only relatively recent that parents were even allowed to be in at a birth.

In the current climate I really don't see what is so terrible about not allowing a partner to attend at a scan. I was on my own for my scan and later when an amniocentesis test was done. No big deal.

aside from the lack of birth partner - in some but not all cases - what precisely is lacking?

Face to face midwife appointments are still suspended in some areas, and with it a lack of blood and urine tests- this can be really dangerous to both mother and baby. Pre-eclampsia for example doesn't always have obvious physical symptoms, those routine tests can and do save lives.

Some areas have zero postnatal care in place, and I don't just mean you can't get your baby weighed (although that is an issue), but absolutely nothing, including for those with postnatal depression (not sure about postnatal phycosis, but hope they can access the help they need otherwise that's a travesty).

A rise in stillbirths which the research mainly attributed to a lack of access to care during pregnancy, one London hospital published a report citing that stillbirths had increased 4 fold over a period during lockdown.

@Bufferingkisses why not start your own discussion about other departments then? No one is saying it's worse than others as it's not a competition, but this discussion is about maternity services, and not people dismissing it because other people are also suffering. I could understand referring to things such as well in perspective others have experienced x, y and z and that's important to consider; but not to keep trying shut it down because of that.

@Leafbeans I believe a lot of hospitals stopped providing home birth services as well (and think some still haven’t resumed) which removes that really basic right that women are the ones making a choice to come into a hospital and use the services there.

A lot of hospitals also stopped allowing water births at the beginning when they were unsure whether or not it could increase risk of transmission (although no evidence). Not sure if this is ongoing.

I think it’s important for hospitals to be clear and open and explain why decisions have been made, to show pros and cons have been weighed up very carefully. Accepting everything without question can easily lead to ‘because of covid’ being the quick go-to justification to pull choices away from women at every turn.

[quote Leafbeans]@Bufferingkisses why not start your own discussion about other departments then? No one is saying it's worse than others as it's not a competition, but this discussion is about maternity services, and not people dismissing it because other people are also suffering. I could understand referring to things such as well in perspective others have experienced x, y and z and that's important to consider; but not to keep trying shut it down because of that.[/quote]
Yep fair point. I took issue with the rude dismissal of PP and dismissed the op because of it. There may be valid things to discuss here, I'm tired of seeing frothing about the NHS and particularly fed up of seeing people get away with disgusting rudeness in the name of feminism. However you're right, I was shutting down a conversation and that's not ok.

This point has been made by a couple of PPs, but I think it is worth making again: the presence of a birth partner can actually contribute to a positive outcome of the birth itself i.e. it can help the birth go better.

So, yes, while every patient would ideally have someone with them for difficult treatments or to receive bad news, I'm not sure you would say that the absence of someone there actually affects the outcome of the illness? It's different with birthing partners.

(I say that as someone who had a very distressing labour, and my husband wasn't allowed with me until I was already in bits. Everyone was fine in the end, but there were complications that I think were avoidable had I not been in such a state.)