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NHS midwives rant

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  • mildred1978
    mildred1978 Posts: 3,367 Forumite
    My experience of midwives has been very varied. My mum had twins after me and sadly one died shortly after birth (not as a result of birth). My mum got so much support from her midwife that my mum gave her name to my sister as a middle name. She was very much my "aunty" in my early years.

    I had my son last year and was determined to have a home birth. I had 3 community midwives who varied greatly in their approach. One I adored. She was so competent and professional, but with a fabulous personality. The other I didn't like much - in late pregnancy she insisted I see a consultant 4 times because she said my bump measured big, only for the consultant to measure me spot on for my dates and tell me off for wasting his time :mad: The head of the team was a PITA, very short tempered, rude and regularly patronising. I'm a very well read person and she didn't appreciate me questioning anything whatsoever.

    My pregnancy overran, and I had visits from one midwife or another every couple of days. Had a night of Braxton Hicks on the Thursday, saw MW on Friday morning who said I was nowhere close to going into labour. Sods law my contractions started at about 9pm on the Friday night. I was very uncomfortable, but as they never got regular I didn't do anything about it. My waters hadn't broken etc. Midwife came Sunday morning and told me I wasn't in labour, and was nowhere close, and then delivered a lovely line: "If you don't stop being so stubborn and go to hospital to be induced your baby will die."

    Contractions stopped instantly, and I was in pieces :(. Went to hospital, who went through the induction procedure with me, which I decided I was too tired to fight. Waited an hour or so and when examined I was magically 2cm dilated already and in labour. Hospital midwife said there was no way I'd gone from "cervix too high to reach" to 2cm since lunchtime. I think it was a ploy by the community midwife to stop me trying for my homebirth. B1tch.

    So I had the gel, contractions started again and within an hour they were 2 minutes apart. Unfortunately I'd been awake since Thursday morning and had no energy, so even with 2.5 hours of pushing I couldn't get my son out. He was born by forceps (which squeezed his face so hard he has permanent dimples). My hospital midwife was superb. She came back the next night to see me and the baby, and my lovely community midwife came in to discharge me. She did all of my home appointments so that I wouldn't have to see the other ones again.

    It's definitely put me off having any more. If you can't trust your health professionals to tell you the truth, there's really not much left :(

    One friend was told by a midwife (same hospital) that she wasn't in labour because she wasn't making enough noise!
    Science adjusts its views based on what's observed.
    Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved.
    :A Tim Minchin :A
  • MamaMoo_2
    MamaMoo_2 Posts: 2,644 Forumite
    I was told at midday that my cervix was so far back that there was no way I'd be having a baby any time soon. I was 10cm by 3:44pm, at which point I had already been begging to be allowed to push for 45 minutes, and been told to fight the urge. And I wasn't induced or anything, my waters had broken naturally. All I had in my system was water and pethidine, so it's possible you dilated quickly.
    I do think it's ridiculous that midwives with decades of experience still don't believe that a labour can progress quickly.
    I was really pi**ed off at how I kept being told that my urge to push was me needing a poo (I pointed out that I knew how it felt to need a poo, and this wasn't it!)
    I remember the b*tch midwife saying repeatedly "I've never seen a labour progress so quickly! This is incredible" to all of the chief midwives and consultants (who at this point were basically ignoring her, and she knew she was in trouble!)
    Eventually I asked her to leave the room because she was doing my head in.
    I also got really peeved at being told not to grunt when pushing, and try kept telling me to take the gas and air out of my mouth, and even when I wasn't using it (had it a few cm from my mouth) they were pulling it away. I'm fairly sure I actually growled and bared my teeth at the woman who kept doing this :P
  • mildred1978
    mildred1978 Posts: 3,367 Forumite
    On the other hand, a close friend of mine had a normal delivery after being induced, but then suffered massive bloodloss (5 litres :eek:) and they managed to save her and her womb. Guess every birth experience is unique. :o
    Science adjusts its views based on what's observed.
    Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved.
    :A Tim Minchin :A
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