March 2016 – Maternity Experience

Month: March 2016

Women’s Voices in #MatExp – your GP

29 March 2016 by Helen Calvert / Feeding, MatExp and Me, Postnatal Care, The #MatExp Journey / Comments Off

I was asked to do a talk to student midwives at Salford University in January on the topic of “Women’s Voices” in maternity care. As part of my presentation I included the voices of the midwives who work in maternity care, and a reminder that there are many other women for whom maternity care is their professional, as well as perhaps their personal, experience. “Women’s Voices” in maternity care should cover the midwives, obstetricians, health visitors, doulas who care for us, as well as the women giving birth.

So I decided to start a series of blog posts on “Women’s Voices in #MatExp” from the point of view of those working in maternity, and this is the eighth of those. This is Louise Santhanam’s experience as a GP – thank you so much to Louise for agreeing to write for us. You can read the other blogs in the series here:

Your Midwife

Your Doula

Your Breastfeeding Supporter

Your Sonographer

Your Obstetrician

Your Anaesthetist

Your Antenatal Teacher

And yes, I will be doing a “Men’s Voices in #MatExp” series too. Because this campaign is about all voices.

Helen.x

*********************

It is a privilege to be included in this series of blogs and to talk about being a GP in the context of Maternity Care. My name is Louise Santhanam and I am a General Practitioner and mum to 3 children under 7 years old. Unlike some of the other voices in this series, I am currently taking a short career break (more on that later). I have recently become involved with the #MatExp community, and it is extremely uplifting as a clinician who cares about the whole person and the family to see so much positive work going on, at a time when the NHS is facing uncertainty and extreme challenge.

Probably the biggest difference between the role of the GP and the other professionals who have already told their story here is that Maternity care is one strand of what we do. A GP will often look after a Mother or a couple prior to conception, then on through their pregnancy into the postnatal period, and beyond. The GP will be responsible for the care of baby, siblings and often Dad too, so we have a unique perspective and a responsibility to promote and protect the health of the whole family unit.

Rather than meaning we just ‘didn’t specialise in anything’, being a General Practitioner means that we have to know a fair amount about lots of things- both medical and social. After congratulating a mother on her new pregnancy, we might be supporting someone with serious mental health problems, diagnosing a possible heart attack or helping adjust a patient’s blood pressure medications- and each case is expected to be managed in around 10 minutes!

We have to be quick to use our common sense and apply our training to help when unusual circumstances arise. We might be dealing with common and chronic conditions one minute and then have to respond with urgency to an emergency the next minute. GPs have specialist training in the ‘art’ of the consultation: good listening, communication skills, negotiation and viewing a whole person rather than just an organ or a medical problem. It is our responsibility to be aware when we have reached the limits of our own expertise and when Specialist input is needed. We have to be good team-mates to our Practice colleagues and work with many people who we will never meet, over the phone, by email and by letter.

A GP might work ‘single handed’ (increasingly less common) or together with Partners to run their own Surgery either with a dedicated list of patients that they know well, or in a Group Practice where patients can see any of the doctors they choose. Alternatively, they can work as employees (Salaried doctors) or do sessional work (Locums doctors). Some GPs develop a special interest and increase their knowledge and skills in a particular area of medicine- for example Dermatology, Women’s Health, GP Training or Clinical Commissioning.

My personal journey to becoming a GP started with five years of medical school with an extra year of Physiology research, followed by four and a half years rotating through different speciality jobs in hospital, and then one year as a GP Registrar seeing patients in a GP Surgery. I am lucky to have been able to work in Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Mental Health and Sexual Health, all of which have been invaluable to providing maternity care to patients later as a GP.

As a GP an average week might include the following and more- starting investigations for a woman who has been having difficulty conceiving, counselling a woman who has suffered a miscarriage, referring a newly pregnant woman to the Midwives for antenatal care, managing a woman with early pregnancy nausea and vomiting, urgently referring a woman with pregnancy bleeding at 32 weeks to the hospital Obstetric team, giving emotional support to a Mum of 3 who is fatigued in the days before her next labour, diagnosing a breastfeeding Mum suffering from mastitis, seeing a new baby for the 6-8 week check and reviewing a Mum’s caesarean scar during her postnatal check. And the next week it will be different again!

All of these interactions with a woman and her baby through the maternity journey are extremely important and our responsibility as GPs is to treat a woman and her family with dignity at this significant time in their lives. Care of the Mother’s mental wellbeing and consideration of any other children and their needs is essential. The skill of the GP is to identify what is important, what needs to be dealt with today, what needs to be followed up and what does not need to be worried about.

In the community we might signpost women to our Practice Nurse, the Midwives, our Health Visitor colleagues, their local Breastfeeding Support Group, a postnatal Physiotherapist or to not-for-profit organisations which can offer support with mental health problems, practical help at home and financial difficulties. When problems are identified, seeing the same GP can really make a difference to the outcome, as the doctor already knows the story, can quickly assess if things are getting better or worse and has already built a relationship with the Mother. Most GPs want to be able to support a woman to have confidence in her ability to birth and to become a Mother, continuing that support into the postnatal period …often to the next pregnancy and beyond.

As a GP work can be extremely stressful with long surgeries, large amounts of additional admin work and other non-clinical commitments like meetings and teaching juniors. Seeing patients at 10 minute intervals you can often feel like your brain is doing acrobatics moving from one scenario to the next. At the end of the day you can feel exhausted. GPs can feel the pressure of the responsibility they carry being the ‘gate-keepers’ to all the health service can offer, or as the sole person who has to decide whether the problem presented is serious or not. It can be heart-breaking to deal with women who have lost their pregnancy, to see the patient you have cared for over months struggle with postnatal depression or to see a new baby become seriously unwell. GPs are human beings too and many of us are also parents. Our branch of medicine takes gives us the privilege to walk along side our patients through the ups and downs in life and at times that can be overwhelming. My personal belief is that our Primary Care service in the UK is a ‘national treasure’ and is something that we should not take for granted. Everything a GP provides is covered by just £136 pounds per year per patient on their list (1). This does not excuse the occasions when care can and should be better, but just gives you an idea of the pressures on General Practice at the moment.

I have a personal interest in women’s and children’s health as I believe investment of time, money and effort in looking after a pregnant mother and a new family is the foundation for a healthy society. I am currently taking a career break, in order to look after my own family and restructure my working life. While I have been out of the Surgery I have been working for the Royal College of General Practitioners to raise the profile of Perinatal Mental Health issues and provide GPs with good educational resources to improve their care of mothers who are suffering mental health difficulties. It is really important that women and GPs appreciate that perinatal mental health problems are common. Between 10-20% of women will experience mental health difficulties during pregnancy or in the year after birth, and suicide is one of the major causes of maternal death (2). Once diagnosed perinatal mental health problems can be effectively treated so engaging in discussion about mood and feelings in the perinatal period can potentially be life-saving.

I am also passionate about supporting mothers to breastfeed, something that is undervalued in the UK at present and reflected by low levels of prolonged breastfeeding in society. I see the provision of accurate advice to families on infant feeding and good Breastfeeding Support services as a duty for General Practice and the Community, not least because of the health benefits of Breastfeeding, but also because the early infant feeding journey can be emotional and challenging. With encouragement from members of #MatExp I recently set up an online Health Professional Facebook group called the GP Infant Feeding Network (UK). Through the positive power of social media myself and members are sharing good quality resources and educational materials on the issue of Infant Feeding and forging links with trained individuals in the field (Midwives, Health Visitors, International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs), Breastfeeding Peer Supporters and others). I personally believe it is so important that women are given reliable information about why breastfeeding is a healthy choice for themselves and baby and that if they want to choose to breastfeed, that they should be well supported to achieve their goals. Support from their GP can be very significant. I was amazed to rapidly make contact with many colleagues nation-wide who share my interest in this issue and have also made local connections, with the aim of increasing awareness of breastfeeding issues within my local GP community. Ultimately, GPs can have a role in all sorts of areas in maternity care and with public health initiatives, we don’t just work consulting at our desks!

Despite all the recent negative media stories, financial difficulties for the health service and workload pressures in Primary Care, it is exciting to think that collaboration with colleagues can improve patient care and the experience of working in healthcare. Reassuringly, a recent survey demonstrated that patient satisfaction with their GP was 86% on average (3). When work in the GP Surgery was tough it was usually guaranteed that a consultation with an expectant Mum, or a 6-8 week baby check appointment could cheer me up and remind me that good things do happen in the world! One of the tasks that I always looked forward to was visiting a new baby at home following a homebirth. Entering the home on Day 1 of life to conduct the new-born examination in this situation is almost always an experience of tangible, joyful calm. Life is going on and the family is growing, and I was there to witness it happening. As GPs we need to be able to enjoy our work and look after ourselves so that we can continue to truly care for our community, from the maternity journey onwards.

Dr L Santhanam

General Practitioner

If you are interested in joining the GP Infant Feeding Network (UK) please visit http://www.facebook.com/groups/gpifn/ or follow @GP_IFN on Twitter

Ref:

(1) http://www.hscic.gov.uk/article/6037/New-report-looks-at-the-NHS-payments-to-General-Practice

(2) http://www.rcgp.org.uk/clinical-and-research/clinical-resources/~/media/Files/CIRC/Perinatal-Mental-Health/RCGP-Ten-Top-Tips-Nice-Guidance-June-2015.ashx

(3) GP Patient Survey- National Summary Report July 2014, NHS England http://gp-survey-production.s3.amazonaws.com/archive/2014/July/1301375001_Y8W2%20National%20Summary%20Report_FINAL%20v1.pdf

Share the Word About MatExp!

Women’s Voices in #MatExp – your Antenatal Teacher

9 March 2016 by Helen Calvert / About MatExp, Informed Choice, MatExp and Me, The #MatExp Journey / Comments Off

So I decided to start a series of blog posts on “Women’s Voices in #MatExp” from the point of view of those working in maternity, and this is the seventh of those. This is Fleur Parker’s experience as an antenatal teacher – thank you so much to Fleur for agreeing to write for us. You can read the other blogs in the series here:

Your Midwife

Your Doula

Your Breastfeeding Supporter

Your Sonographer

Your Obstetrician

Your Anaesthetist

And yes, I will be doing a “Men’s Voices in #MatExp” series too. Because this campaign is about all voices.

Helen.x

*********************

I am putting my head above the parapet to say I am an Antenatal Teacher.

I’m not sure why, but recently we have been getting a lot of flak. Sometimes it feels as if everything that is wrong with birth is the fault of the antenatal teachers. On Twitter famous names berate us and newspaper columnists lampoon us

So writing this piece is taking quite a lot of courage and I hope I can do us proud.

There are many, many antenatal teachers – those of us who work with expectant parents during pregnancy to help them prepare for labour, birth, the fourth trimester and the early days as a parent. We come in different sizes, shapes, colours, languages and approaches. There is not a one size fits all approach.

There are three ways to prepare for labour and birth – intellectually, physically and emotionally/mentally. In my experience it is those who prepare a little every day in each of these ways that feel most able to cope with their labour and birth experience. There are a lot of options for antenatal preparation – yoga, pilates, aqua natal, hypnobirthing, NCT classes etc.

I have absolutely no idea why I am an antenatal teacher. I didn’t go to antenatal classes myself. My son is now 20 and I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact I am a Mother – I will not be the first in the queue to cuddle your newborn. I will however, have freshly baked cake and a lovely cup of tea and all the time you need to talk, explore and work out what the £$%^@* just happened.

I support men and women, over 1,300 have attended antenatal classes I have facilitated. First time mums, fourth time dads, same sex couples, single mums, surrogate mum and dads, young mums, old mums, surprised mums and reluctant dads. We’ve all sat together, in a circle not knowing quite what to expect.

I have taught classes on my birthday, my husband’s birthday and my son’s birthday. I’ve taught when I’ve been happy, sad, ill and well. I’ve sat before a group after finding out my mother-in-law had died, unexpectedly on the operating table, on Christmas Eve and there was still four hours of a six-hour class left – and not told them because it isn’t about me.

It isn’t about my birth experience (caesarean in case you’re wondering) and there isn’t an NCT way to have a baby (whoops I’ve let the cat out of the bag I am an NCT antenatal teacher). The way to have a baby is the way that’s right for you, in the moment.

If I have an overarching aim as an antenatal teacher it is to disrupt the story of birth. To take the perceptions of expectant parents and give them the tools and skills to reimagine, to question and to put a story together that belongs to them – nobody else. By the time people are having babies they have heard at least a couple of decades of birth stories – perhaps it’s Daphne on Neighbours whose water’s broke, contractions started and she gave birth ten minutes later still wearing her tights and with Bouncer the dog sniffing around. Perhaps it’s a documentary, a soap or in films – there is a whole generation who have grown up with the story of pregnancy and birth from Twilight!

I hear hundreds of birth stories and often as I listen I’ll be thinking ‘okay, yes I could do that, it sounds hard work but okay. I understand that and it was straightforward enough.’ But the new parent telling their story is in tears, sometimes shaking and upset. Another time the story I’m hearing is one that shocks me, where I am, quite frankly, horrified. In this case the mum or dad is happy ‘oh it was great, we had a chat with the Dr and decided to do this and that and when that didn’t work we went for the other – oh and the blood!’ It’s not hysteria or false memory it’s just that they were okay with their experience, it was, in the moment, entirely appropriate.

The research shows us that that is what matters to new parents. It is less about the actual birth or in many ways the outcome but their satisfaction of their experience and perception of outcome that is most important.

There are also parents who because of the actions of others are traumatised and angry with the care they received – feeling abused and violated. I’m not sure any of us can prepare for those eventualities. Those are the parents I spend most time with, talking, understanding, signposting …… simply listening.

During classes we share stories, knowledge and experience. We look at straightforward physiological birth and we look at birth that is anything but. We think about becoming parents, relationships, cognitive, physical and emotional development of babies. We play nappy roulette (sometimes I like to fulfil the NCT stereotype) and speed parenting. We laugh and we cry and we eat cake.

I love my job – it is my passion and my purpose and I bring to it my head, heart and soul. I make lasting connections with people who are entering a whole new phase of life and I walk alongside them.

I don’t have the answers and I don’t always get it right. But I have a lot of knowledge, rigorous CPD and I am an experienced and skilled adult educator and group facilitator. But I am not the answer and I am not the problem.

Share the Word About MatExp!

Women’s Voices in #MatExp – your Anaesthetist

4 March 2016 by Helen Calvert / Caesarean Sections, Environment and Facilities, MatExp and Me, Pregnancy Complications, The #MatExp Journey / Comments Off

So I decided to start a series of blog posts on “Women’s Voices in #MatExp” from the point of view of those working in maternity, and this is the sixth of those. This is Carolyn Johnston’s experience as an anaesthetist – thank you so much to Carolyn for agreeing to write for us. You can read the other blogs in the series here:

Your Midwife

Your Doula

Your Breastfeeding Supporter

Your Sonographer

Your Obstetrician

And yes, I will be doing a “Men’s Voices in #MatExp” series too. Because this campaign is about all voices.

Helen.x

*********************

Carolyn is a consultant anaesthetist in St George’s hospital in London.

Anaesthetics is usually the biggest department of doctors in most hospitals. We cover services including intensive care, operating theatres for all specialties and patient groups, resuscitation teams, pain management, and many other areas as well as maternity care. For those of us with a special interest and training in obstetrics are usually on the maternity unit for the day, but on other days we may be working on general (abdominal) surgery, transplant or any other kind of surgery, intensive care or whatever our other specialty interests may be.

In our unit, my day starts with a handover from the night team. The registrar (senior doctor in training) who has been on the maternity unit overnight tells us who has had anaesthetic input with pain relief (usually epidurals), any women who have been to the operating theatre and require ongoing care and highlighting anyone who may require extra vigilance during the coming day. This might be because of a pre-existing medical issue or developments in labour that may make care more complex. Because all anaesthetists have training that includes caring for people who are critically unwell and are part of resuscitation teams, we have the skills to help the maternity team care for lots of conditions that maternity teams may see very rarely (like heart disease) or those that are more common but might be serious if not treated early (like infection/ sepsis or heavy bleeding).

We also start the day by checking our equipment in the operating theatre and emergency medications. We must be ready to move at a moments notice if the situation arises, for urgent surgery or some other intervention, as we all know, maternity situations can change rapidly! These are scenarios we practice and refine until we can do them as safely as possible. Safety is a key part of anaesthetic practice, in our training we learn a lot about teamwork, safety theories such as ‘human factors’ and communication, and we check and practice a lot, so when we need to act quickly we can do so safely.

We will be involved in any planned (elective) caesarian sections during that day, in my hospital there are usually 2 or 3 cases planned per day. It must be so intimidating for a woman to come to the operating theatre; such a foreign environment and the idea of surgery whilst you are still awake must be so daunting. And then of course the nerves and excitement about finally meeting your baby! I see it as a big part of my job to help make that experience as positive as it can be, and help make women and their partners feel welcome, secure and hopefully even relax. Maybe even some skin-to-skin contact in the theatre.

Maternity work is very different from all other anaesthetic practice because unlike most of our other work, our patients are (usually) awake. This adds to the challenge: undertaking potentially difficult anaesthetic procedures, communicating with the theatre team, maintaining safety by monitoring and reacting to any changes in your patient’s condition but all whilst being mindful that the patient and her partner have holistic needs. Reacting to these needs and helping them to feel safe and secure is very important. There is always a balance to be struck with maintaining our best and usual practice for safety, and providing individualized holistic care. I think this is best achieved by talking and understanding each other’s perspectives. Perhaps we don’t do this enough.

We will, of course, respond to any requests for pain relief for epidurals, which is what most people think of when they think of anaesthetic involvement on delivery suite. It can sometimes be the case that women is distressed, distracted or even scared; so there is a real need for thoughtful communication and co-operation to help her and undertake the epidural safely. This balance of technical and people working skills is a common theme for us in obstetric anaesthetics.

I am lucky that our maternity team values co-operation and team working, and anaesthetists are an important part of that. It isn’t always the case that we are fully included in the team, and this can be a real source of frustration, because so many patients tell us our involvement is very helpful. We have a reputation (unfairly?) of being the epitome of intervention, so I guess we aren’t welcomed by some who hold strong views that birth should be natural. I have no desire to force my interventions on anyone- I would much rather put my feet up! Ultimately, I think the woman can make up her own mind, and as we pride ourselves on knowing the evidence, she should always get impartial advice about risks and benefits from an anaesthetist.

I’ve been trying to avoid the word ‘risk’- I know it’s becoming unpopular in maternity discussions. There is no avoiding it: anaesthetists deal in risk. We train and work in very high-risk areas including emergency surgery, trauma teams, heart surgery, intensive care and in those roles we’ve all seen someone die in front of us as we care for them. Anyone we look after is a patient, and rarely a client- it’s hard to switch this off when we come to maternity and so we often use terminology and even a more risk-based attitude that can clash with the modern ethos of maternity care.

I guess the solution to improving this is to talk more- to all our colleagues in maternity care and to our patients- we all have the same aims and aspirations to provide the best care for healthy happy mums, dads and babies. We also have a reputation for loving coffee, so my suggestion is to grab an anaesthetist on your precious coffee break and ask each other: “why are we all here and what skills do we bring to make that happen?”

Share the Word About MatExp!

Women’s Voices in #MatExp – your Obstetrician

1 March 2016 by Helen Calvert / Environment and Facilities, MatExp and Me, Pregnancy Complications, The #MatExp Journey / Comments Off

I was asked to do a talk to student midwives at Salford University last month on the topic of “Women’s Voices” in maternity care. As part of my presentation I included the voices of the midwives who work in maternity care, and a reminder that there are many other women for whom maternity care is their professional, as well as perhaps their personal, experience. “Women’s Voices” in maternity care should cover the midwives, obstetricians, health visitors, doulas who care for us, as well as the women giving birth.

So I decided to start a series of blog posts on “Women’s Voices in #MatExp” from the point of view of those working in maternity, and this is the fifth of those. This is Ruth-Anna Macqueen’s experience as an obstetrician in training, and it includes an introduction and follow up comments from #MatExp founder Florence Wilcock. Thank you so much to Ruth-Anna for agreeing to write for us. You can read the other blogs in the series here:

Your Midwife

Your Doula

Your Breastfeeding Supporter

Your Sonographer

And yes, I will be doing a “Men’s Voices in #MatExp” series too. Because this campaign is about all voices.

Helen.x

*********************

Florence Wilcock writes:

“One of the strengths of #MatExp is to try and hear all voices with respect and understand different perspectives so that we can work together to improve maternity experience.

Obstetricians have been an especially hard group to involve , I have written before about the traditional ‘bad press’ we seem to receive. I included it as a topic in the #matexpadvent Steller series you can read it here https://steller.co/s/5AduBaxWL6v

I am therefore especially delighted to introduce a brave #FabObs blog, one of a couple that are hopefully coming our way. Some of this may be distressing, some of it may be unpalatable but I ask you to take a deep breath challenge your assumptions & read! Don’t ‘bash’ the author she is giving you a peek into her world, a world fairly typical of many obstetricians in todays’ NHS . Take this unique opportunity to have sight of what it is like to be in ‘our shoes’ that way we can have the difficult conversations that move us forward.”

*********************

My name is Ruth-Anna, I’m 32 and a Mum of two busy, lively and opinionated little people aged 2.5 and 5. I’m also privileged to work as a doctor in obstetrics and gynaecology. My official title is ST5 doctor, which means I’ve been specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology for 5 ‘years’ (after 6 years at medical school and 2 years of moving around specialities). However it’s actually nearer 6.5 years since I started specialising, because of having time out for having babies, and working part time (I work 35 hours a week and spend two days at home with the kids). At the end of my ST7 ‘year’ of training, all being well, I’ll be able to apply for jobs as a Consultant but right now that feels a long way off!

This is a day in my life… (all events and women are fictionalised, of course)

My alarm is set for 6.45 but the kids usually wake me up first. I get up & dressed, grab some breakfast (if I’m organised enough!) wave goodbye to the kids & husband and jump on my bike. It’s a Saturday so the cycle into work is pleasantly peaceful and I enjoy a bit of headspace. My job is incredibly varied and over the course of a week I could be seeing women in antenatal clinic, gynaecology clinic, on our day assessment unit (walk in for pregnant women with concerns about themselves or their baby), operating in gynaecology theatres, scanning women, looking after women who are inpatients for any gynaecological or pregnancy-related problems, seeing women in A&E with acute gynaecological problems, or covering the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit.

Today, however, I’m working as the Labour Ward ‘registrar’. I’ll be working with an ‘SHO’ (in newer terminology, this could be an FY2, an ST1 or ST2 doctor), who may or may not be specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology, as well as my Consultant.

I’m in work by 7.45 and change into my scrubs, to head into our handover meeting for a prompt start at 8am. All the midwives, obstetricians and anaethetists for that day on Labour Ward are there. Our night team counterparts inevitably look pretty knackered and relieved to see us.

Some days we take over and there are only one or two women on the Labour Ward but today it’s a busy one. As we talk through the women, one by one, I’m thinking what the risks might be for that woman and baby, predicting and preventing any problems and pre-empting potential issues. Hopefully none of those will happen but our job is largely about predicting problems that never happen, so that we can be prepared for when they do. Even so, a day on Labour Ward is unpredictable and filled with surprises. My current hospital saw around 6000 babies delivered here last year and it serves a fairly ‘high-risk’ population, with above average numbers of women with a high BMI, older mothers, women who may have come into the UK recently, women with multiple pregnancies or concurrent medical problems. We also have women who are transferred in to us from other places where the NICU or SCBU don’t have the facilities to look after the smallest or sickest babies.

Women expected to have totally uneventful labours are normally on our Birth Centre and I won’t generally be involved in their care unless there’s an issue that the midwives ask me to help with. Myself, the Consultant, SHO, the Anaesthetist and the Labour Ward Co-ordinator (Midwife in charge) do a ‘ward round’ of all the other women – to introduce ourselves, find out more about her and how things are progressing, and make a plan, if anything else needs to be done. This morning there are 12 women on Labour Ward. The first woman we see had a Caesarean section overnight and lost a lot of blood. She’s having ‘high dependency unit’ care and is currently having her third unit of blood transfused as she had a very low haemoglobin level due to the blood loss. We assess whether she has had enough blood replaced, whether there are any signs of further bleeding, and whether she needs any further treatment. She’s understandably shell-shocked and we go through the events of the night with her and her husband. Her baby was taken to the NICU and her priority is getting well enough to get into a wheelchair so she can go and see him there.

Next we see a woman who’s tragically had a stillbirth. She attended the day unit at 38 weeks into a normal pregnancy with reduced fetal movements, and it was confirmed the baby had died. Her labour was induced yesterday and she’s spent the night trying to come to terms with what has happened. Understandably she has lots of questions for us, which we do our best to answer. I offer her some medication to suppress her breastmilk production and give her some information to consider about a possible post mortem examination for the baby. We offer her the choice of going home today or staying another day and she will think about it and let her midwife know.

We complete the ward round, seeing a woman with a straightforward labour who is on the Labour Ward only because she has an epidural, a woman who previously had a Caesarean but is in spontaneous labour and all is well, a woman who is being induced for a post-dates pregnancy and a woman who has been admitted in possible preterm labour at 28 weeks.

The next few hours is a whirlwind of emergency buzzers and bleeps. Another woman has been admitted from the day unit – she’s had an uneventful pregnancy so far but at her midwife appointment today at 32 weeks her blood pressure was found to be dangerously high, with protein in her urine. Her midwife suspects she has pre-eclampsia and has sent her in to us. She needs urgent assessment my myself and my anaesthetic colleague, a cannula (drip), bloods taken, and medication to lower her blood pressure. She starts complaining of a headache and when we test her reflexes they are abnormal so we also recommend that she starts another medication (magnesium sulphate) to reduce the risk of having seizures. We need to see how she responds to the treatment but it’s likely we will need to deliver her baby imminently to treat the pre-eclampsia, so we also recommend the first of two doses of steroid to help mature the baby’s lungs. Her midwife calls the Neonatal team to check that our NICU have a cot available for this premature baby. She also asks them to come and speak to the woman to explain what to expect if her baby needs to be born prematurely. I perform a scan under the supervision of my Consultant which shows the baby is small and its fluid is reduced – this is a common effect of pre-eclampsia. We ask her not to eat and drink in case the baby needs delivering imminently (if she needed a general anaesthetic it’s important to have an empty stomach).

I leave my SHO administering the first dose of the magnesium sulphate as the Co-ordinator calls me to see a woman who is in the second stage of labour (fully dilated and pushing) whose baby is showing signs of significant distress. I assess the woman, and the fetal monitoring, and explain that I would recommend an instrumental delivery, to which she agrees. As the baby is already quite low in the birth canal I decide this can be safely achieved in her delivery room, so after giving an injection of local anaesthetic to block the my SHO and I perform a ventouse delivery and her baby is delivered with no complications.

I finally see a woman who has been waiting several hours to progress to the next stage of her induction of labour. We haven’t been able to proceed with things as we would have hoped due to the other situations that have arisen and the effect on available staffing levels. I explain this to her but she’s understandably upset and frustrated, as well as exhausted, and I leave the room feeling pretty downheartened.

It’s 3pm and I suddenly realise I haven’t eaten anything so grab a sandwich and a drink before heading back to see the unwell woman with pre-eclampsia. Her blood pressure still isn’t under control despite high doses of medication and my Consultant decides that we can’t wait any longer and that she will need to have her baby delivered today. At 30 weeks in her first pregnancy, with a growth restricted baby, the team decide that Caesarean will be the quickest and safest way of delivering her baby. She’s shocked – it certainly wasn’t what she was expecting when she headed to her midwife appointment that morning, but her partner has now arrived and she is willing for us to proceed. I talk her through the operation and explain the risks and benefits, before she signs a consent form. The Co-ordinator speaks to the theatre team to prepare everything, as I call my anaesthetic colleagues. Her midwife gives her ‘pre medications’, tight stockings to wear and gets scrubs for her partner to wear.

While with my sick woman I was asked to attend the Birth Centre to check whether a woman who has just delivered has a ‘second degree’ tear (that can be sutured by the midwife in her room) or a ‘third degree’ tear that would need to be sutured in theatre by me. As the anaesthetists perform their anaesthetic for the woman in theatre, I finally make it across to the Birth Centre and thankfully for the woman it’s a second degree tear. I apologise she’s been waiting so long for me – she’s lovely about it but I still feel bad.

I’m bleeped from theatre to say the spinal anaesthetic is working and they are ready for us to start the operation. I do her Caesarean, with my Consultant supervising in view of how sick she is and the fact the baby is premature. Thankfully it is an uneventful procedure and the baby is born in reasonable condition, although he still needs to go to the NICU. His mum comes back to the Labour Ward as she is still unwell and the next 24-48 hours can actually see a deterioration in her condition.

We sit down for a quick cup of tea and I feel guilty I haven’t tackled any of the computer-based tasks I have piling up, and the audit I’m trying to finish before my appraisal next month. Still, they’ll have to wait for another day. I check my phone and see 15 messages from home – thankfully it’s nothing urgent; they are just photos from my husband of the family party he and the kids are at today.

The night team start to arrive and I feel relieved. Today I’ll manage to get away pretty much on time, once we’ve finished handover. I need to send some electronic tickets to my Consultant so she can sign to say what she’s witnessed me doing today, for my appraisal. I know that if I don’t do it now I’ll forget. I’m out of the building by 20.45 and head home to wolf down the dinner leftovers. I spend the cycle home thinking about the women and babies I’ve looked after today, hoping all will be well, and wondering what I could have done differently. After 8.5 years as a doctor I’m pretty good at trying to leave all those thoughts behind – at least temporarily – when I put my key in the lock, although I do drop my night colleagues a quick text before bed to ask how the woman with pre-eclampsia is doing. She’s stable and I finally let myself switch off. Tomorrow is one of my days at home with the kids and I’m looking forward to taking my 5 year old to school and my 2 year old to toddler group.

*********************

Florence Wilcock writes:

“When I first read the blog I felt it pretty accurately captured a fairly ‘standard’ day on labour ward for an obstetrician. I recognized it absolutely & have spent many days similar to this over the years. The multitasking, prioirtising, constant juggling of clinical situations is quite typical. Some of it may feel dispassionate and lacking emotion, that doesn’t mean that the author doesn’t feel anything or that she doesn’t treat the women she sees with compassion and care it just means there is an element of self-preservation to enable one to take split second clinical decisions we need maintain an exterior calm. It is also essential so that we are not sobbing halfway through the shift or at the end of the day it enables us to be resilient and get up and do it all again the next day or to care for our own family. Imagine what it would be like if you were trying to do this job pulled from pillar to post how would you feel? This is where working as part of a fantastic multidisciplinary team becomes important, those of us that are lucky have wonderful midwives, nurses, midwifery assistants alongside us. If we are less lucky or those relationships are adversarial that can be very difficult as the support isn’t there. No obstetrician sets out to hurt or upset women or become a barrier they may be under huge pressure, having a bad day, feeling scared of that responsibility, worrying about an exam or appraisal. We are human too.

There is no fluff here , this is obstetrics in reality. There are one or two particular clinical situations that may distress you: such separation of mother and babies is never ideal & making the focus getting a mum to see her baby in NNU sounds so simple but can be harder than it sounds if people don’t work together & make it happen, A bereaved mum seemingly given cursory information and a very short hospital stay after such a life changing event is hard to read but sadly is the current reality , we know this needs improving hugely with better support during and after and a birth environment separate from the main maternity wards. A shocking sudden decision to deliver a baby preterm at 30 weeks. It is hard to write and hard to read and some elements can’t be changed they are clinical reality but amongst that the words we use, the understanding we have of how it might feel both for families and those caring for them there are plenty of things that can be done to improve care.

A few ideas:

Look at #Hugoslegacy #Saytheirname & cards for bereaved parents.

Watch Abigail’s Footsteps’ video ‘The deafening Silence’.

Look at the campaign to have a bereavement suite in every maternity unit started by Ben Gummer MP.

Think about what language you are using in that short time you have to see someone.

Think about the importance of the team to the obstetrician often junior on whose shoulders there is massive responsibility; if you are a midwife or other healthcare professional support them and work with them.

Think about self-care. What is available to you as a healthcare professional at your Trust, have you had a break, did you eat or drink today? Looking after yourself is the first step to being able to look after others.”

Share the Word About MatExp!