I am very grateful to yet another member of my Facebook group for providing me with her maternity experience to share with you. In her own words…..
“My antenatal experiences with my NHS midwife and one consultant led to me transferring to the One-to-One Midwifery Service from about 30 weeks into my second pregnancy. The main issues I had with the NHS were:
- The cold and distant manner of the midwife
- The total lack of concern or questioning when I declined the breastfeeding DVD (as a natural term breastfeeder with my older son, with intention to tandem feed, I felt I didn’t need it – the midwife simply moved on to the next item and made no attempt to find out why I didn’t take the DVD. I found this shocking.)
- At a consultant appointment the consultant informed me that she had booked me in for an induction on my due date, due to my maternal age. No discussion. told her that that would not be happening.
- I had my heart set on a MLU, natural water birth, and I raised the issue of booking an induction without discussion or my consent issue with my MW. Her response was that I will do as the consultant decides. At this point I referred myself to One-to-One.
- Final point – one slightly raised blood pressure reading triggered off me being designated a high risk pregnancy, so I would have found myself on the consultant led side of things to give birth. Another big driver to move service. My BP was fine throughout the remainder of my pregnancy (with the help of Labetelol).
The whole experience was very ‘tick boxey’, with little or no consideration of the overall picture i.e. my health and fitness, my wishes, previous birth etc. I was very disappointed by the apparent lack of breastfeeding promotion.
So I had my second baby by natural home water birth, with the support of One-to-One Midwives. I ended up in hospital for ten days postnatally with HELLP Syndrome. One issue arising there was the strained relationship, and lack of joined up care provision, between the NHS staff and One-to-One. Before transferring myself to One-to-One, I had heard from a fellow NCT Refresher class Mum, that she had had a bad experience in this regard also.
I was transferred via ambulance to Arrowe Park Hospital following the birth of my daughter in April 2014, with what turned out to be HELLP Syndrome. My daughter came with me. We were in for a total of ten nights.
Although I was a patient, my daughter was not. This became a problem when she needed to have her 72 hour check. In the initial stages, my partner was doing the communicating with my One-to-One midwife; and she told us that my baby would have to be taken to an alternative venue for the check by noon on the Saturday. I was in no fit state to add to the discussion, being quite poorly and ‘not with it’.
Ostensibly One-to-One staff were not allowed on the hospital premises to carry out the check; NHS staff could not do it as my daughter was not a patient. I did become involved in the discussions when Saturday morning arrived, my partner was trying to arrange child care for our older child (not easy as we have no family close by), and it dawned on me that my newborn baby was about to be taken away from me. Breastfeeding aside, that would be traumatic for all involved – baby, me and Dad!
Bearing in mind that the main issue for me was dangerously high blood pressure at that point, I was drawn into having direct telephone conversations with One-to-One, and quite heated talks with NHS staff – who made out that there was absolutely no way One-to-One could come into the hospital to do the checks – no insurance I think was the issue from memory? As my baby was not a patient then they definitely could not perform the check – to do so would generate a second NHS number for her, which I was told would have the potential to cause us problems when trying to register her birth. The systems would not be able to cope with it. We felt that systems were taking priority over the well-being of our newborn baby.
In the end a One-to-One midwife did come into the hospital to do the check. There was an uncomfortable atmosphere between the two sets of staff.
On a side note, my daughter was diagnosed with a mild tongue tie and a referral supposedly made. In fact no appointment ever came through. Fortunately the tongue tie was never an issue.
My One-to-One midwife came to see me in hospital on a number of occasions; each time I picked up on tension between the parties.
Apart from the stress around my daughter’s check, I have to say that the majority of the care I received on the labour ward was fantastic. Apart from one incident where I suffered a huge loss of dignity and lack of respect or concern for my personal space and being. In fact I felt totally humiliated. It happened on my final night at Arrowe Park (so day ten of my stay); I was rushed down from the maternity ward to the labour ward as my blood pressure was so high. I was given intravenous drugs to bring it down; it would have been a trip to the cardiac unit if this had not worked. I needed the toilet – and not just a wee. I was told I had to remain on the bed and my request to use a commode was refused. So I had to use a pot under the sheets. Except the sheet was inadequate and I knew that I wasn’t covered up. So I tried to throw my dressing gown over my knees. People were coming and going in and out of the room. I had a sudden moment of realisation of the total indignity of the situation – people could well have been able to see me trying to have a poo, knees up in the air, largely uncovered. I cried. I just wanted to go home, with my baby.”