My hatred of the NHS first came when my wife gave birth to our girl, and the way she, a Med student at the time, was treated. It’s now for other reasons, mainly the horror stories I hear from my wife.
Instead of being by her side, I Literally had to spend the bulk of the birth fighting for Med staff to give her attention, to take her pain seriously, to even just speak to her with a bit of respect and manners. After the birth, she felt very neglected by staff. We hope to have another, and will hope to use a private hospital for it. Genuinely disgusting maternity care in ‘Duh Envee Ov Duh Wurld’ system.
It’s women without a partner or parent or friend to speak up for them who are most at risk. We were fortunate that between her background and me being confident with them she got the attention she needed. For many others, women alone, or with partners not confident enough to push back on ‘the professionals’, it’s scary.
englishgirl on
That poor mum and baby 💔 The mum is living every parents worst nightmare.
maaBeans on
Wife had both of ours at home. I had my reservations but her train of logic was that she’d rather have a midwife turn up and when needed and be let in a safe environment she knows and our nearest hospital was 45 mins away with few maternity places and the nearest after that is 90 mins away and was the Lucy letby hospital.
After hearing some of the horror stories from the newborn group, I was fully in support second time round. Less complications, it’s not the environment I would pick tbh.
mysticpotatocolin on
me and my partner are planning to have children soon and i’m terrified of having to do it on the NHS. considering saving up and going private but ultimately what does that do? these stories are all so horrific
ETA: it’s not just about baby death – the amount of traumatising stories women have (including lack of pain relief, not being believed they’re in labour, feeling ignored) tied with that recent report of 65% of wards being unsafe or inadequate really frighten me. it’s not just about having a healthy baby and me being in bits because of it. i was traumatised by an NHS abortion provider which may contribute.
Shas_Erra on
My wife gave birth at the same hospital under similar conditions: 23hr labour with complications. They were not in any hurry to get us out the door and were allowing new mothers to leave when they felt they were ready.
Makes me wonder what has changed
MrKeenski on
Oh no that poor mother and baby. My heart is broken for them both. My sincere condolences to the family.
Its_All_Me on
My wife and I have had two children both in NHS hospitals and they have been amazing births. Mid wife’s were amazing I cannot fault them.
JCSkyKnight on
“The baby and her parents were discharged home 4 hours after the birth – at 8.39am.”
Sadly it was probably poor communication on this point. Medical staff probably felt there was an adequate support network in place but for whatever reason she ended up on her own with her baby and exhausted.
Edit: And to be clear I don’t blame the NHS or partner for it.
Shot_Laugh_2163 on
Doesn’t surprise me. Maternity care is shit and many midwives are ideologically opposed to the so-called medicalisation of “natural birth” that used to kill women and babies regularly.
An obstetric consultant once told me that if you have a laparotomy (open abdominal surgery) for any other reason than a c section, there is no way someone would insist you take sole care of a newborn baby and make your own toast/drinks within the hour.
It was her way of explaining how shit and sexist maternity care is vs. care for other patients.
djhazydave on
Holy shit that’s horrific. Both of our kids were born at that hospital, the first in very similar circumstances but pre-Covid. What an absolute tragic failure from the hospital.
[deleted] on
[removed]
PushinButtons- on
I had multiple seizures last year. The first time it happened my partner thought I’d had a stroke or heart attack and I was rushed to A&E. I was kept in hospital under observation for 3 days.
The hospital realised it wasn’t my heart very quickly. Despite not drinking, smoking or taking drugs I was treated like a junkie. I was at the lowest point in my life not knowing if I was going to die or not. It was clear by the way doctors and nurses were speaking to me they thought I was a drug addict taking up a hospital bed that could have gone to someone more deserving.
After more seizures, months of tests, MRI scans etc I was diagnosed with epilepsy and put on medication.
Lanky_Flower_723 on
I’m a doctor so I’m sympathetic to lots of the systemic issues at play here and frankly appalled by some of the shit advice of “just have your baby at home” in this thread.
However, what kind of fucked up system doesn’t let an exhausted brand new mother have a few extra hours or a day in hospital with a little bit of support?
Also, I was under the impression that breastfed babies were supposed to be established with feeding before discharge?
Trub11 on
For both of my births, I paid for private care. The way it worked was that I had all my appointments before the birth with my Obstetrician Consultant at our local private Spire hospital (I had met him previously in the NHS when we lost a baby), and when I went into labour I had his personal mobile number to inform him, and he then met us at the labour ward in our NHS hospital, where he also worked as a highly respected senior Consultant.
Having him with us all the way through 2 very difficult pregnancies was very reassuring and totally worth the money we spent on his care. At the time, we could afford it because of our jobs and looking back I would do it again if I was able to.
MaleficentSwan0223 on
I was at this hospital and had some incredible pregnancy care (couldn’t have asked for much more) but after we were discharged and sent home. We refused to go because something didn’t feel right. 12 hours later baby collapsed and ended up in neonatal but eventually recovered and is doing well now. Had we gone home we might not have been so lucky.
MitchellsTruck on
To add to the anecdotal evidence in here, our kids are happy and healthy at 10 and 7 now, but both had ridiculous issues in the hospital (Southampton) that required a complaint escalated to the CQC due to non-response from initial complaints to the Unit and Trust, that were just ignored.
With the first, an untrained midwife was allowed to perform an episiotomy, which cut an artery and resulted in my wife losing nearly three pints of blood – but having to give birth, with no painkillers I might add, before she was given blood and plasma to replace.
Then our son didn’t feed for nearly 48 hours after birth, something I had to pick up on and point out to the staff, who didn’t give half a fuck.
With the second, they left it too long so she couldn’t be given an epidural, then was unable to birth the placenta, again, lost a lot of blood. She was whisked off to surgery, and I was left on my own in a dark room with our new daughter for over four hours, not knowing if my wife was alive or not. Eventually some cleaning staff came in to prep the room for the next mother-to-be, and were shocked I was still there. They had to raise the alarm with the midwife staff who had no idea what was going on.
Apparently my wife’s surgery had only taken half an hour, and she’d been put into a ward for mothers without babies – if you know what I mean. She was absolutely fucking terrified that our daughter hadn’t survived.
1409nisson on
im a retired nurse, nurse at the time, my first born in hospital was so horrific that i had the other two at home, even after the risk explained. that was 50 years ago. its hard to think its still the same
Sea-Television2470 on
I had a 21wk termination for medical reasons through labour and delivery and for me they literally wouldn’t let me go home until the morning shift took over which was about 4 hours after I was ready. I’d said my goodbyes and didn’t want to be in that room any longer. They were good other than that though and not allowing me to have adequate pain relief, but I don’t think any amount of pain relief would have been enough for me in that moment I would probably still have been asking for more. I had the nitrous but that was it and they took that away after delivery when I was still having post birth contractions. 0/10, chosen to not get pregnant again and just not have children going forward. This story is heart breaking.
shadowboy on
I’ve had 2 kids on the NHS and have nothing but good things to say about them. My question for this is what happened with the dad? It reads like he passed the baby off and then went to sleep? Couldn’t he have stayed up with her for the first night and help out? I know I did with both of mine
luciesssss on
This is awful and the reason why mums (especially breastfeeding mums) should be taught how to bedshare safely. Safe sleep 7, c curl, limited blankets, breastfeeding etc. It’s far safer to plan to bedshare than accidentally fall asleep.
Bloody-smashing on
Absolutely brutal.
In the first few weeks breastfeeding makes both mum and baby sleepy. It’s awful trying to stay awake when your body is still recovering and your hormones make you relaxed and sleepy. Especially in the newborn phase. Baby’s always seem to have an absolutely shit day on their second day of life as well.
0235 on
When I was born, I was slightly under weight. I was put into a critical ward and kept there for 9 whole fucking days. My twin, despite being fine was also put in the same ward as me for 3 days so “you don’t have to travel between two wards to see your children, they can be next to each other”.
Utterly unimaginable they would do the same today.
bossybooks on
That’s horrific. Poor woman. Poor baby. Hope the people who papped her out the hospital too soon see what they’ve done and do better in future. Totally avoidable. So sad.
SeaweedClean5087 on
I had multi level spinal surgery and was discharged without being able to walk up and down stairs to a two floor home with no support.
PoppySkyPineapple on
Four hours is nothing, I can’t believe she was let home so soon. That poor family.
Hopeful-Bunch8536 on
Four hours????? Here I was thinking women are kept in the hospital for several days, as a matter of non-negotiable policy, to allow the mother to heal and the baby to spend its first few days in a controlled environment.
leclercwitch on
The NHS is just awful. When I was miscarrying they had me in A&E for hours, losing blood etc super fast and ended up passing my son in a toilet on my own (I didn’t know until after). They sent me home to wait 2 days for a scan. I had 3 phone numbers for my midwives, two were on holiday and one had her phone stolen so I had nobody.
I complained to the head of nursing and got a “we are sorry”. That was it. I work in that hospital and I am traumatised every time I have to walk through A&E. I was completely medically alone. I was frightened. I had no help afterwards either, luckily I have amazing friends and family but I needed therapy that I still am yet to receive because of a years long waiting list.
I was with the father after the scan and they told us we could try again straight away. We weren’t together at the time. I had had no other chance since. Fucking vile how I was treated, no care whatsoever. I feel for this mother, I really do. Makes me want to cry it’s so awful.
Only_Tip9560 on
Maternity care in the NHS is an utter disgrace. Even the chairwoman of the review Donna Ockenden is not getting anywhere.
P-u-m-p-t-i-n-i on
Absolutely not surprised this isn’t something that happens everyday. I was induced on a Thursday and sent home to come back on Friday. Besides that sleep at home on Thursday night I would say I had about 5/6 hours sleep from Friday until I was home Tuesday night.
Friday night had minimal sleep as I was constantly having checks and had baby monitored. Saturday had no sleep at all as I was in labour and Sunday I had just given birth and trying to wrap my head around that I now have a baby and then Monday/Tuesday was spent on the shared ward with other families.
I gave birth Monday morning at 3am and I was just so tired. They gave me my daughter to hold and I was literally nodding off whilst holding her in my arms that I had to tell my boyfriend to take her. When I was on the ward Monday night there was no chance of sleep as there were 5 other women, their babies and their partners all making noise. It was like a domino effect, once one baby started they all kicked off (obviously mine included).
You’re told that you shouldn’t drive when tired so how anybody is supposed to magically look after a baby after giving birth is just madness to me.
ixid on
This is very sad, but would a hospital have prevented it? On maternity wards mothers are usually in curtained off beds, and the nurses only check in every few hours. Additionally if a mother and baby are healthy after birth then resting at home is much better than a noisy and uncomfortable ward where you will be far more tired by being relentlessly woken up by the staff and other mothers and babies. Generally it is likely to be better to send healthy parents and babies home after birth, I don’t think the NHS have done anything wrong here. This should really be the responsibility of the partner as well as mother to check that the baby is returned to the cot before the mother falls asleep, and if there is no partner then maybe the NHS should provide a more regular checking cycle for the first night in hospital? It is a low probability but unavoidable risk with babies though as parents are exhausted.
Brilliant-Big-336 on
First of all, this is a human tragedy and it would be crass to comment on such limited details.
What I will say is that the NHS in the form of maternity services has always seemed to me to undervalue sleep. When new mothers have given birth and are physically exhausted they are given a bed in a ward full of new crying babies.
Can you image any other patient who has been through such an exhausting ordeal, or surgery on the scale of a C section, being put in a room full of crying babies to recover? To make this worse the lights are often kept on at night with nurses chatting away.
Husbands are rarely given the access to help in those early hours and days which can set an unsustainable pattern.
New mothers need rest and sleep. That is a vital ingredient and one that we need to get much better at prioritising.
31 Comments
My hatred of the NHS first came when my wife gave birth to our girl, and the way she, a Med student at the time, was treated. It’s now for other reasons, mainly the horror stories I hear from my wife.
Instead of being by her side, I Literally had to spend the bulk of the birth fighting for Med staff to give her attention, to take her pain seriously, to even just speak to her with a bit of respect and manners. After the birth, she felt very neglected by staff. We hope to have another, and will hope to use a private hospital for it. Genuinely disgusting maternity care in ‘Duh Envee Ov Duh Wurld’ system.
It’s women without a partner or parent or friend to speak up for them who are most at risk. We were fortunate that between her background and me being confident with them she got the attention she needed. For many others, women alone, or with partners not confident enough to push back on ‘the professionals’, it’s scary.
That poor mum and baby 💔 The mum is living every parents worst nightmare.
Wife had both of ours at home. I had my reservations but her train of logic was that she’d rather have a midwife turn up and when needed and be let in a safe environment she knows and our nearest hospital was 45 mins away with few maternity places and the nearest after that is 90 mins away and was the Lucy letby hospital.
After hearing some of the horror stories from the newborn group, I was fully in support second time round. Less complications, it’s not the environment I would pick tbh.
me and my partner are planning to have children soon and i’m terrified of having to do it on the NHS. considering saving up and going private but ultimately what does that do? these stories are all so horrific
ETA: it’s not just about baby death – the amount of traumatising stories women have (including lack of pain relief, not being believed they’re in labour, feeling ignored) tied with that recent report of 65% of wards being unsafe or inadequate really frighten me. it’s not just about having a healthy baby and me being in bits because of it. i was traumatised by an NHS abortion provider which may contribute.
My wife gave birth at the same hospital under similar conditions: 23hr labour with complications. They were not in any hurry to get us out the door and were allowing new mothers to leave when they felt they were ready.
Makes me wonder what has changed
Oh no that poor mother and baby. My heart is broken for them both. My sincere condolences to the family.
My wife and I have had two children both in NHS hospitals and they have been amazing births. Mid wife’s were amazing I cannot fault them.
“The baby and her parents were discharged home 4 hours after the birth – at 8.39am.”
Sadly it was probably poor communication on this point. Medical staff probably felt there was an adequate support network in place but for whatever reason she ended up on her own with her baby and exhausted.
Edit: And to be clear I don’t blame the NHS or partner for it.
Doesn’t surprise me. Maternity care is shit and many midwives are ideologically opposed to the so-called medicalisation of “natural birth” that used to kill women and babies regularly.
An obstetric consultant once told me that if you have a laparotomy (open abdominal surgery) for any other reason than a c section, there is no way someone would insist you take sole care of a newborn baby and make your own toast/drinks within the hour.
It was her way of explaining how shit and sexist maternity care is vs. care for other patients.
Holy shit that’s horrific. Both of our kids were born at that hospital, the first in very similar circumstances but pre-Covid. What an absolute tragic failure from the hospital.
[removed]
I had multiple seizures last year. The first time it happened my partner thought I’d had a stroke or heart attack and I was rushed to A&E. I was kept in hospital under observation for 3 days.
The hospital realised it wasn’t my heart very quickly. Despite not drinking, smoking or taking drugs I was treated like a junkie. I was at the lowest point in my life not knowing if I was going to die or not. It was clear by the way doctors and nurses were speaking to me they thought I was a drug addict taking up a hospital bed that could have gone to someone more deserving.
After more seizures, months of tests, MRI scans etc I was diagnosed with epilepsy and put on medication.
I’m a doctor so I’m sympathetic to lots of the systemic issues at play here and frankly appalled by some of the shit advice of “just have your baby at home” in this thread.
However, what kind of fucked up system doesn’t let an exhausted brand new mother have a few extra hours or a day in hospital with a little bit of support?
Also, I was under the impression that breastfed babies were supposed to be established with feeding before discharge?
For both of my births, I paid for private care. The way it worked was that I had all my appointments before the birth with my Obstetrician Consultant at our local private Spire hospital (I had met him previously in the NHS when we lost a baby), and when I went into labour I had his personal mobile number to inform him, and he then met us at the labour ward in our NHS hospital, where he also worked as a highly respected senior Consultant.
Having him with us all the way through 2 very difficult pregnancies was very reassuring and totally worth the money we spent on his care. At the time, we could afford it because of our jobs and looking back I would do it again if I was able to.
I was at this hospital and had some incredible pregnancy care (couldn’t have asked for much more) but after we were discharged and sent home. We refused to go because something didn’t feel right. 12 hours later baby collapsed and ended up in neonatal but eventually recovered and is doing well now. Had we gone home we might not have been so lucky.
To add to the anecdotal evidence in here, our kids are happy and healthy at 10 and 7 now, but both had ridiculous issues in the hospital (Southampton) that required a complaint escalated to the CQC due to non-response from initial complaints to the Unit and Trust, that were just ignored.
With the first, an untrained midwife was allowed to perform an episiotomy, which cut an artery and resulted in my wife losing nearly three pints of blood – but having to give birth, with no painkillers I might add, before she was given blood and plasma to replace.
Then our son didn’t feed for nearly 48 hours after birth, something I had to pick up on and point out to the staff, who didn’t give half a fuck.
With the second, they left it too long so she couldn’t be given an epidural, then was unable to birth the placenta, again, lost a lot of blood. She was whisked off to surgery, and I was left on my own in a dark room with our new daughter for over four hours, not knowing if my wife was alive or not. Eventually some cleaning staff came in to prep the room for the next mother-to-be, and were shocked I was still there. They had to raise the alarm with the midwife staff who had no idea what was going on.
Apparently my wife’s surgery had only taken half an hour, and she’d been put into a ward for mothers without babies – if you know what I mean. She was absolutely fucking terrified that our daughter hadn’t survived.
im a retired nurse, nurse at the time, my first born in hospital was so horrific that i had the other two at home, even after the risk explained. that was 50 years ago. its hard to think its still the same
I had a 21wk termination for medical reasons through labour and delivery and for me they literally wouldn’t let me go home until the morning shift took over which was about 4 hours after I was ready. I’d said my goodbyes and didn’t want to be in that room any longer. They were good other than that though and not allowing me to have adequate pain relief, but I don’t think any amount of pain relief would have been enough for me in that moment I would probably still have been asking for more. I had the nitrous but that was it and they took that away after delivery when I was still having post birth contractions. 0/10, chosen to not get pregnant again and just not have children going forward. This story is heart breaking.
I’ve had 2 kids on the NHS and have nothing but good things to say about them. My question for this is what happened with the dad? It reads like he passed the baby off and then went to sleep? Couldn’t he have stayed up with her for the first night and help out? I know I did with both of mine
This is awful and the reason why mums (especially breastfeeding mums) should be taught how to bedshare safely. Safe sleep 7, c curl, limited blankets, breastfeeding etc. It’s far safer to plan to bedshare than accidentally fall asleep.
Absolutely brutal.
In the first few weeks breastfeeding makes both mum and baby sleepy. It’s awful trying to stay awake when your body is still recovering and your hormones make you relaxed and sleepy. Especially in the newborn phase. Baby’s always seem to have an absolutely shit day on their second day of life as well.
When I was born, I was slightly under weight. I was put into a critical ward and kept there for 9 whole fucking days. My twin, despite being fine was also put in the same ward as me for 3 days so “you don’t have to travel between two wards to see your children, they can be next to each other”.
Utterly unimaginable they would do the same today.
That’s horrific. Poor woman. Poor baby. Hope the people who papped her out the hospital too soon see what they’ve done and do better in future. Totally avoidable. So sad.
I had multi level spinal surgery and was discharged without being able to walk up and down stairs to a two floor home with no support.
Four hours is nothing, I can’t believe she was let home so soon. That poor family.
Four hours????? Here I was thinking women are kept in the hospital for several days, as a matter of non-negotiable policy, to allow the mother to heal and the baby to spend its first few days in a controlled environment.
The NHS is just awful. When I was miscarrying they had me in A&E for hours, losing blood etc super fast and ended up passing my son in a toilet on my own (I didn’t know until after). They sent me home to wait 2 days for a scan. I had 3 phone numbers for my midwives, two were on holiday and one had her phone stolen so I had nobody.
I complained to the head of nursing and got a “we are sorry”. That was it. I work in that hospital and I am traumatised every time I have to walk through A&E. I was completely medically alone. I was frightened. I had no help afterwards either, luckily I have amazing friends and family but I needed therapy that I still am yet to receive because of a years long waiting list.
I was with the father after the scan and they told us we could try again straight away. We weren’t together at the time. I had had no other chance since. Fucking vile how I was treated, no care whatsoever. I feel for this mother, I really do. Makes me want to cry it’s so awful.
Maternity care in the NHS is an utter disgrace. Even the chairwoman of the review Donna Ockenden is not getting anywhere.
Absolutely not surprised this isn’t something that happens everyday. I was induced on a Thursday and sent home to come back on Friday. Besides that sleep at home on Thursday night I would say I had about 5/6 hours sleep from Friday until I was home Tuesday night.
Friday night had minimal sleep as I was constantly having checks and had baby monitored. Saturday had no sleep at all as I was in labour and Sunday I had just given birth and trying to wrap my head around that I now have a baby and then Monday/Tuesday was spent on the shared ward with other families.
I gave birth Monday morning at 3am and I was just so tired. They gave me my daughter to hold and I was literally nodding off whilst holding her in my arms that I had to tell my boyfriend to take her. When I was on the ward Monday night there was no chance of sleep as there were 5 other women, their babies and their partners all making noise. It was like a domino effect, once one baby started they all kicked off (obviously mine included).
You’re told that you shouldn’t drive when tired so how anybody is supposed to magically look after a baby after giving birth is just madness to me.
This is very sad, but would a hospital have prevented it? On maternity wards mothers are usually in curtained off beds, and the nurses only check in every few hours. Additionally if a mother and baby are healthy after birth then resting at home is much better than a noisy and uncomfortable ward where you will be far more tired by being relentlessly woken up by the staff and other mothers and babies. Generally it is likely to be better to send healthy parents and babies home after birth, I don’t think the NHS have done anything wrong here. This should really be the responsibility of the partner as well as mother to check that the baby is returned to the cot before the mother falls asleep, and if there is no partner then maybe the NHS should provide a more regular checking cycle for the first night in hospital? It is a low probability but unavoidable risk with babies though as parents are exhausted.
First of all, this is a human tragedy and it would be crass to comment on such limited details.
What I will say is that the NHS in the form of maternity services has always seemed to me to undervalue sleep. When new mothers have given birth and are physically exhausted they are given a bed in a ward full of new crying babies.
Can you image any other patient who has been through such an exhausting ordeal, or surgery on the scale of a C section, being put in a room full of crying babies to recover? To make this worse the lights are often kept on at night with nurses chatting away.
Husbands are rarely given the access to help in those early hours and days which can set an unsustainable pattern.
New mothers need rest and sleep. That is a vital ingredient and one that we need to get much better at prioritising.