"Neglectful and Traumatic"

I would like to share my experience at the Ashgrove ward in Aberdeen Maternity Hospital.

My baby was born in the early morning via caesarean section, from which point I feel we experienced a lack of care that contributed to a traumatic first week & us being in the hospital longer than need be.

On the first day, my baby wasn’t latching & despite me asking for guidance repeatedly throughout day I was just told to try again later & was given absolutely no help. It wasn’t until  the evening that I managed to feed her.

A few hours later, baby was taken to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) due to vomiting green liquid. I was to go between the units via wheelchair to feed her. However, on several occasions there were no staff available to wheel me there or back & so I had to make my own way on foot.

Over the course of the first three days, my wound became increasingly painful. I repeatedly told staff & requested additional painkillers. My pleas were disregarded & I was told it was normal to be in pain following a c section.

After three days of me requesting to them to let me see a doctor & multiple midwives checking my wound & saying it was fine, the staff finally agreed to get a doctor to look at it & it was confirmed that my wound was infected. I felt that I was blamed, as I was told that I had been doing too much & that was what caused it.

Around this time, my baby was returned to my unit and by this point I was in so much pain that I couldn’t stand up from my chair. On one occasion, I couldn’t reach my buzzer & no staff came by during this time. Luckily I had my phone and called my partner, who came to the hospital to help me an hour later, by which point I still hadn’t been checked on or helped.

One night, I was in a lot of pain & knew I was unable to get out of bed. My baby was lying on a pillow over me. I used my buzzer to ask someone to help me change her nappy. I was rudely asked by the midwife why I couldn’t do it myself. After explaining, they proceeded to change my baby’s nappy on top of me, over my infected wound.

Whilst being changed, my baby peed. It went onto the pillow, down onto me & the bed. The midwife cleaned my baby up, & put a towel down on my bed. They told me no one could change the bed at that point & someone would change it in the morning, so I was left to sleep in soiled sheets overnight.

The next afternoon, my mum came to visit and found pee on the floor & my baby’s unit. I was still sitting in the same soiled sheets as no one came by to change them.

I was struggling to express milk due to pain & exhaustion, I was told that I would need to get used to being tired & that all the other ladies on the ward were in the same situation as me.

At this point, my baby had been taken back to SCBU & I hadn’t slept for more than 45 minutes at one time over the course of 24 hours as I had to go back & forth to Neonatal. I was emotionally exhausted, constantly worrying about my baby, whilst also being in a lot of pain. I hadn’t eaten properly as I was often in SCBU when the food trolley went by my bed.

On multiple occasions, I was called to the SCBU to find that my baby had gone back to sleep & I’d to go back to the ward again, only to get a call 15 minutes later to go back. Again, during this time, there were often no staff around to wheel me back & forth.

Due to my infection, I had a temperature so a midwife put a fan on for me to cool down. Soon after, another midwife came & told me to turn it off as my baby was too cold. She put socks & mittens on & wrapped baby in multiple blankets. The first midwife came back in & told me that baby would over heat with all the layers on, & we had to take them off again.

Over the course of my stay, most times I rang the buzzer, I’d be told that someone else would come back to help soon & to turn my buzzer off. Then no one would turn up.

One example is I rang my buzzer to request pain killers before I had to make my way to SCBU to feed baby, so they would take effect beforehand so the journey was easier for me. It took 20 minutes before a staff member came & asked me to turn off the buzzer, saying someone would tend to me shortly. Another 20 minutes & no one came so I buzzed again. Someone came & said to turn it off, & that someone else would be through shortly. 25 minutes later (65 minutes after first buzzing) my sister went to the desk & complained. The midwife told her that they thought someone else was attending to me. 5 minutes later the same midwife stormed through & put morphine on my side table, out of reach, & walked away. My sister got up to wheel my table closer so I didn’t need to stretch & poured my water.

Eventually I was let home on condition I returned in a few days to be checked by the specific doctor that reviewed my wound, so they could compare it. On returning, I was reviewed by a midwife that didn’t take the dressing off to check infected area.

I asked to see the doctor & was told that they couldn’t find them. I left to handle it myself, at my local health centre.

The first week of baby’s life was full of a lack of care & a lack of empathy & compassion. I felt alone & neglected, & my mental health suffered due to this.