"Maternity ward experience"

In June 2021 I gave birth to my first child at Antrim Area Hospital and stayed on the maternity ward for four days. Overall I felt really well looked after the whole time. The ward seemed to be very well staffed at the time, though I think this was because student midwives were swelling the numbers.

Everyone on the ward was kind and caring and full of advice to help me with my baby. There were one or two occasions where a staff member offered me advice about newborn care but I wasn’t sure what their role was - e.g. when the person who had brought me lunch came to pick up the empty plates, they spontaneously suggested to me to hold the baby a certain way for feeding, but I didn’t know if they were a domestic or a healthcare assistant or a midwife - so I wasn’t sure how much weight to put to their advice.

On several occasions someone assumed I had already been told something that I hadn’t. For example someone arrived, held out a packet to me and said here are your iron tablets. This was the first time they’d been mentioned. They said due to my level of blood loss it is recommended that I take iron tablets. I thought they could have led with that, rather than assuming I knew what they were talking about.

A breastfeeding specialist midwife came to see me on my last day in the ward and said they would refer my child for potential tongue-tie division. Later that week the community midwife asked if I had had an appointment for this and I hadn’t. The midwife investigated and the referral did not appear to have gone through, so they sent another referral and I got an appointment a week later. However, after the snip my baby still persistently refused to latch on. By this point he had been on bottles for ten days and I think he hadn’t the patience to wait for let-down, so I believe this delay in referral may have contributed to him never successfully breastfeeding.

My maternity ward experience was overall a positive one, with lots of kind and knowledgeable staff (and students), so thank you for your excellent service. I just thought I’d share this couple of minor points above in case they can be learned from.