"Somewhat soured the experience"

After giving birth to our son, my wife received excellent and attentive care from midwives in the ward who couldn’t do enough for her. She was advised to wake the baby for a feed every 3 hours and if she needed help to get him to latch, just press her buzzer and someone would be happy to help.

She presses the buzzer on her first feed with him and the same midwife returned to help, however during the night when my wife required some more assistance after shift change, the new midwife who attended her had a harsh bedside manner. When my wife explained she needed help with feeding, the midwife very curtly told her that she couldn't take the midwives home with her, if she couldn’t get it she'd have to express milk instead. They then returned with some syringes for her to use to express.

This same midwife said that our son had been dressed incorrectly by my wife and that he was cold, only to take his temperature and find out he wasn’t.

A different midwife came round to check up on my wife and son and my wife queried her as to the mucous he was producing, she said it was normal for some amount but she would double check as it was also slightly brown. She returned with the earlier midwife who immediately dismissed it as probably fine. If it wasn’t for our son producing some more mucous whilst she was holding him, she wouldn’t have noticed how brown it was and determined he may have aspirated some meconium.

Given my wife’s existing anxieties in medical settings  having a provider be so cold when all she was asking for was some help to feed her child, it somewhat soured the whole experience when everyone from her community midwife right through to the girls in EOU and delivery suite were nothing but kind and helpful.