"Compassionate care"

I gave birth mid Jan 2025 at Trelisk hospital. The staff there were incredible and despite having a very difficult birth, the staff were incredible at supporting me through my recovery.

The midwives in the unit were incredible at supporting me and creating a safe space for me during my time there. I will never be able to thank them enough for the compassion that she showed.

I also wanted to express my gratitude to the doctors and nurses from NICU who provided my precious daughter with the most incredible care and support. They explained everything that was happening, and provided such comfort during what was a terrible time for my husband and I.

Whilst I was there, the NICU designated breast feeding support helped me learn how to feed my daughter, and the time she spent with us has allowed me to build an incredibly strong relationship with her. I am so proud that my body has been able to provide for my child, and I know this couldn't have been possible without the 1-1 support I received during my time in the unit.

I am also receiving ongoing support from the NICU clinical psychologist. I have suffered with mental health since I was a teenager, have worked with various therapists and always been on the road of self-development and healing. However, despite the amount of time I have spent on my mental health, I have always been touching the surface and giving birth has opened up a new level of anxiety, self-awareness and issues. Not only was my labour and the days that followed incredibly challenging on me mentally, but it seems to have unlocked a lot of memories and emotions within my life outside of the hospital too. I'm struggling to find the words to explain how helpful I've found working through my issues with the NICU therapist. She is rational, calm, challenging (in all the right ways) and really does hold a safe space for myself and my husband. Without our sessions, I know that I'd be struggling alone and my life and by impact, my daughters life would be impacted.

There are a couple of areas of developments I would like to flag:

- overwhelmed with info - as a new mum with a NICU baby, I felt completely overwhelmed with information. this significantly contributed towards my mental health deterioration and I'd like to suggest that there are steps put in place to support other new mums (i.e. an agreement on times for health visitors).

- I think the midwives are amazing, but knowing when to be calm during labour and when to give the patients space is really important and something I didn't feel was consistent across the midwives we had during our 24 hours of labour.

- Pre-empting volumes of new babies into the hospital. This one is for the NHS in general. The hospital was overrun with births during January. I was in a bay with twins and this contributed significantly to my deterioration. I was begging for someone to let me sleep in any space, even an office room because I needed some peace. I was also sent home because staff couldn't fit me in to break my waters, which meant I went over the recommended time for a pessary. Surely this could have been pre-empted based on pregnancy figures in cornwall and additional rooms or temporary units could have been made available for those times when demand would be high.