"I think it's terrible that I was made to feel this way"

I am 10 days Postpartum from having my little girl. I had a very positive birth experience with so many wonderful people around me getting me through the pain- to then be taken to Ashgrove and have the complete opposite positive experience.

I asked for water and was told someone would come with it - around an hour later still nothing, so I buzzed to ask again and was met with the same member of staff who rudely told my partner that he could have gone to the shop and bought to save waiting, as they are very busy. I was utterly stunned that someone within the care industry could speak to people like this.

Later on in the day i buzzed to get some help with feeding, to which my midwife came and said to put my little girl in skin to skin and they would ask the infant feeding team to come. After around 20 minutes my little girl was upset and another member of staff came behind the curtain to see i was OK - they showed me how to hand express but as i was doing it nothing came. Then the member of staff came over to me and said they would do it to see if they could get anything. The member of staff physically expressed on my breast and got one drop and told me i need to be more firm. I felt useless and reflecting back i think it's terrible that i was made to feel this way and was handled in this way.

Not long after the infant feeding team came and i'm so thankful to this member of staff, because they put the confidence back into me. They could see i was noticeably upset and they listened and helped me. I explained that hand expressing was not working and i couldn't get anything and i was failing because my baby wasn't getting anything even though she was latching and feeding, and they reassured me that hand expressing was not a true reflection of what baby was getting at the breast but more for stimulation.

The member of staff had a knitted breast and they showed me to push back on the breast and then compress and after about a minute i was getting drops myself! It saddens me i can't rememeber this lovely person's name. I hope you do see this and realise how much you changed my hospital stay. Kindness goes a huge way, and in my view there is a few members on the ward that need to learn this, or if you don't like your job, don't do it, because I found the way me and my partner were treated by certain members of staff to be appalling.