"The lack of knowledge was very very scary"

Started having symptoms of mastitis - red tender breast, extreme pain, unable to feed my baby due to the pain. I knew straight away it was mastitis, so headed up to Dr Gray's A&E with my mum in the middle of the night as it was a weekend, with the aim of getting antibiotics.

I had a temperature of 38.9 and when I questioned is that not quite high, the member of staff responded  that it was fine. I was told I did not have mastitis and told me to go home and feed my baby.

After 2 days of unbearable pain and the swelling and redness spreading, I called my GP and asked to be seen, the Dr right away said it had progressed in to a pretty aggressive case of mastitis infection. I told them I am allergic to penicillin, to which they said it doesn’t state that on my medical notes so I’ll be fine.

Taking the Dr's word, I went home and took my penicillin, within a few hours I was on the floor being sick and had blood running out my back passage. I had to call my sister-in-law to come help take care of my baby and she immediately called the GP urgent home visit line, to be told to go pick up an anti sickness tablet. My husband then collected these and took them to me, but the sickness was constant and then I started to get really drowsy and in my families words, acting drunk.

After hours and now got blood coming from both ends, I decided to call 111 and my husband passed me the phone, they spoke to me for a few minutes then immediately sent a paramedic to my house. The paramedic came in and after discovering a temperature of 39.9 and extreme tachycardia, they called an ambulance. The paramedics came instantly and had to carry me from my house.

We arrived at A&E Dr Gray's and had to wait outside for about 2-3 hours. My blood test had been handed in but when the paramedics asked for results after 2 hours, they were still sat at reception and hadn’t been sent to lab yet. I had sepsis during labour and became extremely poorly and had to have an emergency c-section in Aberdeen. So we were worried about the mastitis turning septic.

Eventually I was taken in and my bloods were sent to lab, my observations and blood results weren’t great as had extreme dehydration, kidneys were not coping, still tachycardia and a high temperature so they decided to keep me in (no beds available in ward so had to stay in a bed in A&E). After discovering my infection markers were high they put me onto drip for hydration and IV antibiotics.

I had been expressing milk for my husband to come and collect to feed my baby, but the Drs and nurses at A&E told me to pump and dump my milk as I had an infection and I was on antibiotics. This confused me as I was in ARI for 6 days after my baby was born and my baby was in neonatal for 5 days, the whole duration I was in the same situation, on lots of pain relief, IV antibiotics and infection, but I was still breastfeeding the whole time. I questioned why I had to pour my milk and was told it’s not safe.

I asked them to call the breastfeeding consultant for me, they came down to see me and reassured me that my baby would be fed and he would be able to drink my breast milk, they took down a breast pump for me and helped me express milk to send home with my husband. Without the breastfeeding consultant I would have continued to pour so much perfectly safe breast milk down the sink and my baby would of had no breast milk to feed on. They told me even if the milk was not safe, never pour it down the sink and use it for baby milk baths.

The head of pharmacy came down to chat with me too, they were disappointed in my care from Dr Grays A&E as I had went up prior in a lot of pain, and was sent home with nothing. The consultant guided me through the rest of my breastfeeding journey and I will forever be so thankful for them. Had I not of asked to see them while I was there I would of never been given any advice other than just pour it down the sink.

I am so disheartened from my experience and felt that absolutely no one in A&E had any experience regarding postpartum women. Mastitis is extremely easy to diagnose if you know what you are looking for, I had already diagnosed myself before I visited A&E. My outcome could have been extremely different for me had I have not trusted my gut that something really wasn’t right.

A massive shout-out to Amanda, the breastfeeding consultant, and the whole of ward 3, and the pharmacist whose name I did not catch, these are the ones who are so underrated and seemed to be the only ones who truthfully listened and cared. Had I of been listened to, I would have never been hospitalised with suspected cellulitis/sepsis and a 5 week old breast fed baby at home. I appreciate the NHS but this was extremely worrying. The lack of knowledge was very very scary.