"Sleep deprived with little care given"

I gave birth to my baby in August 2025. The delivery team of midwives and doctors were fantastic, especially Matt, who administered my epidural with humour and empathy. 

However the postnatal ward left a great deal to be desired. The midwives on shift gave conflicting advice about feeding. I was left on bloody sheets for the 3 nights I was there. I was not told we had to change our baby's sheets ourselves. I suspect that my blood pressure actually went up because of the lack care. I actually had to tell a staff member where clean sheets and cotton wool were kept in the end after rummaging the ward myself. A hospital grade pump was kindly provided for upping my breast milk supply but unfortunately, the midwives in attendance did not realise that flange sizes were not universal, so the pump caused pain and was ineffective instead. More feeding intervention could have been done earlier, had the staff members in attendance realised I had IGT (insufficient glandular tissue), which was only diagnosed later after I was discharged and realised my milk still had not come in. 

Was absolutely sleep deprived with little care given during nights and was even told off by a midwife for not learning to recognise my baby's hunger cues when I had asked for help (a miscommunication because a previous midwife told me he had been fed formula 15 minutes ago).  

The baby's crib and my bed was located next to the toilet door, which meant both midwives and patients banging away at the door whenever it was closed and open, without consideration for our sleep and my poor baby's startle reflex was constantly triggered. Was scolded by a midwife for missing out on a pool stain in my son's thighs (again, third night there, exhausted, doing everything in the dark without a clue how hospital lights and the bed worked) 

All in all, I am grateful I had a place to safely deliver my child, but I still think a lot about the care received after, the nights I just held my baby skin to skin and cried, feeling like we had to survive each night on our own. My blood pressure went down immediately upon finally being given the go-ahead to be discharged and even so, that process was excruciatingly long. Thankful to the two midwives on discharge day who specially ran over to the pharmacy to get medication sorted and figure out why things were taking so long (turns out they had completely missed my prescription).

I understand midwives on shift, especially at night, are stressed and short staffed but I do hope no other mother had to go through what I did.