My wife was Diagnosed with gestational diabetes. This was quickly under control by diet and sugars returned to within targets set. Baby was born naturally at 37 +1. We had set on a home birth and at no point was this ruled out by the doctors although they would prefer a hospital birth. It turns out the protocol at Raigmore Hospital is to monitor babies sugars for 24 hours after birth, meaning we were never going to be able to have a home birth. The protocol was never mentioned until the baby was 5 hours old. They would've known this protocol existed since my wife being first diagnosed with gestation diabetes. My point is they should have alerted us to this at the beginning instead of getting our hopes up that we could still home birth.
Point two - the protocol. Now we id have a hospital birth but we nearly didn't as established labour to birth was less than 30 mins. First we were told baby monitored for sugar levels for 24hr from birth(as it said on the NHS monitoring leaflet) Then another nurse stated no its 24hr from first blood. We then had a few low readings and this changed to 24hr of good readings which I completely understand. Then it changed to 3 consistent readings. This then changed again by a different nurse to more than 3 but unsure how many more. Lack of clear consistent facts being given at every stage.
Point 3. readings we were told were to be 3 hours after feeds. I had to go and get the nurse to do it at 4 hours as they hadn't been done. At this point we were told tat they had stopped doing the recordings. When I questioned this as the last info we were told was 3 consistent readings at this point. The nurse checked the notes and said we were right and they were still doing recordings. this was an hour later than planned and the result was 2. 4. just below limits. Would the figure have been ok if checked at the stated time? No one would say. I was annoyed at this one because the nurses weren't even reading the notes. What if it was an important medication that they missed because they didn't look at the notes.
By now my wife was at a very low point as every time a nurse came in it was a different story. To make matters worse we were now told he was slightly Jaundice. 111 at 24hrs Light therapy would be required. They showed us a nice graph with a line showing the level that light therapy would be required against time from birth. O. K I understood this, the to be told that they don't go by this line the go by a reading within 50 of this line above or below. So what is the point of this line, again on an NHS bit of paperwork. if they are going to then ignore it. They should just make the line at the proper cut off level and be done with it. People would understand it then.
All that we want is for some consistency and to have clear concise information. It just seams that every nurse/doctor had their own ways of looking at the results and where to go next, sometimes following set guidelines and at other times not. We need the NHS to be consistent because we are depending on you to do your job and make clear decision so we as the patients know what is actually happening.
Our experience just left us confused and reduced our faith in the NHS. It just made it look like no one really knew what they were doing and just making it up as they went along.
"Lack of clear, concise and consistant information."
About: Raigmore Hospital / Maternity care Raigmore Hospital Maternity care IV2 3UJ
Posted by gibson38 (as ),
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Update posted by gibson38 (a parent/guardian) 8 years ago
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