"Care after birth"

I had a very easy straight forward birth in the midwife unit which couldn’t have gone better. A few hours after giving birth I was told that if I needed to stay in for support with breastfeeding then I’d need to go down to the labour ward. My biggest regret in life was agreeing to this as the care in the labour ward ruined my positive birth experience.

First of all, my partner had to sleep on a hard chair ... not even an arm chair. We broke the rules and had him sleep in the tiny bed with me, don’t even care... not acceptable in this day and age for such poor facilities to be offered to birth partners.

It was absolutely roasting hot and I was sweating non stop, horrendously stressful. Nobody offered support with breastfeeding, I buzzed several times to be told they’d be back to me soon once they had the time... 4 hours later while my baby is still hungry I was asked to fill out a form, I told them absolutely not, I wasn’t doing anything until someone helped me feed my hungry baby. That day I got it into my head that I wanted to leave in the morning, the day after giving birth. I told them this .... they had several people come round to see me to convince me to stay. I burst into tears. They then let me go. Thank god. Most awful experience ever. I think if someone gives birth in the midwife unit then they should be cared for in the midwife unit.