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newborn checks

Posted By Newmum54321

"newborn checks"

About: Forth Valley Royal Hospital / Maternity unit

(as a service user),

After having a lovely home birth, I was asked to take my newborn to ward 8 at Forth Valley Royal Infirmary for her newborn checks. We initially were sent away as the people answering the buzzer in the ward weren't expecting us. When we got to the right place and were seen, my daughter was unsettled as it was hot and we'd been sitting around in the hospital ourselves for 90 minutes. 

The paediatrician asked if she could give her sucrose to try and calm her for the examination and I said I'd prefer not as we are trying to establish breastfeeding and she was only 2 days old. I offered to hold her or feed her to calm her down but the doctor declined. She wanted to get a second opinion on my babies hips.

While she was away asking an advanced practitioner to come and give a second opinion I started nursing my baby. My baby was still feeding when the advanced practitioner came through and was waiting to do the exam. I asked if she needed my to stop feeding and she said yes. Again my daughter got upset during the exam and the advanced practitioner gave her sucrose without asking and too quickly for me to say anything.

I felt very upset and exhausted. I didn't feel I could say anything as I would have cried and just wanted to get home to feel safe again. ( I was very emotional 2 days postpartum and was tired hungry and thirsty as I wasn't expecting to be there so long and hadn't packed a drink snack and stressed being out alone with my new baby for the first time) and felt dis-empowered and vulnerable.

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Responses

Response from Gail Bell, Deputy Head of Midwifery, Women and Children, NHS Forth Valley 3 years ago
Gail Bell
Deputy Head of Midwifery, Women and Children,
NHS Forth Valley

Submitted on 09/07/2020 at 11:14
Published on Care Opinion at 11:14

Dear Newmum54321

Congratulations on the birth of your little girl. I hope you are enjoying family life and your little girl is bringing you lots of joy.

It is great to hear that you had a lovely birth experience in your own home. I am however saddened to read that your visit to ward 8 and involvement with our maternity and paediatric staff was not such a positive experience. To read that you were left feeling disempowered and vulnerable is not an easy read and I can only offer my deepest apologies and hope to reassure you that we will follow-up on each point with the teams involved and ask them to reflect on the impact that their care has had on you.

I am sorry that staff do not appear to have respected your wishes or taken the time to listen or fully explain the use of sucrose. Knowing that this would not have interfered with your breastfeeding would hopefully have helped allay some of your fears and anxieties. Seeing your baby upset whilst undergoing examinations is not easy for any mother.

I appreciate it will have been difficult for you to share this experience with us so I want to thank you for your courage and taking the time to post it. We need to ensure that we learn from the experiences of our mothers and families.

I am very conscious that it is not always easy to convey empathic and supportive responses via this platform so I wondered if it would be helpful to meet up to have a more in-depth chat about the situation? I would be more than happy for you to bring your Midwife who cared for you, if this would help. I can be contacted via email at gailbell@nhs.net or via telephone on 01324567484.

Going forward, I hope that your little girl brings you lots of fantastic and exciting times as she develops her own little personality.

Stay safe and well during these times.

Kindest regards

Gail

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