"Maternity Care Experience"

I had a positive experience of maternity care in Paisley at the RAH. My named midwife was Amy who I saw at nearly all my appointments. Being a naturally shy and reserved person, I felt confident and comfortable to be able to ask questions about pregnancy and birth. Having continuity of care helped talking about bodily functions and answering the midwife’s questions about it which you normally would not talk about. 

 I went in to labour on my due date and saw my midwife twice that day at the antenatal clinic and in the midwife unit when my waters had broken. While I was at the midwife unit, I had what felt like a long continuous contraction and Amy took me straight down in to triage. Amy had a calm and professional manner throughout. 

While I was in triage, I was found to be 4-5cm dilated so I went straight on to the labour ward. On the labour ward I had Debi as my midwife for the rest of my labour and the birth of my baby. Debi kept me informed throughout the labour about what she was doing, why she was doing it and gaining consent to do it. Debi was very attentive throughout labour, I expressed pain at one point as the baby had kicked quite hard and it caught me of guard  even though I'd had an epidural and straight away, she was asking what’s wrong?  

Although I ended up having an emergency cesarean section it was still a pleasant experience. The anaesthetist explained what was happening and talked about having a spinal anaesthetic and the pros of that. My surgery was carried out by Dr Anderson and the theatre team all introduced themselves to me and my partner in theatre, so we knew who was in the room which was a pleasant touch. The doctor beside me told me what was going on in the surgery and confirmed my baby was a boy and the weight he thought he was roughly around while I was waiting for my baby to be passed to me. I didn’t have any complications from the surgery apart from a bit of moderate bleeding in recovery which Dr Anderson quickly resolved. 

Our first home visit was by a midwife I’m sure was called Elizabeth and she spent a great deal of time with us helping me to hand expressed as baby stopped latching on to breast. Although breast feeding didn’t go as planned , I did get a lot of support from Debi and the midwives and care assistants on the post-natal ward even though I’m sure they were busy, they made time to help me. Although baby never latched back on to breast, we combi fed for a little while using hand expression that Elizabeth showed to me and using an electric pump.  

I’d like to thank all the midwives, doctors and care assistants involved in our maternity care.  

I had my baby at the end of 2019 before COVID 19 arrived in Scotland.