"Fantastic Midwife Led Care"

I recently gave birth to my daughter at AMU in the Midwifery Suite and received the most fantastic patient centred care both in the Maternity Assessment department the night before and in the Midwifery Unit on the day of my  daughter's birth that I feel I need to share and send my sincere thanks to the midwifes involved in my care.

I attended AMU due to some reduced movements for monitoring and was cared for by Kayleigh in the assessment unit who was really supportive and took time to listen to all of our concerns. She hooked me up to monitoring and thankfully everything looked good with our baby but because I still hadn't felt much movement, she wanted to speak with one of the registrars to seek additional advice. She explained that she thought the recommendation would be an induction as it was our due date and movements were still reduced however, she knew this wasn't what I had hoped for and took the time to listen to our birth preferences and encouraged us to make use of BRAIN. She made me feel that I was empowered and in control of the decisions and explained ways that we could still make our birth as close to what we had wanted as possible and I left that night having agreed to an induction for the following evening. I was disappointed that our birth preferences were taking a different course as I had desperately wanted a natural and intervention free water birth but most importantly I felt listened to and respected throughout this.

The next day I went into labour spontaneously before the induction time that had been agreed and after agreeing to some additional monitoring to put everyone's mind at ease, I was able to go round to the Midwife Suite and make use of the birthing pool as I had wanted. The Midwife who supported me throughout my birth was Anne and I will never be able to thank her enough for the care she gave me. She listened to me and understood exactly what I hoped for and encouraged me to listen to my body at every turn. She was caring, respectful of our wishes and was excellent at consulting with me and keeping intervention at bay when a Dr from the labour ward had requested a cannula about an hour before I delivered our little girl. I had been told that our baby was measuring large and was worried during transition about this and the fact I was a first time mum but she made me feel like I could do it and put any worries I had completely at ease. I have no doubt that she was instrumental in the fact that I gave birth exactly how I had wanted to and came away from the experience elated and so grateful to have had that experience. I had to go to theatre for a repair afterwards but even when a number of people felt that this must have been "traumatic" I really didn't and I'm sure that is down to the fantastic care I received throughout in the Midwifery Suite. 

Please pass on my thanks and let the team know again that they do an incredible job!