"A very poor impression of maternity services at Ormskirk and District"

In a nutshell ..I didn't think much was good!

I experienced poor antenatal care in my opinion, I never saw the same midwife twice. My baby felt small and I shared my concerns several times with the different midwives. One actually commented on how 'tiny' my baby felt, but didn't act upon it. None the staff I saw seemed bothered!

Labour ward.. well all I can say is that I'm glad I am a fit and healthy woman who was fortunate enough to have a body that just does what it was designed to do!

The buzzer didn't work when I needed to call the midwife back into the room, my partner had to go and find her! She left me for long periods of time on several occasions, I wouldn't mind but I was actively labouring on admission and wasn't asking for anything other than for them to please stay as I thought my baby was coming out, she looked and it was a bit like 'oh yeah so it is'!

I was left afterwards for 4 hours before i was given a drink and toast. No help was given to help me breastfeed. Needless to say a 6 hour discharge was the option I argued for. They told me as a first time mum I'd need to stay in... what for? I could imagine being dumped in a bed and left to miss home and sink or swim in caring for my new baby. I went home!

Community midwives were a bit better, at least they gave me some info that I understand should have been given to me when I was on delivery suite.

The health visitor hadn't been informed so there was a bit of a delay in her initial visit.

oh yeah and to finish off, baby wasn't correctly weighed at birth, nor her measurements documented.

All in all, my general opinion is that the care was poor... homebirth next time I think!