Maternity system grump

03/11/2014

Ok, I am going to apologize in advance, this is going to be a long post (I don't really expect people to read it all the way through haha)

Right maternity care in the UK:

I am a midwife in the UK. How it works there is, if you are low risk you are seen by a midwife throughout the pregnancy and if anything seems a little out of "normal" you get referred to an OB and then you see both an OB and midwife.

When it comes to labor, in the delivery suite you are cared for 1 to 1 by a midwife(regardless if you are high or low risk, even if you are having an elective CS), she does not have any other patients and can be in the room with you the whole time if you want, we are trained in massage, aromatherapy etc. There are also birthing pools even in the most high risk delivery suites.

Midwives are naturally advocates for women, we try to keep things as natural and safe as possible. Things like dimming the lights, pushing the bed to the side and getting the laboring mum on beanbags or balls. We also do some of this even when you choose to have an epidural, things like massage and aromatherapy can be useful then too!

For pain relief options, we have epidurals but also this magical stuff called Entonox, its basically laughing gas, its great, you suck it in yourself, so you control how much you get, it doesn't affect baby and if you don't like it, you breathe normal air and the effects go away within seconds. We also use water as pain relief.

Midwives also catch all babies that come vaginally (mostly) regardless of your risk, if you are having a normal vaginal birth we catch. And we encourage people to be in upright position not on your back and we always deliver baby onto mum's chest for skin to skin. We won't remove baby from your skin unless baby needs medical help or you request it, most mums have babies on them for the first 2 hours after baby is born!!!

Even if you have a forceps or CS as long as baby is okay, we naturally offer skin to skin even in theatre and we don't have nurseries. Its your baby, you and whoever you are with are with baby 24/7 (again unless in NICU etc)



Soooooo I move to California at 17 weeks pregnant and to be honest I am scared out of my wits to how it is done here. We are 30 mins from the nearest hospital, the next nearest is another 30 from there. Nearest hospital's website tells me things such as, "we allow skin to skin for one hour, after that baby is taken to the nursery for 3 hours" .... ummm NO, no way is anyone taking my baby out of my sight!

Plus policies that include, not standing up once the waters have broken?! and enforcing antibiotic eye gel.

I just don't know what to do, I don't know if I can do this with no pain relief (other than epidural), no midwife support, fighting all along the way to hope to have a natural birth?

My other option is a birth center (which I am not even sure if my insurance covers completely) but the birth center is 2 hours drive away, into LA, which is infamous for awful traffic so could be a 5 hour drive if the traffic is bad... do I want to be stuck in traffic in labor?

Ugh I am hormonal and emotional and if you made it this far, I thank you for listening to me vent!