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What
happens after the caesarean?Yes, I admit it - despite weeks of dutiful antenatal heavy breathing and 'welcome the pain' exercises, I was not sorry to sidestep the traditional version of childbirth. When my consultant confirmed that my baby was still in the breech position - "The baby's not for turning," I think he said - I readily agreed to an elective Caesarean delivery.
As fate would have it, the baby decided to come a week early, so my husband and I still had the thrill of the of the sitcom midnight dash to the hospital. While he parked the car, I rang the doorbell of the labour ward and hovered nervously outside. Then I was suddenly sucked into this strange world, issued with a regulation backless gown and left alone, strapped to a baby monitoring machine, in a side room. My first ever experience as a hospital in-patient.
After two hours of ‘I-Spy’ with my husband, a jolly anaesthetist burst in. "Do you want a general anaesthetic or an epidural?" he said. "What's the difference?" I asked. "Well, with an epidural, you're less likely to die on the operating table – ha ha!"
Eventually, we were led into the theatre. I have only praise and thanks for the theatre team who delivered my son Robin safe and sound via an emergency Caesarean. They seemed just like Thunderbirds - flying into action in the middle of the night, doing some amazing stuff with my innards, and then whoosh – gone, never to be seen again. Truly fab.
But then came the aftercare...
Or the hospital's version of it. During our five-day stay I was sorely (pun intended) disappointed by the way the new mothers, and especially Caesareanees, were looked after. After all, along with the baby, I had acquired a sizeable gash across my middle that, according to the pregnancy books, would take several weeks to fully heal.
We all know the NHS is being squeezed to make ever more efficiency savings and that resources are limited. And I do appreciate that maternity services have taken on board many of the things pregnant women want during labour. But what about afterwards, on the wards?
For instance, why were so many of the nurses so brisk, verging on brusque? Practically all the midwives and assistants I came across both in the antenatal clinic and after the birth seemed handpicked for unfriendliness and general world-weariness – "Oh God, not more joy".
Could they not introduce themselves, make some cheery, encouraging comments, or even just smile once in a while? It took several days before I plucked up courage to use my bedside buzzer to call for help, fearful that someone would stomp up and demand a la Basil Fawlty: "Yes, what is it now?"
Perhaps they are bored at having to answer the same old questions about engorged boobs, latching on, and how to change nappies and bath the baby, from each new mother. A simple solution might be to hand out a fact sheet with the most common questions and answers so that we would at least know what to expect in the first few days.
A plan of the ward would have helped, too. I hobbled my way round a whole lap of my ward, pushing Robin in his cot (security measures dictated that you couldn’t leave your baby alone for five minutes) just to find a loo, which turned out to be right next to my bed!
