"Having an extremely premature baby"

My experience at the Princess Royal maternity. I started to write this at 5am because the memories replay on my mind quite often. It’s been just slightly over a year now.

My waters broke at 23 weeks and 6 days, I was taken by ambulance to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. I was told that PRM had space for my baby and in the early hours on a Saturday I was transferred.

After spending a night in the labour suite and no sign of my baby appearing, I was moved to ward 73. Although at the time I thought I was looked after very well, there is one thing that makes me think I could have had my baby stay in longer.

The previous year I had gave birth to a 22 week baby. I spent time in RAH before being transferred to Ninewells in Dundee and in that time I was not allowed to walk, only to the toilet but anywhere else I was in a wheelchair. Yet when I was staying at ward 73, my mum had asked a nurse if I could have a wheelchair so I could get some fresh air. She was told I didn't need one and I was fine to walk.

Why wasn’t I on strict bed rest? If I had stayed in my bed, would that have gave my baby more time?

I was moved back down to the labour suite, where I was told I wasn’t in labour and that the pains was because I had an infection. But I knew it was contraction pain because as I mentioned I did give birth only 11 months prior. I felt like I wasn’t being taken seriously. I was in terrible pain yet I was only given paracetamol. It was the next morning the nurse wanted me to try using the toilet but as soon as I sat up, I could feel the baby coming out. Again I didn’t feel like I was believed until they  did have a look and right enough my baby was coming out and they quickly hit the alarm to alert the neonatal team.

My baby was born at 24 weeks and 6 days. It felt like the longest time waiting to know if my baby survived. Once she was stable the doctors reassured me that she was okay, I got to see her briefly before she was taken away to the unit. I was cleaned up and waiting to be moved in to ward 68. I had the worst experience at that ward.

I was wheeled down and put in a room with 5 other women who all had their babies next to them. While I was put in the middle with no baby, I had to listen to babies cry, happy family getting to meet them. I was unable to sleep worrying about my own baby while I felt I was being tortured. I felt ignored and no one cared about my mental health. I already lost one baby and terrified I was going to lose another.

I’m so grateful for the Neonatal team, I spoke to them about the ward and they weren’t happy with how I was treated and they did put a complaint in. I was then put into my own room. After a night in that room the nurse spoke to me about getting discharged. I felt like they wanted me out because I complained. I felt like I was so hated by the staff there and they were just being fake nice to me. The only ones that felt like they were being genuinely nice  to me were the cleaners. Even though I wanted to be close to my baby, I couldn’t wait to get out of that ward. I stayed there for a week before being discharged but as I was getting ready to leave I was told that they somehow forgot to give me blood thinning injections and I was to do it myself.

The care of my baby in NICU was amazing. And I’m so glad she was born in PRM. Although my experience with that unit is mainly positive, I did have a nurse near the end of our time make me feel like a terrible mother. And I wouldn’t want someone else to be made to feel the same. Because they really upset me and I was left sitting next to my baby's incubator in tears.

At the start before giving birth, I was made to feel like it was my choice to express milk and if I want to then change to formula when she was I think 34 weeks then that was fine. But when I was speaking to the nurse that was looking after her. I was asking when she would be able to switch from breast milk to formula. I feel I was mum shamed for wanting to change to formula. Was told she wasn’t ready to make the switch and made out that I didn’t have enough of my milk and asked if she ever had donor milk which she never did. I was so shocked by this because a couple of weeks before this, I was told I had so much milk it was starting to fill a third tray in the freezer and was told to take milk home.

Going through the trauma and stress of having a very premature baby, I was already blaming myself, so having a nurse making you feel worse isn’t nice.

I want to end this in a positive note and taking that negative experience out of it. I couldn’t fault the unit. Not only were they looking after our baby they were there for us too.

I hope this feedback helps to improve the care of woman going through such a traumatic experience of having a preterm baby.