Am I the only one that finds midwife appointments useless?

I never had the same midwife twice. Every day is a different one , consider yourself lucky 🙂

I find very useless too. Even the obgym one I had on 20 weeks were very useless and not worth it. I am not really trusting much anything. Which is very sad.

@Amg not sure what's lucky about the quality of the appointments being so poor just because I've seen the same midwife more than once when the appointments are all over the place?

@Roberta exactly! I'm sorry you're finding it useless as well. I just feel they're all over the place and even addressing it has seemed pointless. I can't even see that they can spot anything going wrong in my pregnancy as I would go to Triage if I have any concerns. The bump measurements are pointless, you can't really have in depth conversations with them as you don't know who you'll see next and it turns out their equipment is so old that it measures wrong. I honestly find it pointless when I always leave more stressed.

i’ve also seen about 4 different midwives now and the last one seemed to have no clue and asked me where she should measure the bump from. this now caused a big measurement and i’m being sent for a growth scan due to excessive growth. which i don’t believe is true i just don’t think she measured me properly. i was also trying to tell her how i was struggling with what i think is pelvic girdle and she just laughed at me. I wouldn’t blame you for sacking them off.

Mine went on long term sick and nobody got in touch to let me know or give me an alternative contact number 😅 had to ring round the houses to try and get an appointment booked in! So I will also be seeing whoever they get to cover the appointments from now on, not ideal at all and just glad we can find so much out online now!

They don't measure my bump at my local one. They check wee sample, blood pressure, carbon monoxide and baby’s heart rate.

I’ve had the same Midwife for every single appointment up until my last two (36 weeks and 38 weeks) which has really stressed me out as I feel like these final ones are the most important ones and everything we’ve discussed from 10 weeks until now has been pointless as she’s apparently went off sick 🙃 I’ve heard so many similar stories to yours too!

Glad not just me! I’ve felt like this in my pregnancy and either that they are always running late, once even forgot about me and I was there for an hour! Never had the same one but I had a midwife who seemed to be doing it for years and her check this week was thorough which makes me wonder shouldn’t they all be doing that?! Badger notes get on my nerves too as they never actually upload all the details on there! I was also supposed to have my cervix checked at 12weeks and only picked up on this at 34 weeks that it hadnt been done 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think they should also be checking your urine, carbon monoxide, baby's position and heartrate each time, that's what they do at mine which I find quite reassuring. I've found a couple of the hospital appointments with obstetricians really pointless and stress inducing so totally get where you're coming from though! Just telling myself I'm doing what is best for baby to go to the appointments and get checked, anything you don't agree with take with a pinch of salt, you know your body best and I'm sure when baby is here you will forget all this rubbish xx

Same! They just test my urine, blood pressure and bump size. Although I was in hospital for reduced movement recently and was told that a urine sample from a month ago showed an infection and I should have been told and put on anti biotics straight away! Why do the sample if you’re not going to act on it? I’m starting to get annoyed by them tbh. Always someone different too.

I'm just sorry that the standard is literally so poor for so many and especially when you get to the end of your pregnancy and it gets very real, it's stressful to see someone new who's all over the place. I get all the checks every time but as that's routine and everything is fine, I'm not too bothered about it. Whenever there seems to be some structure in place, it's suddenly all over the place again and the fact that they can't even measure blood pressure correctly is worrying. Spoke to a couple of friends in other countries and they actually look forward to the appointments and see the same person. Here it's just useless and stressful. There's at least two of the midwives I've seen where I've thought that I don't even want them there when I give birth and particularly the one from this week I'd be fuming if she would be my support during a long and painful labour!

I opted out of most of my midwife appointments! Only been to 1 or 2 and due in a few weeks 🥳

@Mia good for you! Did you find them useless? Have you still been to your scans? I'll see how the one next week pans out and then I'll decide if I go again x

I thought they were useless my first pregnancy so with my second I knew I wanted to opt out. Agree with you about it being a check box activity with a new person every time. I did ofc go for the scans as that feels quite important to make sure baby is healthy

Good luck with your midwife I hope you get the support you're looking for

I have my midwife (who I've seen twice) I've also seen cover for her three times. They're usually ok but the last one was reading from her notes and was like "so, we're booking you in for a gentle induction next week" (I was around 28 weeks). She was reading someone else's notes out...

@Merryn it's just this disorganisation I can't deal with. If they are a midwife group, then at least they should be prepared when turning up for the appointments and have proper access to everything.

At least you are having more scans. I just had the 20 week and have the 36 weeks scheduled for next week. Had to have some private ones in between for reassurance.

@Roberta ours there is no scan after 20 weeks. But still 20 to 36 weeks is such a big gap to not have any information or check the health of the pregnancy.

Yes, it is very nerve racking not having more scans. I had a fee more in between to check the baby. Definitely very poor assistance for pregnancy.