Maternity Care Trauma in Belgium

7 comments

1. I have to correct myself: Comment section*

2. When my girlfriend gave birth to our firstborn last august, we were very wel treated in AZ Sint Lucas at Ghent! During the night we sometimes felt a bit rushed because they were understaffed and we heard that a whoping -+ 240 babies have been born that month!

   I still have to hear something bad about maternity care in Belgium

3. My three kids were all born in different hospitals and we were always treated like royalty. My youngest had to stay a bit longer and it was amazing how caring everyone was.

4. Yes it does exist. I had a horrendous experience. Among other things, the issues went from a dirty waiting room still spotted with blood from the person before me, over the equipment not picking up my child’s heart rate and them not caring, the midwives not wanting to register me being there (I had contractions every 2 minutes and they “weren’t sure if is was in active labour and could be sent home”), them refusing to call the anesthesiologist when asked at 2pm until 8pm, to giving birth in a room that was not a labour room (complete with missing curtain, at night) and midwives refusing pain medication “because it is natural to feel pain”.
   There were no reactions when I rang the button for help, it always took over an hour for them to swing by.
   Some other things too. So yeah. Not great. I will always tell anyone pregnant to avoid that particular hospital like the plague since there were loads of women with similar stories.

5. Those exist, I had a major shitty experience. The gynaecologist didn’t track my pregnancy well in the last trimester and went on holiday in my last weeks, on top of that I went a bit over my due date. The epidural didn’t work but they didn’t call the anesthesiologist back so I was stuck in my bed, not allowed to move but feeling the labour pains for 24 hours. After begging for hours to see the gynaecologist “van wacht” they finally got him out of bed and it didn’t take two minutes of him checking to rush me into a C-section because the baby was not placed properly. Turns out he would have never come out naturally because he was almost 5kg as well, but the gyno didn’t check the growth.

   Every one of the people who was supposed to help did something shitty. I know they thought I was overreacting because I was basically screaming like an idiot every time I had a labour pain [weeën], but that was also their fault, they had maxed out the amount of product to strengthen the labour, because it wouldn’t progress fast enough, and the epidural wasn’t working so they were stronger than they are supposed to be and all for nothing, since the baby’s head wasn’t pressing down either it would never have opened.

   I don’t know what the fuck they did during the c-section but I couldn’t walk for a week.

   I’m lucky that money was not a big issue because I paid out of pocket for all the physical therapy and the trauma therapy after that. I definitely had PTSD from that and I’ve been doing EMDR for about a year now. Was also unable to work for a good year. Sex is complicated now obviously. I didn’t sue because I just want it all past me but I’m never going into that hospital again and probably not having another child.

6. We had a pretty bad maternity care experience for our first kid. We still regret to not have formally complained about this.

   Medically everything was perfect (when care came from a MD), psychologically we / my wife were mistreated by the midwives during our stay. I was counting down the time till we could get home with the kid like we had to escape prison.

   Second child in the same hospital (we returned to the same hospital because the gynecologist was top notch and medically they were doing well), only this time we were “armed” with the experience of being already parents and we were cleared to go home on the same day after a non-complicated birth. We felt that the team of midwives at that moment would have been more correct but still from the previous experience nothing beats feeling safe at home and having only the midwife you know very well come visit at home.

   Not all the midwives are created equals and you can get into the shift of a shitty one, + a tons of shit can happen that can result in poor treatment at a very vulnerable moment in the life of a mother. I wish I could have protected my wife better at that moment. I was present at all time for an almost a whole week but I was myself inexperienced and let these bitches walk over us. We will never get to redo this precious moment and it suck.

7. Not my case but for NICU (premature babies…) , in many cases the moms have just a chair to stay/sleep close to the baby. That is emotional and physicals difficult for moms.

   Second, for older moms, with treatment and big pregnancies lost, there are not enough support or investigations performed.