"Labour experience"

I had my first baby in August 2023 - three weeks early and despite a textbook pregnancy my little man came three weeks early and needed some time in NICU. I also started in the recovery ward for the duration.

All the staff in the recovery ward, from the midwives (Anne especially! Lovely woman),  nurses to the cleaning staff were fantastic and really made me feel at ease and in good hands. My little ones issue was identified quickly and handled sensitively, given the emotions at stake. I felt that as soon as a specialist was needed they appeared and he was in really competent and good hands. The only exception to this was one nurse on the NICU ward that seemed to be known to others as being a bit of a liability and didn't fill me with any confidence (and so I made sure that either me or my parent were present at all times when they were on shift... She asked basic questions about his treatment that was in his notes). 

The NICU ward really made a massive effort to include parents in the care of the babies including updating us every time we came to visit and included us in the daily/twice daily rounds. I can't over state how important this was for me as a new mum who couldn't be with her baby. The additional touches such as the provision of the miniboos, provisions to let me pump breast milk in the ward and assistance with as much skin to skin as we could manage really made the time spent with our little man unwell manageable. I would say that I think the nurses were in such a hurry to get him set up and treatment started we missed all this initially and only when a new nurse came on shift 3 days in did she sort us out

Overall, it was clear there were resource constraints and the wards were particularly busy but the care and compassion was excellent and I'll be very forever grateful!