"Complaint of midwife"

I went to Geraldton Regional Hospital to deliver my first baby. Hours after my baby was delivered a midwife, was assisting me with breastfeeding for the first time. I felt the midwife was rushing me and I did not feel happy with how she treated me. I had never breastfed before and did not know what to do. The midwife basically left me to figure it out by myself and said my baby was latching fine. When another midwife came in she told me my baby was not latching and had to be syringe fed as my baby was not feeding properly. In my opinion, if the first midwife had taken the time to sit down and show me how to latch we would have not had a problem. I found this midwife to be very careless, when taking my temperature orally, she put the thermometer in my mouth without a plastic cap on. I was not happy with how careless I believe she was as she exposed me to germs from other people.

My biggest complaint is a number of days after my baby was born by c-section, just as I was ready to be discharged this same midwife came in an told me she had pricked herself after my c-section. I was quite upset by this as I did not know fully what that meant. When the midwife told me she said - you’re a nurse, you understand what that means - and up and left. I am not a nurse and no I did not know what anything she had told me meant. She did not explain anything to me and I was left feeling very upset. I had to have blood tests done, and when asked if my baby would be affected they told me no. My baby now has to have a blood test to see if they have anything. I understand these things can’t be helped, but I would have liked to have been told earlier, not that many days after my baby was born and I would have liked to have been told in a more appropriate manner and explained everything. I had no other problems with any of the other midwives. I was not happy with this one midwife at all.