"Pregnancy and delivery"

I gave birth to my first child on the 18th of December 2024, after a somewhat difficult pregnancy that had me spend 6 weeks in Perth due to threatened preterm labour. The delivery of my child went very quickly and I cannot thank the midwives that were involved in the delivery enough for creating such a supportive environment.

After birth, I unfortunately was transferred to Maternity B, where my hours old baby was taken by the midwife who took over our care after telling me to get some rest. I woke up after an hour to find my baby no longer in the room with me, I immediately pressed the call bell which received no response so walked out to the nurses station to ask them. Turns out my baby was with a paediatric doctor getting their day one check (without my consent). When my midwife returned to the nurses station their response to me looking for my baby was that they thought my baby would be back before I woke up.

To this day, months later, I am still incredibly angry that my baby was taken without my permission. I am a nurse as well and could have (and I feel should have) initiated a missing child code throughout the hospital, because of a considerably important communication error on this midwife's part. 

To make matters worse, my child was examined without my knowledge when the doctors needed information only I could give about my pregnancy,  and I believe was therefore at risk of having unnecessary procedures.

My child was also examined on the day we were discharged by another paediatric doctor who apparently noticed signs of infection around my baby's umbilical cord and didn't mention it to myself, my baby's father or the midwives (to my knowledge). Meaning it was left untreated and my baby spent their first Christmas with an IV getting antibiotics and my family was unable to spend the time together properly.

Considering the importance of ethics that is taught to nurses and midwives at university, it is astonishing that these communication errors occurred. 

Thankfully, my baby is a happy, healthy and thriving now and other than my own mental health, there have been no residual effects of what I believe to be the short comings of maternity B at Bunbury Regional Hospital.