|
home petition media reactions comments awards donations contact |
|
|
Civic initiative |
|
|
MAMA-KANGAROO 004
1. What year did you give birth? I gave birth on 26.02.1990. 2. In which town and hospital? In Novi Sad, at the City Maternity Ward Betanija 3. Did anything unpleasant happen to you in the hospital? What? Did anybody insult you? How? Nothing unpleasant happened to me, though I am not a representative parameter: I am a dentist and half of my high school class was employed at that hospital either as nurses or as doctors, my sister-in-law also being a gynaecologist there. Sincerely speaking, I don’t think I personally had a preferential treatment in any wayJ. 4. How were you addressed in the hospital? By your name and last name, or some nicknames? Which ones? People I did not know addressed me by “Madam” and my acquaintances called me by name. 5. Were there any problems with the accommodation or with the medical equipment? What sort of problems? I was admitted to the hospital around midnight, as my waters broke around 9 PM. After the preparation (shaving etc.) they accommodated me in a half empty room (with only several chairs in it) where I walked around and watched the city at night until about 3 AM, counting breaks between my contractions. They wanted to accommodate me in the so called new wing where I (as a doctor) would be alone in an apartment-type accommodation; however, I asked my classroom friend from the medical high school (paediatric nurse) to take care of my baby (I thought she would get more care and attention there). Since that woman worked in the so called old wing, I was automatically accommodated there – at the pregnancy pathology ward, in a room with 5 more women. I don’t have any particular complaints, I could only complain about modest bed sheets. 6. When did you see your child for the first time after giving birth? How often did you see him/her? Could you see him/her whenever you wanted? Since I gave birth “fully conscious” and had an easy delivery, my baby was immediately put on my breasts and I got to see then. I also saw her when she was brought to me to be breastfed and I could see her whenever I wanted, as well as my husband. From this time distance I cannot judge whether this was a result of knowing the pediatric nurses, or a result of their personal professional efforts: other mothers around me were mainly in a pretty bad health condition, some of them semi conscious or very depressed (I don’t want to bother you with the entire story) but those who were psychically and physically apt to do so could see their children whenever they wanted. 7. When did you breastfeed your baby for the first time? Were there any problems with breastfeeding? What sort of problems? Since I was delivered in the morning (04.35 AM), my baby was brought to me to be breastfed around 07.00 AM and I had no breastfeeding problems for the following ten months. 8. Did you ever happen to doubt the expertise of the doctors and other medical staff? When and why? Personally, I had no doubts at any time. However, when I was transferred to a room intended for some sort of delivery preparation around 03.00 AM, attached to the fetal heart rate monitor and left alone in the dark – to tell you sincerely, I wasn’t sure that I could have called anyone if I – God forbid – did not feel well. 9. Did you ever doubt whether some of the hospital protocols and rules were justified? Which ones? Why? How would you change them? I have always doubted everything. I still do. Firstly, my doctor acquaintances have different education, different numbers of working years, different specialization and there is an entire set of “doctrinary” opinions which are often fundamentally different from each other, confusing the already scared young parents. I would change this. What I want to say is that, for example, when I went to school, we had a special course “diet for newborn babies, infants and toddlers”, the textbook of which decisively stated the type of food to be introduced at a certain age and instructed on how to gradually stop breastfeeding. Several years after that, when I was a student, the practice was to breastfeed as long as possible and to feed baby with almost everything, even the beans, when 6 months old. When I gave birth to my baby, there was a completely different practice… Even now, when you have 1001 pediatricians and nurses with different “doctrinary” opinions, not to even mention today’s private practice, you practically have a ratatouille of advices served by different doctors, even regarding matters of marginal importance to baby’s health. The only solution, in my opinion, is constant re-education of medical staff, with harmonization of opinions and severe punishments (for example for inducing pregnant women to have amniocentesis without medical justification for that – which I see very often, of course for money). That is, of course, pure utopia, God forgive me… 10. Did you have to bribe anyone? If yes, whom (you can state just his/her title, without a name)? What for? How much? No, I did not have to bribe anyone for anything, though my family distributed chocolates and coffee all around the hospital, but that was purely an act of their good will. 11. Do you have any other impressions or comments that you consider important? Food was terrible (then). I was constantly hungry as a wolf and my main “tool” in the hospital room was a rope I used to let it hang from the window so my family could tie a bag of food to it unnoticed J How sad… I would
like to mention something else which I kept in a good memory: pregnant women
got a gift package for their newborn babies (it was taken at the pharmacy
and you even got to choose the colours: baby pink, pale yellow, blue,
white…) I was very poor young mom at that time and I got from the state, as
all the other pregnant women did, 40 diapers, blanket (top quality), large
square towel, couple of sheets, several pieces of baby garments etc. –
sufficient stuff for someone who really doesn’t have money to survive the
first period with the baby.
|
STORIES FROM MATERNITY WARDS Mama-Kangaroo 002
|
|
sponsors and friends
|
|
 |
|
