Congratulations to you and your wife, Charlie and welcome to the world
to your little daughter. She looks absolutely adorable on the picture!

Reading your article on Ouch has brought back memories of my own son's
birth, in May 2007. I didn't have time to prepare the staff regarding
communication needs because a) my baby arrived 2 months early b) I was
transferred to another hospital, but the staff, especially the
midwives were generally very good, which I'm really grateful about. I
was actually in hospital for 3 weeks before the birth, so I had time
to tell everyone about my deafness. Having said that, I was in stage 1
labour for two and a half weeks (yes, weeks, not hours) and having yo-
yo-ed between ward and labour suite so many times, they decided that
baby wasn't ready yet, but then, he came quite suddenly, with no time
to take me to labour suite and for any kind of preparation! Thank God,
the midwives on duty were nice and fully aware of my deafness. My son
was born in my room (they'd given me a private room due to my being a
long term maternity patient!). There was no time for pain-relief.
However, they had to rush me to theatre after the birth, due to
complications and I needed an epidural and had exactly the same
problems as your wife then. My husband wasn't allowed in and I wasn't
allowed my hearing aids, so not only could I not lipread, but I
couldnt' hear a thing. The consultant anaesthesits was really
unhelpful too! It was a very stressful time and he nearly blotched it
all up because not being aware he was about to insert the needle, as a
reaction when he spoke, I lifted my head!

Reading your article makes me realise that something must be done to
raise awareness of the needs of patients and mothers in hospitals and
maternity wards. I find that doctors in particular, are so unaware of
the problems and stress that deafness can cause when a patient goes to
hospital!

Thanks for sharing.

Saffron

PS: My son, little David, is doing really well. He's now a very happy
and energetic 20-month old and already has a huge vocabulary in 3
spoken languages, plus 2-3 BSL signs too (I must sign more to him!).

--- In hardofhearinguk@..., Charlie Swinbourne
<charlieswinbourne@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> This month's Ouch column is about the arrival of my baby daughter on
New
> Year's Eve! Just click below to read it -
>
>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/features/interpreting_my_daughters_birth.sht
ml
>
> Best wishes,
>
> (a very tired) Charlie
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>