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Giving birth in a country where you are unfamiliar with the systems and processes, where you don’t speak the language, and where you aren’t surrounded by family and friends is a daunting experience for any family.
Mirvat, who was resettled to the UK in 2021 through Community Sponsorship, sat down with us to talk through her maternity experience in the UK. She shared how it compared to having children in Syria and Lebanon, and how the Community Sponsorship group in Devon supported her throughout the process.
Read the below interview to hear directly from Mirvat on her maternity experience in the UK!
“The hospital provided an interpreter over the phone but at the start I was struggling to understand the different dialects of the interpreters, because we have different dialects in Arabic. I did ask them to repeat the same sentence several times in order for me to understand and then I asked them to provide me with an interpreter who speaks my dialect.
I was able to attend my ESOL classes up until six months of pregnancy, after that I stopped.
The hospital gave me an anaesthetist who was Egyptian and he started to speak to me in Arabic and he was explaining things to me, which reassured me a bit. He was saying to me ‘if you need anything let me know and I will explain to you’, so that was reassuring for me.”
“In the UK, every month I used to have blood tests and urine tests. I always wondered why they did that because in Lebanon and in Syria, if you went to a doctor, it would have been a private doctor. And they will only do the tests in the first month, and then one month before the birth. And if you went to a public hospital, they wouldn’t do any tests like blood tests or anything, as long as you’re healthy and fine. They would say you don’t need that. While here they keep doing it and I was even wondering why do they keep doing it each month! And they said we just want to make sure that you and the baby are okay.
In Syria, you have a midwife but it’s mainly just for the delivery. And I never had a midwife before. Also, the midwife did extra tests for me when I knew I was having a cesarean. She said ‘I will do a test for you to know if you have any infections.’ And that was very good for me; we don’t have that in Syria, they don’t do tests like that there.”
“One of the good things as well is that they allow the husband to come with you in the delivery room, which in Lebanon and Syria they don’t allow you to do that. Having my husband in the room was comforting for me because I don’t have my sister or my mother here, but having him in the room praying with me, this helped to make me feel better.
I didn’t stay for long in the hospital. I had the baby on Friday and I was able to leave on Sunday. This is different to my previous experience, as in Syria they only let you stay for 12 hours and then you have to leave. If you’re not suffering from anything they dismiss you, but obviously if you have an issue or problem they will keep you for longer.”
“I was worried at the start because I don’t speak the language here. For example, I was worried about how I’m going to get to the hospital appointments or the different medical appointments relating to the pregnancy. But the group didn’t leave my side. They were with me all the time. We used to have appointments every 15 to 20 days, either with the hospital or with the midwife. So, the group was dropping me off and picking me up when my husband didn’t have the car. And when my husband had the car, I started to go by myself, but I went once by myself and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. So, the group started to attend with me to help make sure I understood everything.
The group helped us through everything, they didn’t leave us at all. And even until now they are helping us if we have any issues with schools, with the Job Center, or if any of us are not well, they help in in all aspects. They help a lot.”
“It’s well known here that people normally are on time, but when it comes to hospital appointments it’s different. They would send a letter saying I need to be there at 3pm, and so I would get there at 3pm but then I will be called in at 4pm! But if you’re the one who’s late and you would say, for example, that the road was busy or something happened, they would say ‘oh no, you’re late, why are you late?’”
“Something else that I remembered – normally when people have a baby in Syria, they are given a big prescription full of antibiotics. Even if you don’t have an infection, they will just write a big list of medication that you have to take. While here they didn’t do any of that and I was surprised when they didn’t prescribe me anything. They said if I have pain I should take paracetamol – so that is one of the differences.
Another difference in Syria is that after the cesarean operation or surgery, they ask you not to wash for 10 days because they say there’s a risk of infection. While here, the midwife asked me after 24 hours to go and have a shower and I was like, ‘I can’t have a shower!!’ But here I was told to have a shower twice a day. I remember with my first daughter in Syria, I was just feeling so unclean. I kept saying to my mum that I felt like I had head lice and she said to me, ‘at least wash your hair then!’.
The doctor here prescribed me a shower gel for my wound. I had the shower straightaway and I felt that was so much better than having a list of antibiotics!“
“And also, after the delivery the midwife used to visit me every three days to check on the baby and the jaundice. We don’t have a service like that in Syria. They took the height and weight of the baby and they’re going to see her again in nine months, and then the health visitor will take over after that.”
“I would like to add that if I’m going to have another baby here, then I would prefer to have a female interpreter because there are certain things that I felt shy about discussing with a male interpreter. I never asked for a female interpreter, but I was feeling very embarrassed discussing things with him. Or next time if I want to have a baby, I will speak the language so I won’t need any interpreter at all!”
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