Nipple pinching, ear-tweaking and chamomile tea By Kate

I never thought I'd have my nipples squeezed and stomach prodded by so many complete strangers, but that's life in a post natal ward, I guess. After Rosie's sudden entrance into the world by emergency cesarean she and I spent four nights in room 11-14 at Hospital La Paz in Madrid, which was quite an experience.

Given the limited nature of my Spanish, my communication with the nurses and orderlies was a bit hit and miss at times, but you couldn't fault the quality of care. We weren't in a large ward, but a room we shared with one other woman and her baby (plus the inevitable legions of friends and relatives), which had its own en-suite bathroom. Our babies were with us pretty much throughout, just occasionally being taken off for baths, jabs, tests and so on. Most of our immediate needs were provided - an unending supply of nappies, cleaning materials and clean hospital gowns for both of us. And best of all, our partners were allowed to stay the night - although they had to sleep in reclining chairs.

Rosie and I were given a lot of well-meaning attention (although, when it came to establishing breastfeeding, some of it was misguided - but I didn't know that at the time) and my (and Theo's) learning curve when it came to nappy-changing, baby bathing, cord-cleaning and general care-giving was steep, but satisfying.

While we were in La Paz, we shared our room with three other families - baby Martin with his mother and English-speaking father (very helpful when I needed translations in those first couple of days!!) and their forty or so visitors; Marie, who had just had premature twins by C section, and her twenty or so visitors (but she was with me for less than one day, so I expect the number went up) and baby Arturo plus his Peruvian parents and their thirty or so visitors. What was very touching about the parade of visitors was how much fuss they made of little Rosie as she and I watched the comings and goings with great interest. "Que rica!!" they cried, "Que preciosa!" It was all very gratifying.

Daily entertainment included the doctor's round - a neat, brisk, cheerful man with a nurse acolyte who would waltz into the room and check each patient as follows:
"Have you peed?" (yes)
"Have you pooed?" (yes)
"Breasts okay?" (yes thanks)
"Any pain?" (not much)
"Baby feeding?" (yes)
"Take good care of your babies, Ladies, take care of your babies!"
And that would be it until the next day.

Another part of the hospital routine that made me smile was the relaxing hot drink before bed time. Except usually the inhabitants of the ward had already retired by the time it turned up. It would be around midnight and the lights would be out, husbands peacefully snoozing in chairs, babies dozing and snuffling in cots or their mother's arms and mothers trying to grab some precious shut-eye before the next feed... Suddenly the tranquility would be rudely interrupted by a blaze of florescent lights and the clanking of a trolley as two nurse orderlies marched in and offered us hot milk or chamomile tea, followed by another with her selection of "calmantes" (pain-killers). I would usually take the chamomile just to calm the sudden rush of adrenalin brought on by the abrupt break in our serenity.

The nurses and orderlies varied in attitude from sweet and smiley (including one who would try out a few words of English with us) to no-nonsense efficient, to borderline rude. Some were reasonably patient with my limited understanding of Spanish, others considerably less so. Thank god for our bi-lingual visitors, who helped explain a few crucial things.
One standout character was Nurse Bossy (not her real name) - a middle-aged nurse in the no-nonsense efficient bracket who oversaw our care of Rosie. She did many useful things, including show me the best ways to change a nappy, clean an umbilical cord, bath a baby and see off a touch of jaundice. She was frighteningly rough in the way she handled tiny Rosie, but my daughter didn't seem to mind - like most babies, she could sense a person's confidence and was reassured. I resolved to stop treating my baby as if she was made of porcelain.

Nurse B was also determined to get Rosie feeding and putting on weight - Rosie was far more interested in sleeping than eating and consequently lost 6 per cent of her birth weight in the first two days.

I was encouraged to breastfeed - something I was keen to do - but unfortunately, Rosie just wasn't interested. Nurse Bossy tried various techniques to encourage Rosie to sup at my breasts, including different positions, ear-tweaking and foot massage (both stimulate the suction reflex), but at best, Rosie was managing two weak sucks before dropping off to sleep - not very helpful.

Eventually, Nurse B told us to get nipple guards and like magic, Rosie began to suck. It wasn't surprising, really as she'd been given formula from bottles in the time she'd been apart from me after the C Section and hadn't had the chance to use the magic first hour of life to make skin-on-skin contact and find and latch on to the breast. She was, as the breastfeeding experts put it, "nipple confused" - latex teats on bottles were her experience of obtaining food, so my flexible, fleshy things just didn't cut the mustard. Not surprising the nipple guard found favour, it was very similar to a bottle teat. BUT at least it got her taking the colostrum I was producing and then my milk, when it came in on the third day.

We were put on a two and a half hour feeding regime consisting of unlimited breastfeeding and a regular 20ml top-up of formula from the bottle. By day three, Rosie's weight-loss had stopped and soon she was gaining her grams again. Unfortunately, the nipple-guard/bottle regime merely made the nipple confusion worse, so I had my work cut out to get Rosie to take the breast. But that's another story.

On the whole, I have to say Hospital La Paz was extremely good and looked after Rosie and me very well - even the food wasn't TOO bad, especially given Spain's general lack of experience with vegetarianism. The downsides of being in hospital were the heat - even the warm-temperatured Hispanic inmates found the ambience sultry, to say the least - and the lack of opportunity to sleep. Catnapping during the day was almost impossible with the endless comings-and-goings of nurses, cleaners, visitors, doctors, paediatricians, meals etc. etc. and night-time sleep was disturbed by the two babies; their parents (some of whom snored bloody loudly) and of course, the sweltering heat.

All in all, it was a relief to go home. I was lucky and recovered quickly from my C section, sore abdominals soon subsided and my incision seemed to be healing well. I can't help laughing in a hollow way about all that rubbing in of cream to avoid stretchmarks. Well, it worked, I don't have any stretch marks, but there's not much I can do about the 5-inch scar just below my bikini line, or the fleshy ridge of "overhang" above it. As souvenirs of the birth go, I much prefer our gorgeous little Rosie.

The horror, the horror

It all began with a bit of a cough on Friday morning, but by evening Theo was running a temperature and was definitely Not Well. Although he wasn't exactly burning up and dripping with sweat, he was definitely a few degrees warmer than was healthy and when his fever still hadn't come down by Sunday, we decided to seek medical help.

As we're not yet registered with a doctor in Madrid and it was a Sunday, the most sensible thing to do was head for a hospital, which we duly did. Theo was feeling too ill to cope with the Metro (which can be a trial even to those in perfect health) so we took a taxi.

The receptionist was quite nice and tried out a few words of her limited English, once she'd established our nationality. We were told to wait until called, which we did on the ranks of hard plastic chairs with several other mainly elderly patients and one youngish man, whose fever was clearly more advanced than Theo's and was likewise accompanied by an anxious wife.

We were soon summoned to another desk where Theo's blood pressure was checked and we were sent to another waiting room, this one with more comfortable (if somewhat worn and threadbare) chairs.

Next we were called into a consulting room, where Theo's temperature was taken and his symptoms outlined in Spanglish to three youngish, friendly, female medics. They had a relaxed air about them and were enjoying a lively discussion about another diagnosis, while making sure Theo stuck the thermometer under his arm rather than his tongue and establishing that his temperature was indeed a couple of degrees higher than normal.

So far, it was all reasonably laid-back and even entertaining at times - a far cry from the clockwork efficiency of the Luxembourg hospital which had treated my kidney infection last summer, but organised and thorough in a Spanish sort of way.

But for Theo, events tipped into nightmare mode when the three companionable doctors decided he should have a blood test.

Theo doesn't have too many chinks in his armour, but hypodermic needles can pierce through even his legendary self-assurance. His expression changed to one of nervous discomfort. We returned to the waiting room, where it was clear the staff were going to take his blood in full view of all the other patients and their carers.

Any remaining shreds of calm disappeared when Theo realised with dawning horror that they were not only going to take some blood, but hook him up to a drip. It was then that I realised he has a proper phobia of needles. Any attempt at self-possession in front of the rapt spectators went out the window and he dissolved into wide-eyed panic mode.

It was clear the staff, though sympathetic, were not going to take any notice of Theo's plaintive cries of, "nonononono..." I got sent out of the room for my own good, they reclined him flat in his chair and the drip was firmly hooked into his vein.

Poor Theo. I did my best to keep him occupied by talking to him about any nonsense I could think of, but it was clear it was costing him a huge effort to retain any semblance of calm.

The nightmare got worse as he was led to X-ray, wheeling the dreaded drip in front of him - wheelchairs and beds thundering past doing nothing to ease the torturous journey. When we made it the 8 yards across the corridor, he then had to remove his shirt and jumper - which is not a straightforward matter when hooked up to a drip, I can tell you.

Chest X-ray completed, we gingerly made the return journey to the waiting room, where the vaguely insane antics of mad old Jose - clearly a hospital regular - were distracting the other patients from Theo's plight.

Theo's hopes were raised when the drip finally ran out and we flagged down the next available nurse to take it out. This she did, but left the needle protruding from Theo's vein. He was almost beside himself. The nurse was very sweet, but told him he would have to keep the needle attached in case another drip was needed. Theo looked like he couldn't believe things could get any worse and was on the point of turning into Basil Fawlty about the whole thing, when redemption came in the shape of another green-clad medic. She told us the blood test and x-ray had shown nothing unusual and Theo should return home, rest and drink plenty of fluids. He had a touch of the 'flu - not man-'flu, real 'flu - but nothing more sinister than that.

The relief of having the hypodermic removed and being able to escape the Horror House of Huge Needles was enough to make Theo feel a bit better straight away. His face, previously shades of white, grey and green, gained a little colour. The saline drip had sorted out the dehydration caused by his fever and his headachey, nauseous feelings had gone. He even recovered sufficently to take a light stroll in the park. Under the warm Spanish sun, the previous three hours seemed like little more than a bad dream.