From a concerned young couple, sharing personal experience and draw comparison between a confinement lady sourced from a confinement centre to home and a confinement lady without going through confinement centre’s recommendation.

IN year 2016 we had our first baby and we had sourced for a confinement lady from a confinement centre in Puchong. She has completed the 28-day job. Though may not have performed in extraordinary manner, she has completed the entire period and has performed basic job required of a confinement lady.

In year 2018, we welcomed our second baby and this time we do not go with recommendation of centre. Instead, by word of mouth, we source for a confinement lady from Tampin, Melaka. This time, nightmare has occurred. This lady, in her 50s, can be introduced in brief manner as follow:-

1. Cooking skill (fish was not well cooked, picture enclosed; rice was overcooked, picture enclosed);
2. No confinement dish was served during first 2 weeks;
3. Kept requesting to go home due to grandchild falling sick;
4. Dishes piled up to wait for next day cleaning;
5. Cried numerous times citing reason of missing and/or being worried for the sick grandchild [this has seriously affected a mother’s fragile emotion during confinement period];
6. In beginning of third week, she requested to go back Melaka again to visit sick grandchild [this time, we decided to offer her options, either to just quit or stay back as she has agreed to perform 28-day work at our house; regular requests on numerous occasions to go back to Melaka is extremely disturbing];
7. At last, she left in beginning of third week;
8. Refused to wear mask when down with flu and cough, causing my baby infected with flu and cough;
9. To be fair to her, after warning her mid of 2nd week, she has bucked up a little but that did not last long. In a confession by word of mouth, we understand that she was not happy with our house member, however that is never an excuse for her to just skive throughout the period, she should have requested to quit straight instead of coming up with excuses of being worried for sick grandchild and only requested to go back a while.

The purpose of us sharing our experience is to share our view as follow:-

a) Perhaps it is better to source for a confinement lady from a confinement centre to do work at home since money is all paid to the centre and at least the confinement lady will have to answer back to the centre;
b) In the beginning, inquiry must be made whether the confinement lady can climb staircase as in our case the lady cited her slow motion in doing work due to knee problem and constantly complained about staircase at house;
c) Pre-notification must be given that diligence and attention of confinement lady are of utmost importance for confinement work as mother is in fragile condition after delivery [in our case, we need to constantly remind the confinement lady to do work, instead she complained for being reminded constantly, sometimes in harsher way as reminder was turned to deaf ear, instead, she insisted to do work in her own pace and absolute personal manner];
d) Pre-notification must be given that confinement lady shall take whatever condition and room as it is [in our case, we allocate a decent room in a bungalow house for confinement lady, instead she kept complaining bed being not suitable and cited this as reason contributing to her tiredness, thus waking up late next day];
e) Pre-notification must be given that appetite of mother shall be accommodated [in our case, the confinement lady complained wife eats a lot compared to other mothers; to us this is extreme excuse to be lazy and to skive];
f) Pre-notification must be given that early request to quit shall be given in the event of unhappiness [in our case, the confinement lady was not happy and therefore was extremely lazy and slow in her work for initial weeks until warning was given, then bucked up a little but few days later quit];
g) Pre-notification is extremely important as I believe the confinement centre in our first case may have done that whereas in our second time situation, the auntie is not answerable to any institution and dictates arbitrary manner of doing this in her convenience.

All in all, we have had a miserable 3-week experience, however, we learnt and we grow. Hope the public can take as reference from our little sharing of experience which is solely personal view on objective basis in future selection of confinement lady.



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On the day my wife is discharged after delivered, the confinement lady told us that she is sick and not able to come. She never felt sorry and replied rudely that she will not responsible if baby fall sick if we insist her to start work.
We did call her 3 days earlier (on the delivery date) to confirm, and she was still sounds good at that time. Should listen to friends advise that always find a backup confinement lady.

Is there any thread in lowyat we can post blacklisted confinement lady?

What's a confinement lady? What do they do? Genuine question coz I've never heard of such a thing before

also, not to say everything expensive is better and everything cheaper is bad, but be very careful if the pay is too cheap.

if im not mistaken one of the posts here mentioned about doing a thread to blacklist these people.


perhaps someone can start a thread for confinement reviews here, it could be both bad or good.

just a suggestion.