The most shocking thing about the maternity enquiries is how unshocked I am.

I had to stay in after a c section. I was hoping to go home the following evening but there weren't enough staff to discharge me. At 1am a midwife came and said they had done my discharge papers now! I said ill leave first thing in the morning. She said " ill have to check that's OK as we might need the bed!" I said I can't go home now. It's 1am and my husband is at home with our 3 kids who are all in bed! I can't just drag them out at 1am! And I couldn't have made my own way as I was still in a lot of pain from the c section and struggling to walk. I think she realised it was unreasonable to expect me to leave in the middle of the night because I did in face stay until about 9.30am when my husband had seen our kids off to school

What a cow she was to you , I’m sorry this happened, some people are just vile

I literally start counselling today following my birth 5 months ago. It was fairly simple compared to other births, but still my care was so abysmal and I was treated so poorly I cannot bare to think about the day my son was born. It makes me feel sick and panicky and also devastated that I can’t feel the happiness about that day. I feel lucky I was already one and done because if I wasn’t I would NEVER have another child. They joked about seeing me again after they traumatised me. One of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. As others have said too, it’s the hardest time to advocate for yourself, so I dread to think where I’d have been without my husband and mother in law who fiercely advocated for me at every point.

My first pregnancy was tainted by the disgusting Dr I had. He definitely loved the power trip of being in control, infact he refused to induce me unless he done my internal examination after I asked if a female midwife could do it. I wrote a 5 page complaint and even my community midwife had expressed her concerns regarding him.

I had my 2nd and 3rd at a different hospital and 2nd time was absolutely brilliant. Most of my 3rd was amazing until a midwife tried to fob me off with no movement from baby. Told me to wait another few hours as it can be normal- I was high risk and being monitored for still birth. I pushed, was taken in for monitoring, they said everything was fine and I was to go home as I was back in for my regular monitoring on The Tuesday. I again refused and said something didn’t feel right, within hours was in high dependency labour ward. Baby was born not long after.

I dread to think what would have happened if I had waited or if I was a first time mum who didn’t know much about movements and what was normal. Baby was very prem and one of the reasons they gave for me not to go in was that at that gestation not to rely on a pattern. Which ofcourse is usually what they say, but zero movement at all and still no movement right up until delivery.

My experiences were nearly 2 decades ago and I agree Op.
I won’t read this thread though because I already know the accounts of negligence and cruelty will upset me too much.
The overwhelming sense I had when I staggered out of hospital as soon as I could (in a civilised country I would have been there a couple of days) was that birthing women were held in utter contempt. Maybe it’s something about women expressing pain that triggers the disgust, or being at their most vulnerable (when they should be made to feel at their most powerful) but the whole experience made me realise that mysogyny is very real.
It’s a national scandal.

@ElbowsUpRising i agree whole heartedly with your post. I’ve found this thread a really difficult read, and completely at odds with my own experiences working within maternity. I work in a small unit which is generally well staffed. We have a great working relationship with the obstetric team. Staff morale is generally good. I’m sure all these factors make a difference.
Of course, some of the experiences on this thread are inexcusable.

Short staffing and indifference were the main issues I had at my first birth.

I had "pregnancy aches and pains" or more accurately undiagnosed disabling SPD that wasn't identified. I'd had to give up on supermarket shopping at 34 weeks and by 39 weeks couldn't get off the sofa unassisted, or stand at the sink longer than it took to fill a cup of water (sideways on because of the huge bump in the way- I weighed 50% more than normal!). In labour and post-natally the pre-exisiting immobility was totally disregarded. No one cared. After being ejected from HDU in the small hours of the morning to free up a midwife, I was expected to get on with it. Sod the fact that the walk to the dayroom to fetch a tray of sad beige carbs was the longest walk I'd done in two months even before the long labour, stitches in my undercarriage, EMCS and other complications, go and fetch it or go without 🤷‍♀️
Yeah great, you've got a baby with low blood sugars, the milk's not coming in and you're happy to let mums go without food 15 hours after the tea time sandwich was the last food on offer.

DS's blood pricks were being rushed and done badly affecting results. DH spotted one didn't seem to be done the same way as others he'd witnessed and made the MW re-do it and the result then came out consistent with the trend and DS avoided unnecessary interventions.

I gave up even retrieving the buzzer from behind the bed, there was no point in pressing it and joining the chorus of other buzzers being ignored.

I found out on the morning of day 4 when things had calmed down to a ratio of 1:8 and the MWs had chance to actually do some caring, that they had been running at 1:14. I'd been kept in because my blood pressure was still high and the MW coming on shift recognised me and made it her mission to get me discharged that day, recognising that my blood pressure wasn't going anywhere in an overcrowded hospital.

This was prior to austerity. The systemic, cultural problems are very deeply ingrained

I sobbed on DS's first two birthdays as the whole lot flooded back including the parts of labour where my needs were ignored. Second time I was pregnant again and rang the MW team in floods of tears at the prospect of having to go through it all over again, especially as a high risk labour which dredged up the worst parts of labour. Fortunately I was arranged an appointment on labour ward where I could go in a calm state and went through how to make labour more comfortable while practical.

My second birth was mentally healing despite shit hitting the fan again. The fundamental difference was an excellent, caring (recently qualified!) MW who listened to me. It was the details like saying quietly in my ear "I'm worried about the heart rate so I'm going to press the button and it's going to get busy" that made the positive difference between a difficult birth and a difficult, traumatic birth.

Communication culture is a relatively cheap and easy fix.

It's awful how endemic the problems are that keep causing so many tragedies, trauma and injuries and the lessons aren't really learned from one inquiry to the next.

@Upinthetreetops makes an excellent point about how the increase in workload has changed massively due to more documentation, more tests, more procedures, more comorbidities…and no recognition of that increase in workload so our staff/women ratios remain the same.

That needs to change. Sadly at the minute there’s a massive recruitment crisis but not for the reason you might think. The reality is that there are hardly any jobs being advertised, especially not for newly qualified staff. There are a lot of newly qualified midwives who can’t find jobs. Some who qualified a year ago and still haven’t got jobs! The trusts say they don’t have the money to employ them, trusts are tightening their budgets! They’re not filling vacancies.

and to be honest they need to be increasing staff not just filling vacancies.

As a midwife with 20 years experience it’s awful to read these posts and the stuff in the media, totally heartbreaking. I find it really difficult to comprehend how other midwives can treat women like this.

Ive only ever worked in one unit and have genuinely never seen treatment like this. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen where I work but if it does it must be behind closed doors and there certainly isn’t a culture of moaning about the women, etc.

when I was a student actually there was a midwife who used to tell women in labour to “stop making so much noise, etc”. I did report her to a Band 7 once as she upset a woman that I was caring for to the extent the woman begged me not to let the midwife back in the room again ….i advocated for the woman and didn’t let that midwife back in the room which as a student was hard to do. But I’ve always been firm in my belief that being an advocate for women is the main part of my role. Regardless of what they need/want.

I think the culture of a unit makes a difference and I would be surprised if any midwives at my hospital treated women poorly. Overall it’s a happy, supportive unit and that culture starts from the top. When we’ve had midwives come from elsewhere they remark how supportive and friendly it is compared to other places. Staff stay as well which makes a difference. We don’t have a high turnover of staff, we don’t use agency staff. We get on well with the obstetric staff and it’s very much team work. it should be like this everywhere.

My jaw is on the floor reading this.

I work as a Midwife in another country. It is not like this in terms of the level of cruelty described in this thread. Who are these monsters?

Bullying is rife in Midwifery. I've come up with my own theory that 2 types of Midwives exist. The one who cares deeply about women and babies, advocates for patients and wants them to have the experience they want and deserve. And then the Midwife who thrives on the power. Once you've had a baby you know that utter vulnerability you experience as a mother during labour/birth/early postnatal period. A certain kind of person can really thrive on being the one in control, the one who holds the power, in these situations. The 2 types of Midwives naturally clash. I found in my own experience the unkind type of Midwives really don't like the kind ones as it really highlights their own failings. And so bullying ensues.

If you've ever experienced workplace bullying you'll know how devastating it can be. The problem is that most in management are the not so nice type of Midwife so often nothing is done. Then comes the burnout, dissociating as a way to survive, and ultimately leads to disinterest in the job. Then you quit.

I had to take a step back completely and go into a less demanding role for my own mental health. The bullying and toxic working environments tend to be worse in the most demanding clinical areas - so labour ward and any inpatient ward really. Staffing is dire, facilities utterly lacking, dangerous ratios, no support, huge increase in documentation, more and more protocols to be followed but not enough hours in the day. And the big one is the huge complexity now seen in obstetric patients. The co-morbities seen now are tenfold what they were 20 years ago. The complex medical care required for these women is really specialised, often feeling like you need to give 1 to 1 care. But if you can imagine, nothing has changed for the Midwife. So she still has 10+ patients in her care, the same amount of time to complete her work, but 100 additional tasks. The pressure is often just too much.

So while bullying is the same in my experience (and I'd hazard a guess the same in lots of countries). And the increasing pressures are probably the same.. I still don't see the level of cruelty to women described here. I don't know why that is. I feel disgusted at my profession to read these stories and truly sorry that so many women have experienced this. I also don't know what the solution is, but in my experience conditions are only getting worse, so I don't like the thoughts of what's to come.

(Sorry I didn't intend for this to be so long).

Reading all these stories makes me think the midwifery profession needs to look at free birthers insta pages then take a long hard look at themselves.

these stories are the reason some women seek to give birth entirely outside the medical profession, thus putting both themselves and their babies at risk.

So many awful stories.. I wonder why, what is making so many midwives have an uncaring, judgemental or cruel attitude?

I’ve had both wonderful and terrible. A number of midwives during my difficult first pregnancy really went out of their way to be very supportive and helpful, one even came back to visit me on the ward after very long labour and EMCS, when she’d ended her shift, to see the baby and reassure me.

But when the test showed a “high” risk of downs (1 in 200 or something actually pretty low) one midwife was v v negative about it, put me under huge pressure to have an amnio (I refused, but she was so insistent it was essential, if I hadn’t known better I would have gone along with it) and basically acted like the sky had fallen in which was appalling.

Then I was booked in for ELCS for DC2, thanks to the failure to progress the first time round, by the very helpful and understanding consultant. But I went into labour a week early and had to wait in hospital for the ELCS until there was a surgeon available. During that time several midwives put enormous pressure on me to try for a VBAC and kept saying “we can always use forceps”. This is after a baby had died at that hospital from bungled forceps delivery when the mum wanted a CS - just a month earlier. And they knew I had a huge problem with internal examinations and smears etc because of history of sexual abuse, that was on my notes. Have a VBAC and forceps, go on go on go on!

The impression I got was that there’s an opposition between midwives and doctors, and midwives have absorbed the message that birth shouldn’t be over-medicalised and natural is best - so any situation where the woman does need more medical intervention is seen by some MWs as interfering know-it-all doctors sticking their oar in, or weak selfish mothers wanting an easy way out.

Except when it comes to amnios, then they’re all for medicalisation. A 1 in 200 risk of downs is terrible news but a similar or higher risk of miscarriage from an amnio is fine.

It may relate to education for MWs but I’m sure the culture and leadership at a hospital matters too. Almost all the MWS I saw at my lovely GP surgery/in non-hospital settings were great.

Staffing is a massive issue - nearly 18 years ago when I was in labour with my preterm baby, there was 1 midwife taking care of 3 labouring women in 3 different rooms.
and a family member who was a midwife for 25 plus years said she never worked a shift on labour ward without filling in an incident form about staff shortages but nothing was ever done about it

@Wiltingasparagusfern thank you, your response and kindness is genuinely the first time I’ve smiled at remembering this ever, rather than felt tearful. I think that’s a massive change for me. I do remember her name

I had DD1 at QMC (fuck it I'll name it) during the period now being investigated by the Ockonden review (I'll have spelt that wrong).

I think the whole hellish experience is summed up by the quote from one of the staff on the postnatal ward "We don't really care about the mothers, we're only bothered about the babies on here."

The way I was treated still lingers now, 14 years on - I literally felt like an inconvenient piece of meat in the way of the baby; I had procedures done without consent, and I have permanent pain as a result of how my body was mishandled, plus mentally I was VERY fucked up by it.

I am totally unshocked.

I had a bad experience giving birth to DD 8 years ago. They wouldn't let me come to the hospital, despite me phoning them 5 times to tell them I was in extreme pain and had been vomiting all day. They even told me "you can still talk on the phone, it's not that bad". Of course when I came in it was all of a sudden an emergency because I was dehydrated, baby had passed meconium and we had to be transferred by ambulance to a different hospital whilst already 7cm dilated. There was no time for any pain relief except gas and air. DD was in distress at that point.

I strongly feel this could have all been avoided if someone had given me a drip at some point and had just listened to me, and monitored me sooner. As insult to injury the entire birthing centre was empty!

Postnatal ward was horrible too, DH was kicked out half an hour after birth. I was left in a room with snoring women and one woman whose baby was in NICU with withdrawal symptoms (the staff were not exactly subtle about this so I could hear everything).

I am finally pregnant again after 8 years. Why did I dare do this now? I have moved abroad and have a lot more faith in the Dutch system. I simply could not bear the thought of giving birth again in a NHS hospital. I feel that DD has been robbed of a sibling closer to her age.

It is certainly partly the staffing which is dire. I know of a Labour ward who regularly run on half the staff they should and this is a ‘good ‘ Labour ward not in a failing hospital. It’s been poor for years. 22 years ago as a student I walked onto a 40 bedded ward when only one midwife turned up for a shift with me. She walked out. It’s not got better. Overall it’s worse.

when staffing is so poor there is no appetite to deal with staff who are cruel, unsafe, inappropriate. When they are dealt with they move onto agencies and sometimes the system is so desperate it has to take what it can get. Better a warm, officially qualified body than no one.

So you have staff who are not the staff you want and a lot of newly qualified staff. The culture is dire. The better staff who can’t just leave (and they do leave, less than 5% of midwives who qualify are practicing 5 years later) move to specialist posts, community and often management. There are managers in midwifery, heads of midwifery who couldn’t do a shift on a ward.

There are pockets of other issues I know Shrewbury had it’s natural birth at all costs obsession and that has happened in pockets elsewhere. However overall I don’t really see that now. Once (some) midwives cared passionately about birth and choice and you certainly got the ones who pushed the pool over an epidural sometimes in ways which weren’t ok. I don’t see that now, mostly now I see midwives who no longer care, who are done. Who stay because they are trapped. Who don’t believe in midwifery anymore and I see students who are trained by these midwives coming in without the passion they should have.

and I see junior doctors who cry on the postnatal ward because they are overwhelmed without support and so they are dismissive, they miss things.

I have gone now, very recently. Maybe I”ll be back, maybe not. The issues with maternity culture are so complex and long standing it is difficult to see how they’d change. The staff left behind have low energy and low motivation, it will require passion and drive, where from?

My own personal experiences of maternity care weren’t great. I hope it can change but yes we know what’s wrong. The real question is how do we change it.

Yes I too had to get out of bed and walk down a very long corridor to get some breakfast. I asked the midwife if someone could help me as I could barely walk from the aneasthetic and stitches and she said no, get it yourself. My the time I had carried my tray back, the cereals were all over the tray and I was shaking so much. I could feel other patients staring at me as if to say wth is that woman being made to walk carry her own breakfast, look at the state of her. I can say with authority that if I had been a man, I would not have been treated so poorly.

At Birmingham women’s hospital in 2021 I had an awful experience. At night I could hear the midwives at the desk slagging off us new mothers on the postnatal ward, including gossiping about me. I was post emergency c section and meals weren’t brought to you at the bedside , the food trolley was down a long corridor that you had to get out of bed (and presumably leave your newborn) to go queue for food. I didn’t even realise this was the system so missed dinner the first time (I was in 5 nights). I’m a doctor and have worked in surgical wards across England and Northern Ireland - I have never ever seen patients after major abdominal surgery be required to get out of bed and leave their hospital bay to queue for food like a school canteen. Whilst I appreciate it’s not ‘dangerous’, it just seemed reflective of the disdain for the new mums.

At medical school in London I witnessed there was a lot of bullying from the qualified midwives to the medical students who were on placement in obstetrics. My husband is an anaethetist and he experiences a lot of pushback from midwives even over relatively minor things, there’s a lot of animosity between the doctors and the midwives which I’m sure adds to unsafe outcomes. Just want to add NOT ALL midwives etc and of course there’s lots of obstetricians/anaethetists who are twats. But that has been our experience working in hospitals across the country

I have never been treated so unkindly as I was by the midwife who delivered my first baby. We did want 2 children close together but it took me 6 years to get the courage to have another.
We went to a different hospital and I had the most amazing, kind midwife and fantastic care on the postnatal ward. They were both busy units but the attitude by the staff were chalk and cheese.
I've had a lot of interaction with many NHS staff over the years and I do wonder why some staff work in healthcare - they really seem to dislike people.

None of it surprises me either, sadly. DD will be 10 in August and the few days before her birthday will probably be filled with anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks for me as they have been every birthday so far.
Callousness and incompetence from midwifery staff nearly killed us both before she was born, their incompetence nearly killed her afterwards when we were discharged way too early. Only once throughout the entire ordeal did I experience anything that could be described as ‘care’ and I will remember that nurse and be grateful for her for the rest of my life. I hope the system hasn’t ground her down and made her as callous as the rest of them

That comment above from a midwife about "the first woman to give birth" is telling. It seems common among maternity professionals to lose sight of the fact that just because they see births every day, that doesn't make the pain or fear any less significant for any of the women giving birth. In a humane system severe pain would be treated as an absolute emergency, rather than fobbing people off with waiting a bit longer or routinely having one anaesthetist on shift.

My children are adults and I have to agree that the attitude when I went into labour with my first child was shocking. I was told ‘If you can’t cope without pain relief now, then I don’t know how you will cope later.’
They later tried back peddling after my baby was born with a total of 5 professionals in the room, including another senior midwife, the registrar and 3 other doctors. I had to have forceps. It should have been an emergency c section but the anethetist was called to an emergency, only 1 per hospital back then and the maternity wing was not the priority.
The nasty midwife disappeared from the room when things started to go wrong to be replaced by more senior staff. My baby was back to back and suffered shoulder distortion too. All in all an extremely difficult birth. Oh and labour lasted 23 hours. The doctor gave me an epidural and started to prepare me for an emergency c section. Yet that vile midwife refused to give me so much as an aspirin with her sneering attitude.

Doesn't surprise ne at all. When my first son was born nearly 26 years ago, the person delivering him majorly fucked up and he was left disabled as a result.

The hospital lied and lied and lied, covered everything up, 'lost' notes, did everything possible to avoid taking responsibility.

We sued and won but it took YEARS and they lied up to the end.