Birth trauma - poor maternity tolerated as normal report says

[Justkeepswiimming]

Is this the experience of the majority?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1jv7xxpwo?trk=public_post_comment-text

I think we all have pretty grim tales to tell of Birth experiences. From both our own experiences and those of our friends. Are the resources just not there to care? I had a wonderful Midwife who delivered my baby, but prior to that had to beg for someone to check me once I'd been induced because I was in agony. Was written off as being a wimp. They wouldn't check me. I was in tears in a shared ward, on my own trying to make no noise. When they finally checked me they realised I was far along and sent me to the labour ward.

The next day I was desperate to leave, after finding myself with a male midwife who didn't even introduce themselves before starting to express me. A horrid experience. All round.

I've read lots of awful stories, and wonder how we've got here.

The key piece of advice given at my ‘birth reflections’ session was that I needed to scream my head off, if I wanted the midwives to pay me any attention.

They refused to examine me as I was apparently so far off giving birth - despite my writhing in pain and being and unable to speak.

You’ll never guess what happened next…

36 hours of torture. Completely changed my view of the NHS.

Four births. Three out of the four I received incredible care. My third child I was left alone to the point of neglect, was not listened to, my birth plan wasn’t even opened let alone read - the midwife was annoyed I’d gone into labour and birthed so quickly (I had warned them I labour very fast!) I was given a jab to release my placenta which I didn’t want. I was then left for fifteen hours in a side room after the birth with no one even checking on me or baby. My husband had to go and stand in the door as we had obviously been forgotten. Awful experience even though the birth itself was very straightforward.

I had a traumatic birth. Which has left me with pstd, anxiety and insomnia. My experience was over ten years ago. I am saddened to see care for women during a vulnerable time is still a disgrace for some.

I had a horrific experience with DC1, at one point, I was left alone to push and the midwife told DH, to see if he could get me to push a bit harder, whilst she went to check on someone else. Ended up in hospital for a week after with the subsequent birth injuries (both to me and DS), as well as a prolapse that had to be repaired once we’d had DC2.

DH was so upset by the whole thing he couldn’t come to DC2’s birth, so I had an independent midwife both for ante natal care and to come to hospital with me during labour. It was quite astounding the difference in level of care I had from the same hospital, when I had my own midwife with me, as opposed to DH.

Unfortunately a midwife staff room tone of the conversation was outed many years ago, tone of hate towards women.
It was like a cult and the very opposite of what you would expect them to say

It doesn't seem to have changed any in the last 25 years. In the end, and after 8 days of fuck-ups (including them losing my medical notes and saying they couldn't discharge me until they found them), I had to withdraw my consent for them to treat my dd, and DH & I walked out with her.

I would describe my first birth experience as ok - long wait for induction but when it got going I felt looked after. Nightmare postnatal ward but there was 1 excellent midwife who helped me a lot.

My second was an absolute shitshow which resulted in an internal investigation, an apology and staff training. It wasn’t to do with resources - it was to do with midwives brushing off my concerns, being completely out of their depth (they clearly hadn’t read my notes as vital medication which was written on everything was never administered), withheld pain relief, clearly thought if they just left me on the bed and fended off my complaints long enough I would just give birth and be wheeled out (I didn’t). Eventually it took a registrar popping in to realise how much the midwives had messed it all up and hit the panic buttons.

It was awful and I feel very lucky DS is well and healthy because it could’ve ended very differently, and I am not a drama queen.

Same! There are a shocking number of posts here about women not being believed they’re in labour until the end of it, thus depriving them of care, pain relief and proper monitoring. It’s an absolute disgrace.

My DM almost bit her tongue off (I've seen the scar) when she had her 4th child.
No idea about the 1st child/birth DM had, but 2nd child DM was in the hospital 8 mins before giving birth, 3rd child was a quick home birth.
But 4th something obviously was wrong, my DM was left in absolute agony and not believed even though she was an experienced mother and had previously birthed very easily.
Sound like the maternity provision hasn't changed a bit.
My BF was left left with life-altering injuries and needing several surgeries after her 1st birth, and she was a nurse giving birth in 'her' hospital.

My experience 5 months ago means I will never have another child. The birthing unit was shut due to staff shortages so we were directed to maternity assessment. My waters broke sat in a waiting room surrounded by couples and I was just given a puppy pad to sit on. I ended up leaning over a chair being sick and when my dh tried to get the attention of a midwife/nurse/anybody he was always told 5 more minutes whilst having strangers staring. When I was finally check I was 10cm and taken to the labor ward where I gave birth 10 minutes later. I thought that the worst was over.

I was very lucky a student midwife was there as the senior midwife told her she would have dropped my baby (was was 11lb) if she was to catch him. She then tried to send me to postnatal without being stitched up and having what turns out a massive haemorrhage. When the alarm was finally sounded and everyone came running the bed broke and I was told when being stitched to hold my own legs as the stirrups were not working.

Next! My baby was not feeding, I was told he had fluid on his lungs, he had tongue tie and finally that it doesn’t matter he’s not feeding as he can afford to loose a few pounds (all wrong). Turns out he was really ill and ended up in NICU and that was only discovered when they were getting him ready for discharge. We kept saying something wasn’t right but we were told by so many “professionals” that he was in shock and it was normal. Had we been discharged he, at best, would have become brain damaged and at worst died. I cannot fault NICU but the experiences of maternity care have traumatised me to the point I will never have another child.

Sorry for the essay, just need to get it off my chest.

This is nothing like the experiences here which im horrified at. I havent had a smear test for ten years as i find them incredibly painful. It feels like razor blades, The common denominator though is the dismissal and minimization of womens pain. The word "discomfort" is used a lot and its minimization.

All those things are readily available in my developing country of origin too. Currently TTC (married to a British citizen) and am so shocked by all these stories, I'm seriously considering going back home to give birth. Especially as ethnic minorities have a higher maternal death rate and aren't listened to.

In my culture new mums are also given a lot of support post birth... female family members or specialist post partum 'nurses' (?) would be hired to help with the baby, with mum focusing on recovery. I couldn't believe that women here are expected to care for a baby all by themselves - with their husbands at work!

I found the report affirming. Positive outcome for me and my son in the end but I will never forget the way some of the nurses/drs/ support workers made me feel when I was at my most vulnerable. I submitted a complaint to pals with suggestions and when a nurse phoned me she was dismissive and blamed Covid/hospital rules etc.
I hope to have another baby but have promised myself that I will find my voice to ensure that if I want/need/not happy with something I will cause a scene.
always worth mentioning that probably 90% of the staff I came across were exceptional but the 10% and the systems in place are what sticks.

My second birth was much more traumatic despite being medically the simpler delivery. The first was a fairly horrible emergency c-section where I was in unnecessary pain because of lack of resources, but it was not really anyone's 'fault'. Second time I had two horrible midwives, one who was just rude and unpleasant and one who didn't check on me for hours (immediately post natal, I was very anaemic and still on labour ward) and then lied to the doctor and said she had checked on me regularly. Then on post natal they repeatedly tried to give me the wrong meds. That was pre-covid and pre-Brexit when most of the midwives were eastern European (although interestingly both the horrible ones appeared to be British). Hate to think what the service is like now. I wouldn't go through it again.

Despite having had a C-section I was only offered paracetamol for pain relief afterwards, the pain was indescribable and caused me to vomit several times. I couldn't physically move off the bed to care for my baby but staff ignored my requests for help and left my baby to scream and scream. A midwife verbally assaulted me calling me 'pathetic' and 'hopeless' and actually shouted loud enough that DH heard her through a closed door.

I genuinely believe that some midwives go into the job because they enjoy wielding abusive power over vulnerable women.

I had to have therapy to get over mine - ten years later. It was all down to how people behaved, rather than what happened. Totally unacceptable.

Yep, Lewisham maternity unit ruined me!
I was emotionally and physically abused by a young little bitch of a midwife in the postnatal ward, it still haunts me.
I was induced and baby was pulled out of me using forceps before I was 10cm dilated.

I was incontinent for 2 years and still can’t even run across the road or chase my daughter.

Fuck you Lewisham

This report brought back a lot of memories for me too. I was induced but monitoring was done infrequently, I deteriorated pretty rapidly with internal bleeding, fever etc. The midwife and doctor couldn't care less. I ended up with an emergency caesarian after 20 hours and then left to deal on my own with the baby as neither my husband nor my mum were allowed to stay not even for a single night. No support whatsoever was provided by the midwives either after the birth. I couldn't wait to leave the hospital but had to stay there four nights on my own looking after my son and trying to recover at the same time. My husband has since told me that he was traumatised by what he saw. My mum, she is from another European country, was also shocked. It completely put me off giving birth again and I lost all trust in the NHS system. Plenty of countries have perfectly functioning maternity services for mums and babies. It's shocking how such abysmal maternity care has been allowed to be considered normal in the UK for so long.

Op, sadly I had a very similar experience to you for the birth of my son.

For various convoluted reasons, I was induced early. Firstly they used rods which did nothing. The next day they tried the pessary and by late afternoon I was having contractions and it was suddenly decided that the whole ward was going to be moved to a different ward right then as they wanted to deep clean the ward we were in (never got to the bottom of what this was actually about, I wish I had pressed this at the time). So I had to move all of my things to a different ward, different bed during contractions. The contractions got stronger and I had started bleeding heavily. My dh had to alert somebody and I was given a sanitary pad so they could monitor my bleeding. (I got eh impression they though I was exaggerating) and I was assured I would be moved to the delivery suite very soon. Staff then had handover and at this point my dh was supposed to leave as visiting hours were over but I was writhing in agony on a ward, still bleeding very heavily. 45 mins later an no one had come, my dh (worried as he knew he wasn't meant to be there but didn't want to leave me) had to go in search of staff. They checked the bleeding and realised it was serious and admitted that the information that I was bleeding had not been handed over to new staff on shift. The eventual outcome was an emergency c-section.

I'm not sure I would use the word trauma to describe what happened to me, but I do re-live that experience again and again in mind and am still struggling to process what had happened. In my case, it was very clearly a lack of staff.

What women have to endure during childbirth is shocking.

If parents leave the birth with an inaccurate understanding of what occurred, then that is a staff or system failure. Patients are supposed to understand their medical experience or they can’t actually consent. Sometimes speed is of the essence and advance consent can’t be obtained, but there can still be time to explain afterwards.

Yes i agree it is. Either way, most of the stories in the paper have glaring discrepancies that just do not make sense. A decent journalist would find that out and use it to highlight the system failure. As it stands, it seems like when someone swears they were in labour for 3 days.

Hmm, not for poor people. A lot of our pporest immigrants had no or shocking maternity care in their own country. Richer ones could afford better care. Our healthcare staff are commissioned to provide free care to everyone at the point of delivery.

I work with European staff who have never provided care to a homeless person because they didnt train or work at state hospitals.

Actually people from other countries are usially far more likely to accept the staff's word without any pushback. In other countries, you can be asked to leave the hospital/removed from the doctor's caseload if you decline their recommemded care plan.

We often have to spend time working with doctors and midwives from other countries as they are totally baffled as to why we are asking what the patient would like to do.

This goes back to the doctors that i am talking about who have the attitude of "dont ask me anything unless you want baby out now".

I would advise caution before you react to a report like this. Obviously any of these incidents is awful and none of them should have happened, but it's not true that everyone's experience is like this. I've had two babies, both difficult births (inductions which failed to progress, leading to sections). I was treated with care and respect at all times while giving birth and was listened to. The single poor experience I had was with a consultant during the pregnancy (i.e. well before birth) and I was able to request not to see him again, and instead saw a different consultant who was great.

I'm not belittling the terrible experiences people have had, and obviously the system needs fixing so that no one has those experiences. But please don't scare yourself thinking this is how it definitely will be.

How can you say that if you weren't there for those women's individual cases?