To think that it is a myth that hospital births are safe

[reallytired]

This poor woman could have died. Especially as it took 15 mintutes for help to arrive. She might have well given birth at home.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-12250049

What is the point of women being in hospital if this is the standard of care they recieve.

Maybe the nhs should employ doulas if they cannot afford enough midwives.

I don't understand why the husband didn't run out of the bathroom and shout when nobody came? Yes mum needed a blood transfusion but both she and baby have emerged ok from what was a very unusual circumstance. Also plenty of women give birth at like that for mostly unplanned reasons - and we don't claim it's unsafe for pregnant women to be at home. This is not an indicator for anything.

yabu

Well my friend is a hospital midwife in the same area as this happened. Just had her second home birth. Ummm..........

Nothing is completely safe, birth included, wherever it takes place. Did you really think that it was?

In general in the UK, most hospital births, birth-centre births, and homebirths have a low risk of death or serious injury for both mothers and babies.

Perhaps there's a safety issue at this particular hospital? Without seeing figures on their birth outcomes, staffing etc.. it's hard to comment further.

Total utter lack of humanity seems to be fairly bog standard in maternity units. I know women in real life who have suffer terrible post traumatic stress from their hosptial experiences.

The hospital knew this woman was in labour otherwise she would have not been admitted. She did tell them what was happening. She was left a long period of time without anyone checking on her and buzzer was ignored.

"Ms Willoughby said she felt staff and midwives were not listening when she said her pain was increasing."

This happens time and time again. I know plenty of people in real life who have unsympathetic midwives. People who have been left for lots of hours in considerable pain.

Husbands are not necessarily the best of birth attendents. If someone is in strong labour they should not be ignored.

Or maybe the level of staffing on the ward was so poor as to make hospital care a joke.

No birth is 'safe' but the thing that I find shocking is the lack of apology in the two statements from the hospital.

The senior midwife said "I have apologised to the family that on this occasion we did not meet their expectations."

Er, yeah - how unreasonable of them to expect their call to be answered when the woman was giving birth in the loo. Bloody hell, the NHS needs to learn that sometimes a sincere apology and an assurance that systems have been put in place to prevent the same thing happening again is all people want.

I have given birth in three different hospitals, including one labour where I was alone for most of it as my DH (now ex) was working away and didn't get there until the last minute and one at 23+5 with twins after my waters had gone at 14+5, so things were clearly not going to go great. Everytime I have felt the care was excellent and I couldn't fault it.

I find it bizarre that the womans DH just stayed with her for 15 whole minutes and didn't physically go and get a midwife!

I suppose it's possible the staff were attending other emergencies and not just ignoring them. We don't know all the details.

Each to their own.
I was much happier to go to hospital.
DS2 had the cord round his neck and DP said he looked awful.
Purple faced and lifeless.
He seriously thought he'd be starved of oxygen if we hadn't been in hospital.
And he was our third.

Luckily for him he's ok.

"I find it bizarre that the womans DH just stayed with her for 15 whole minutes and didn't physically go and get a midwife"

i expect he was rooted to the floor with shock. Not all men are great birth partners. Its why you have a midwife.

"I have apologised to the family that on this occasion we did not meet their expectations."

Such an apology really adds injury to insult. It almost suggests that the family's expectations were unreasonable.

Both of my highly complicated and dangerous births were made safe by being in hospital. If I'd have laboured at home with ds, we'd both be dead (abruption).

Hospital births are mostly safe

Home births are mostly safe.

I always think fanatical HBers wouldn't know a risk if it punched them on the nose.

Some times a hospital birth is best and in that case it is almost certainly 100% safer than a homebirth.

I dont understand why the husband didnt go and bloody get someone.

This can't have been the first time a woman has started giving birth unexpectedly in the bathroom while at hospital. I've certainly heard it several times before in various newspapers.

What I don't understand is that the pair of them sat there for 15 minutes when her husband was quite capable of walking to get help. It's defies understanding.

How many babies are born every day in hospital? Hundreds? There must be alot of mythological births.

'What I don't understand is that the pair of them sat there for 15 minutes when her husband was quite capable of walking to get help. It's defies understanding.'

Not if you are looking to sue for compensation.

That is why, to quote Karen Dunbar, 'I smell shite.'

It's not a myth, not that they are safe, but in the sense that no one thinks they are.

I'm amazed that pretty much everyone on here seems to think it's par for the course that midwives go awol when a baby is about to be born. our expectations of care in labour are obviously been managed lower and lower. One woman, one midwife = one-to-one care in labour. there probably wasn't anyone available to answer the buzzer - bet they were understaffed that night.
I'd rather my husband stuck around and helped me birth the baby than ran round a hospital trying to track down a midwife leaving me all alone as the baby was crowning. maybe she felt the same. perhaps not the best decision but i'd have been clinging to his neck for dear life and refused to let go at that stage.

Risk is risk, at least one (well all as they were all c section) of my dcs would not be here if it weren't for hospital births.

Lots of improvements to be made, but this man seems completely feckless.

Expat - yes you are right. I live in the area and saw it first on local news. The news reporter said that the couple are 'considering making a claim against this hospital'

I had a homebirth! Refused point blank to go into a hospital where disease is rife! Each to their own.

I agree. At friends yesterday and I happened to mention that I'd considered a homebirth for DC3 (in the end I changed my mind and he was born in birth centre inside big London teaching hospital). They all went on and on about how could I ever have considered it because homebirths so dangerous and hospital so safe, none of them would accept that there are any serious risks at all in hospital birth, and that it must be safer than home under any circumstances and one of them a GP.

Ecery pregnancy and birth pose risks to both mother and baby.
To think otherwise is perhaps naive.

I have had two hospital births and one home birth. The first birth was in hospital and dd could have died as could I as she was stuck.

To be honest I think lots of women go into child birth with unrealistic expectations.
Yes, it will hurt, alot.
Yes, you make a mess.
Yes, sometimes the midwives are short staffed compared to the amount of women labouring at any given time. If the couple had been shipped out to the nearest open maternity unit to give birth you can bet they would be in the paper moaning about having their choice taken away from them!

Child birth can be the most miraculous empowering experience a woman can go through or it can be carnage.

Where were the emergency buttons & why didn´t they press one?

The plus of the homebirth is that you get 2 midwives to yourself without having to wait or change them for "shifts"...or indeed share them with anyone.