to make a formal complaint about this midwife?

[INeedToKnow]

I had my baby 14 weeks ago. Physically the birth was a doddle, 2 hour labour, 3 pushes and out he popped. Mentally it was very traumatic. I spent most of those 2 hours home alone and utterly terrified, ambulance arrived 10 minutes before birth, baby was born outside in the street as I clung to the back of the ambulance. By the time I arrived at the hospital I was shaking all over and in complete shock.

I have autism and had been to the labour ward several times in preparation for the birth. My notes were very detailed about the difficulties I have with physical contact from people I don't know, my fears and anxieties and a plan as to how best to deal with them. The consultant was lovely and said that once the baby was born I could be sedated if necessary to get me through the afterbirth poking and prodding. It was all in my notes.

The midwife who dealt with me on arrival was horrible. She was cold, stone faced and didn't smile or speak to me at all. She spoke to the paramedic and the other midwife and student but not me. I felt invisible and pretty scared as I had nobody with me. She did an internal exam to see if I needed stitches and she was so rough and heavy handed with me that I started crying and begging her to stop telling her she was hurting me. She completely ignored me and carried on for what felt like forever. I must have said at least 20 times 'STOP! You're hurting me. I don't want you to do this. Please stop'.

Afterwards I was just relieved it was all over and baby was fine and all that and I was busy being a new mum. But increasingly now it's creeping into my thoughts and every time my mind goes there I start to cry.

Would I be unreasonable to make a complaint? Am I overreacting to what is a normal part of childbirth?

soverylucky - we have the OP's account that she told the m/w to stop and the m/w ignored her. What more do you need?

Healthcare professionals need to establish informed consent before carrying out ANY procedure. That is clear. It is a legal requirement. Every healthcare professional knows it.

When (I hope when, not if) the OP makes a formal complaint, the m/w will be able to give her version of events. Maybe she can explain why she carried on. But even if there was a reason for the procedure, she should have stopped and explained that to the patient, and gained the patient's consent.

Mumoftwo, I'm so glad you had a far better experience this time round - and yes, you could be right about the original midwife playing her part.

I'm not sure how different views cold be relevant soverylucky. When does 'no, stop' become 'I consent' based on different viewpoints? Never.

Complain, including the police if you decide it's appropriate.

There is no sound reason that the midwife has for not stopping. The baby was out so the worst case scenario is that the Op could have died without the examination.

The Op has that right! The midwife has to either explain it well enough to get consent or get her sectioned. End of.

But actually she was deciding if she needed stitches. No stitches means a badly healed tear. That is not immediately life threatening.

I would certainly hope that the consequences would be very serious for a midwife who continued a procedure despite the patients repeated requests for her to stop.

Otherwise we would be saying that women don't need to give consent...

Which would be very bad.

There's no sound reason to assault someone. It's illegal, even if the person carrying out the assault has a uniform.

What could be a sound reason to continue an internal exam when the patient says no? Do women not have a choice to what medical treatment they accept now?

soverylucky are you a midwife (or similar)?

soverylucky the issue isn't just the midwife doing the standard checks after birth - the OP had an individualised care plan designed to meet her specific needs, this was ignored by the midwife treating her, plus the midwife ignored her requests to stop! She didn't even talk to the OP, talking over her to the paramedic, the other midwife & student that was there. The OP had nobody with her and had to go through this alone. You honestly think this is acceptable? Because that is how your comments are reading.

You had your dh there to support you but try to put yourself in the OP's situation - honestly, how do you think you might be feeling now?

I recognised your birth story straight away, you were on my ante natal thread. So sorry to hear about the midwife, definitely complain, it is assault.

We're all still around on FB and to a lesser extent on the post natal thread if you want to pop over

so very lucky, if the doctors could stop pulling on the forceps because my client withdrew consent, they can stop checking if a postnatal woman needs stitches! All you need to know is she withdrew consent?

Complain. I agree with twirly hot. My experience with mid wives was truly dire.

soverylucky, as you've not experienced BT or birth assault you'll probably get huffy at this comment. There are probably good reasons why men carry on when a woman has withdrawn her consent, but it doesn't matter she withdrew her consent, end of story.

Sorry for not being back sooner, I'm actually finding it quite hard to talk about this without feeling panicky. I really appreciate all the support and advice. I have an appointment booked with my local midwife for a post pregnancy checkup in a couple of weeks. I'm going to start with mentioning it to her. She is lovely and has been really supportive.

In answer to some questions raised, the ambulance was there because I was alone and it was progressing so quickly that there was no way I could get to the hospital in time. The hospital is an hours drive away.

The reason the exam took so long was because she was trying to work out if the only tiny internal tear I had needed stitching. Thankfully it didn't so I escaped being sewn up by her.

Although I was traumatised and in shock, I still had my senses about me (as much as anyone can after giving birth). This woman was just extremely rough and uncaring with me. When she pressed on my abdomen to feel the uterus she pressed so hard I had to grab her wrist to try to pull her off me. The other midwife in the room checked as well and although it was uncomfortable it didn't hurt and leave me bruised.

Yes complain.

You asked her to stop, she carried on.

A midwife is NOT ALLOWED to do that.

She could be prosecuted for assault.

You should absolutely complain, and make clear the details of your assualt and the fact that she was CLEARLY AWARE that you had not given your consent.

I hope that following this up gives you peace of mind in the long run.

I wish I'd tackled the issues surrounding DS1's birth before pregnancy 2. It wasn't a complaints situation (long labour, bad reaction to pethadine, failed forceps, EmCS) Care from the MW makes a huge difference to the experience. It was when my anxiety flared up in pregancy (co-incidentally around DS1's birthday) that DH really appreciated the effect the birth had on me. I was releived that he disliked the MW- I'd found her unhelpful which contributed to some of the issues I had- she was perfunctual and uncommunicative. DS2's birth was positive, after preparation with professionals and a detailed birth plan. The key thing was having a great MW who was willing to be on her hands and knees to hold monitors on so I could be comfortable, who told us why she was about to press the emergency buzzer and what would happen. It ended up being a rough forceps job in theatre with a strong threat of emCS looming, but the care from the MW and other staff means it was a positive experience, and that's done a lot to satisfy many of the niggles that loomed over me for 2 years after DS1's birth. This year I am optomistic that his birthday can be a happy day for the first time.

It takes a while for the impact of a negative birth to kick in. At first I was relieved that we had a quick recovery from our complications. It was a few months before the anger and sadness kicked in. By then I thought it was too late to address what had happened. I'm glad you're not making that mistake.

Good luck OP

soverylucky I agree that she should investigate further however trotting out the 'come on, you have a healthy baby line' is never, ever helpful and just belittles the experience of the OP and how she may be feeling.

I also think that she's given a very clear description of what happened and it sounds like she does have grounds for assault, as several midwives on here have advised.

Ineedtoknow I had a student with my midwife at the postnatal check and both pressed my abdomen. The midwife was gentle, the student was unfriendly, rough and applied unnecessary pressure.

I remember feeling annoyed by that, and thinking excuse me, I'm actually a person. Some people just don't have the gentleness and empathy to be good midwives, I could tell she just didn't have it in her and never would. The ones that do have that skill you remember for ever though, so glad you have a good local one to talk to.

www.aims.org.uk/

The people at this campaigning organisation for improvements in maternity care are just fantastic and really worth chatting to, for rock solid, informed, confidential advice on how to handle complaints and what's reasonable and not res

...reasonable from health care professionals.

You must have felt very helpless