To sue the NHS over my birthing experience

[boomitscountginula]

Now before I get flamed to death. I do appreciate my birth story isn't as bad as some but, I now refuse to have another baby unless I can get assurances that this won't happen again, and the only way I can do so is to go private, I think.? It was traumatic to me.

I had a quite easy birth, in terms of how long it took "officially" but I wasn't listened to and have a couple of long lasting injuries I think could of been prevented if they believed I was in labour to begin with.

My birth story: I woke up the day after my due day and had lost my plug over night. Went for a stretch and sweep at lunch, (planned as it was my first) with my midwife said I was 3cm already.

Fabulous, no pain at the minute, now 3cm easy birth.. so I thought.

Went home had a nap, woke up with contractions near tea time. By 9pm they where regularly 6 minutes apart so rang the maternity ward, had a phone assessment and went in.

Got into maternity triage, in absolute agony, had a physical exam and the triage said:

"Your only 3 cm, you need to come home and come back."

I said well as you can see, I am contacting every 6 minutes and less now, the pain is overwhelming and I feel like I need to push.

She tutted and said in all her experience she had never been wrong and I had hours to go, so needed to go home.

I was in bits at this news and crumbled. I never wanted an epidural and chose pethidine (sic) and gas and air. So agreed I would go home but I needed some kind of pain killer, that I could have with my chosen birth plan. I really put my foot down and said I will go home but only if I can get a pain killer stronger that the 2 paracetamol I had taken already.

She said she would find a doctor, but never came back.

Meanwhile I then go into the advanced stages of Labour. Bare in mind I had two paracetamol and my waters haven't broken. It's like trying to birth a gym ball.

I am literally screaming in pain in a side room in maternity triage, pushing and effectively giving birth myself. My partner and my mum (both birth partners) took it in turns to find anyone. But no one came for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes a junior midwife came in and said "oh my god your in labour".

Me and her literally ran to the deliver ward, where I was given gas and air.

I took a massive gulp of it, and was told off, because I should only take it when I am in pain and contracting..... never mind the two hours I have just been in hospital alone labouring, without a monitor on my baby or any pain relief.

I am still not hooked up to monitor, the only medical intervention is gas and air right now. My waters still haven't broken, 4 minutes later I was given the pethidine. 2 minutes after that I crown, baby in sack. Midwife broke the waters and my son was born. My official record shows that I was in labour for 9 minutes.

I had pain relief 4 minutes into my 9 minute birth and at no point was I on any kind of contraction monitoring machine. Nothing monitoring baby's heartbeat etc etc. I might as well have birthed in the woods.

I also split my right labia in two during the birth. The midwife didn't want to stitch it because it wasn't that bad.. yet I couldn't pee, unless in the bath for 3 weeks, and now that side is an inch longer than the other. Causing me, well you can imagine.

Start to finish I was treated like dirt, I was left labouring in a room alone, I was belittled and injured without proper treatment. And now I am afraid to be pregnant again.

I love the NHS, but they have let me down, massively. I am permanently injured (labia) and mentally scarred. But hate the idea of sueing the NHS on a theoretical level...

It’s horribly common, I’m very sorry for your experience. I also was not believed that I was in labour and was made to lie on my back to wait for contractions as “I wasn’t in enough pain” with the ones I was having 5 minutes apart so therefore couldn’t possibly be in labour. Despite me wanting to go on all fours and feeling ready to push. Baby spun round to back to back position, got stuck and I ended up with a section. Completely avoidable if they’d just believed me in the first place.

However. That being said, I wouldn’t sue. The NHS can’t improve if it loses funds to legal cases all the time. I would complain though.

Friend of mine had a v traumatic birth with failures in hospital too. For her DC2, she hired a private midwife who was with her from the booking appointment right up to and including the birth. Otherwise all NHS facilities. Which went very well this time. Highly recommend looking into that

What do you mean Steff13? Americans are more litigious, which is now transferring over here. It is just an observation/question.

The NHS is struggling from massive underfunding, but individuals deciding to sue or not will not affect their insurance per se.

A good portion of the NHS' budget is set aside for legal costs, actually. Partly because NHSLA refuses to settle and racks up the costs by dragging everything out in court, partly because of an increase in lawsuits. If either of these things changed it'd increase the amount available to treat patients and employ more staff (which would decrease mistakes - a lot have understaffing as a factor)

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/744940/NHS-budget-legal-costs-compensation-negligence-cases-national-health-service

Actually, Reppin, Germany has more lawsuits per capita than any other nation in the world. Followed by Sweden, Israel, and Austria. No one asked if the OP is German.

I would ask for a birth debrief, which I think you can have 4 years after and I would try and get some counselling.
I had 2 traumatic births. The first she was undiagnosed breech and I was very nearly sent home when I arrived in labour. Luckily in was 42 weeks and there was meconium in the waters so I was grudgingly put in a triage room despite them being "too busy" for me apparently. Luckily the shift change came and I got a non-dickhead midwife who worked out both what was going on and how fast my labour was going so my emcs was reasonably straightforward and easy.
For my second I insisted on a late scan to check he wasn't breech. Fortunately he wasn't, unfortunately it turns out I'm not really capable of giving birth naturally so I ended up in theatre again. I have no complaints about my care while giving birth but the surgery was long, complicated and I lost loads of blood and it was more "extensive" than a usual c section. The surgeons etc were awesome and saved the lives of me and my son. After the surgery, on the ward I was treated like an inconvenience because i needed more care than others. They forced me to walk to the shower after less than 24 hours because "that's what we need everyone to do." I fainted in the corridor and my husband had to run for help - I had told them I wasn't capable yet. I then developed an infection and they forgot to give me my antibiotics more than once. The infection turned into sepsis and, while I was getting worse I was actually shouted at (like a naughty child) because I was shivering so violently and feeling so weak I asked for help lifting my baby. I nearly died.
I had a birth debrief. I complained. I had counselling for my subsequent ptsd. All of these things really helped me and if recommend them to you OP. I don't know about sueing, my complaint was handled well and it seemed like things did change as a result of my complaint so I never considered that option.
The best thing I did was the counselling, I had emdr and it helped control the nightmares and flashbacks and gave me my life back.
Good luck op

And just to balance out the tales of shitty treatment from hospital staff there was one midwife who realised how sick I was and stayed for 5 hours after her shift ended to care for me and get me moved to the high dependant unit where I could be properly cared for. She was so awesome.

Yabu to want to sue, they delivered your baby and he is healthy, tearing does happen in birth and cannot be avoided sometimes, as for pain relief sometimes they do not give it as it can slow down the delivery,

Ds' birth wasn't ideal, told them that my babies are born fast, they didn't listen to me and sent me to triage, he was born in triage, I had no privacy (another couple were being monitored in the same room behind a curtain) or pain relief, I tore badly 2nd degree very close to 3rd. But I would never consider suing them, ds is healthy and that's the main thing,

4 years on, I think you need to move on.

Maybe think less about labour being a medical procedure and how you feel let down and concentrate more on taking responsibilities for your own labour. Research and prepare yourself, be your own advocate.
Doctors should rarely need to be involved, Birth is a natural thing and you do it alone.

What should have been done differently?
The baby was being born whether a doctor was present or not. What difference would it have made?

I don’t think you should sue as it prolongs the agony for you and is very stressful.
Childbirth is painful, messy, unpredictable and frightening - you never know when you go into it if you and baby are going to come out of it well or not. And as it’s something you haven’t been through before it’s hard to hold your own against experienced staff.
Your problems sound as if due to understaffing.
Can you choose a better hospital for the next one? Or pay for a private mid wife? My DCs are grown up now but at the time almost everyone I knew had a traumatic story to tell of their first birth. I would say you are much more knowledgeable now and able to fight your corner but an emergency in another ward which takes all the staffs attention is the luck of the draw unfortunately.

I would complain, to do your bit to improve the system, but suing is a nonsense as other posters have pointed out.

I read threads like this often on here and think thank fuck I’m not in the UK and will never be having a baby there. Frequent stories of women in labour being disbelieved, ignored, denied pain relief and traumatised by labour. Then discharged after an indecently short amount of time. It’s a travesty. I don’t know what the answer is (more money for the NHS most likely) but it’s unbelievable in 2017 that this is the experience of so many women in the UK😡

I had a similar but even more horrific experience. My second was only marginally better because I had the head midwife take on my case. If I had it to do all over again, I would have an elective cs for both kids.

I’ve read so many legal cases where women were damaged beyond repair - left incontinent anal and all - and told to get on with it. Having to leave jobs, suffering long term depression and costing NHS more in long term. Is does matter how your baby arrives. How can it not if potentially you’re left with life changing injuries physical and mental.

But well, what do you do when you are traumatised by an experiment that could of been avoided?

You seek counselling.
Suing will not help you. It just won't. You need to work through this with a professional. What happened happened and you need to deal with it in a way that will actually help you.

Did your mum or dh not get help whilst you were waiting? Sounds like they weren’t very good advocates for you either.

I used an independent midwife for dds birth. I was petrified of the birthing process and had chronic pain, which I took pain meds’ for. She was great. We tried for a home birth. But it didn’t work and I was too exhausted and ended up being ambulanced to hospital, where dd was turned and forceps delivered. I was in shock and the nhs midwives let me stay in the delivery suite for 4hours post delivery -the independent midwives left at this point. I would also recommend this if you can’t find a private hospital nearby.

Sounds similar to my experience, the midwife tried to send me home when I was FULLY dilated.
I’d had no pain relief bar paracetamol and she hadn’t checked me because I didn’t look like I was in enough pain and told me to go home and come back in a few hours.

My mum tried to stall by locking us in the toilet but I ended up attempting to go but managed to only get on a different hospital floor and was hanging off a windowsill in a corridor contracting when a lovely nurse saw the state of me and called the senior midwife. Lots of wheelchair rushing and fuss and straight into a delivery room and ds was born 45 mins later with zero drugs literally just 2 paracetamol.

I didn’t complain and I regret it bitterly. Agree with others that I don’t think you should sue but I certainly think you should complain. Congrats on the baby

Ohhhhhh this was a while ago? Sorry I wasn’t quite with it, congrats on your now toddler!
My birth was 3yrs ago but it does, err stay with you locked up in a mental memory box

I had a traumatic second birth as a result of a very bullying midwife. I suffered p t s d and p n d as a result which had a huge impact on my and my dc. I wish I had taken it further because otherwise it won't change for anyone: e m d r helped resolve the p t s d and if you are too scared to give birth might be helpful

I can't understand why the hell they would not admit someone at 3cm dilated and in active labour, unless they are totally full, but that does not seem to have been given as a reason in the OP's case.

OP- if you have some spare money then it may be worth going to see a reputable and experienced solicitor in this area. Suing is not the first option in terms of official steps to investigating clinical negligience but a solicitor may be able to guide you through the process of investigating and complaint in a way that can help you come to terms with whatever happened and the outcome.

A reputable and experienced solicitor will certainly advise and guide you through alternative dispute resolution....which can mean something as 'simple' as just having the people involved in your labour and experience being made to sit down and listen to you and your perspective and to be able to explain to you what happened from theirs.

What I am hearing from your post is that you were terrified and you have been traumatised and you just want explanations and to understand it. I wish so much I had been able to pursue understanding what happened in my own labour- it left me with permanent physical injury, and severe PND and depression that is only lifting now 8 years later. If someone had sat with me and worked with me in a thoughtful way it would have helped me. (And FWIW, there were more than a few outright lies on my notes too.)

You have grounds to complain but certainly not sue, and certainly not sue 4 years after the fact.

I'm suing the NHS because my baby died after a series of errors and missed complications in my first pregnancy. In my SANDS group (other parents who lost babies late in their pregnancies or soon after birth) also experienced negligence on an impossible scale.

You have your baby. Count yourself lucky, there are many of us who haven't been so lucky. Sorry about your lopsided labia.

I think the NHS needs to be more proactive in seeking women's opinions of the service they receive. The very fact that they are leaving NHS care and dealing with a newborn means even if they have had an awful time they are very unlikely to have the energy to deal with initiating feedback. I wonder if the OP's midwife still tells women she is "never wrong"?

I had an awful experience with my antenatal care where I was being screened for a potentially fatal cardiac condition pre-labour. I was given two appointments - for the screening, and then for the results, a week apart. The screening went fine. When I turned up for the results I was at first told off for expecting the results too quickly (as though that was my decision!) and then told, in public, in a waiting room, that there was something "not normal" about my results. I became very upset and asked what wasn't normal. The midwife said she didn't know, and said she thought I'd be grateful I was getting the results quickly. I asked why I was getting this news in front of everyone in the waiting room. No answer on that, but another lecture about how hard my results had been to find and how fast the turnaround had been between the two appointments.

Eventually I was moved to a side room before finally seeing the doctor, whose first words were that I did not have the condition I was being screened for. I was dumbfounded. The midwife had led me to believe there was a problem and I couldn't quite believe that there wasn't.

I ended the appointment by saying "I know this wasn't you that did this" (i.e., the registrar I was there to see) "but this should never, ever have happened". He said, "no".

On my way out the other midwives said that the first midwife wanted to see me. I said I didn't want to see her. They persuaded me. The first midwife showed me into a private room, and "told" me what had just happened. It was a version of events where she had got the information early as a favour to me and then had been unable to communicate with me because I had quickly become hysterical. It was clearly what she would have said had I complained.

I did not complain. That was nine years ago. I still wish I had.

Sorry you had a difficult experience. Perhaps you should look into counselling or join a birth experiences group- in my area the children's centre invites people to these if they've had a difficult time.
I'm afraid I think Sueing the NHS is wrong, not sure you even have grounds too.
You have your baby and he is healthy, everyone makes mistakes even midwives.