to ask are traumatic birth debriefs worth it?

[Scrunchies]

Sorry I'm posting here for traffic and also to get a wider variety of responses - i want the good and the ugly.

Ive got my birth debrief next week via telephone. Im not sure i see the point. I do have lots of emotions/ regrets/ difficulties moving on from the birth (6 months ago) but don't see how these can be helped by a quick telephone call.

Has anybody had one recently? what did it involve? any advice or questions you found useful to ask? (i know this will be quite individual but just wanting to see what others experiences were). just don't see how this is going to help at all (and i do feel i need help).

I found there was a lot of arse covering. It was 9 years ago though.

I found my debrief 3 years ago a great experience that I really needed. It helped me understand and process everything. Everyone's experience is different, but you say in your post you need a debrief so what have you got to lose? I hope it helps.

Hi @Scrunchies, sorry you had a difficult birth. I had a birth debrief early last year (pre pandemic so in person) in relation to a birth from 2018. It was actually so they could try to persuade me not to request a caesarean so I turned up to go through the motions but it was really useful in the end.

I ended up with long standing pain from forceps from the first birth and I was really upset as I had said all along I didn’t want forceps. It was the only line in my birth plan! In my case I didn’t really remember the detail or understand why I had been given the advice I was, but they went through my notes and helped it to make sense.

I’m still upset about the birth injury I suffered but I have sort of come to terms with the fact forceps weren’t avoidable if I wanted to deliver safely and I feel less angry.

Whether it is useful for you may depend on what feelings you retain about the birth. Are you angry or confused about the care you received? Or are you content with that but just struggling to come to terms with the bad luck you had in how the birth came out?

Most people I know have found them useful. I hope you do too. If you still need more help after the debrief maybe you could ask them what further support is available?

Good luck

I had mine in 2018 and it was a total arse-covering exercise, like yes did avoidably put your baby at risk of death or brain damage, but please don't sue us.....

I found the woman who did it was very skilled at appearing sympathetic but they did not follow up with a letter as suggested or make any of the changes to their processes they said they would. When I rang a few months later to check up they " did not have any record of that appointment".

Honestly I'd leave it as it takes up emotional energy and stirs up memories, and it'd basically a damage control mechanism for the hospital to avoid litigation.

I’m not sure a telephone conversation will be very useful unless you have a list of specific questions. Usually an experienced midwife will go through your notes with you to help you get a better understanding of the timeline and sequence of events. You can see what was written and how decisions were arrived at (hopefully involving you).

Have a think about whet you want from the conversation and state those points at the beginning to get the best from it.

I found mine good. The birth was very traumatic and I found hearing what happened from people who weren't delirious with pain made it all clearer than I thought it was

I had one in 2019, 3 months after the delivery, in person and with DH and we both found it very helpful. I had a very rare thing happen, the hospital has one a year at most, and I ended up having a CS under general which led to big memory gaps afterwards and some of it I won’t get back so going through mine and the baby’s notes from the minute we went in through to the discharge helped me finally piece as much as possible together. I’d been driving DH mad asking the same things over again and he was really patient but I needed to see stuff in black and white to make sense of it. We both had some questions about timings as it was a bit of a blur so to hear the reasons for everything really helped.

We found out some stuff which I found upsetting about how poorly DD was when they got her out and it took a while to process that but I wasn’t left with any further questions. DH got kicked out of theatre when it all went wrong and I was unconscious when she was born so we both felt awful for not being there when she was born, if that makes sense, so hearing what had happened and who was with her and filling in the time DH spent spacing outside in fear was quite healing.

I didn’t have any complaints about our care, they were clear there’s a different process for that, so it really was just to go over the sequence of events, ask our many questions and get a proper understanding of it all.

Tbh I’m not sure I’d have found a phone call as helpful but with no other option it’s definitely worth it.

Do you know what you want to get from it?

She asked me that and all I wanted was to know what had gone on rather than anything very specific. She was a senior midwife who wasn’t involved in our care and she was great.

Sorry you had a hard time

Useful. It was good to go through it and helped me understand what was in/pit of my control.

I had a post birth debrief albeit 16 years ago. It certainly answered a few questions that I didn't think of/was unable to process at the time.

I also had similar after surgery that didn't go quite to plan a few years ago and found that really helpful.

Oh yes, it was very much worth it when I had a debrief 5 years ago. It really helped to calm my anxiety as I approached the birth of my 2nd DC. The midwife explained when and why certain decisions were made and she also offered an alternative plan for the upcoming birth in order to avoid another [same or worse] injury. It really soother my mind and the 2nd birth was a much more positive experience as the midwives followed all elements of advice written by the senior midwife.

I was never offered one but was very shaken after DS's birth (head lodged in birth canal, forceps used, long-term damage to my pelvic floor and haemorrhage.) I didn't even know this was a thing. I didn't even realise I had had a haemorrhage until my friend, who is a medical professional, read my notes and told me. I was given no information at all. I would have really valued it....

I had a face to face debrief before covid and for me it was very helpful. A midwife spent about an hour with me, she went through all the notes with me, answered my questions and gave me time to look through the notes on my own. I had a very traumatic emergency cesarean and was very unwell after. The debrief helped me piece together the events and understand why decisions were made. It was only after the debrief that I felt able to move on from the birth and accept that unfortunately I didnt have the birth experience I had wished for. I hope you find some comfort from your debrief too. X

Absolutely worth it.

Traumatic birth with DD1 in 2017 which triggered post-natal anxiety, PND and PTSD. Once I sought help from the GP she encouraged me to have a birth story debrief. I met with a senior midwife who was so lovely and she went over things in detail - it turns out I had a lot of gaps in my memory and I think going over this really helped my recovery.

When I fell pregnant last year with DD2 I did have a minor wobble thinking about the birth but I went over the story again with this same midwife and she completely calmed me down and said she would support me however I chose to give birth.

I did have a different birth with DD2 which for me was a positive experience compared to my first.

Id say if you are planning further dc then yes, they are very much worth it.

Mine helped me understand what happened, why it happened, and if any action could be taken to prevent it happening again. This was invaluable in my birth plan for my second- i was able to weigh up the risks and write a birth plan for vbac, allowing for these known factors- then decide whether the variables were too great vs a section.

If you aren’t planning on more, it may help you understand that most likely it was out of your control. Hopefully it will also help the hospital learn if there was anything they could have done to make your experience better.

I had one after a birth like @BatleyTownswomensGuild's and it was an arse covering "sorry you remember it like that".

Mine wasn't great. My birth was separately investigated by HSIB -the healthcare safety investigation board - due to the level of injury my DD suffered (fortunately she's fine now). The HSIB report contradicted what I'd been told in the debrief and it was clear the hospital had lied by omission. The hospital had the line that it was bad luck, nothing could have been done differently, etc whereas the report listed clear failings. I think I'm more angry about the hospital's attitude than I am about the actual failings.

I had my first baby 7.5 months ago. I had I traumatic birth and it was everything I didn't want it to be. I basically had an induction only because it was an ivf pregnancy and the doctors don't like ivf pregnancies to go over due date. I felt incredibly emotional about it for a while and had my debrief a few months later. I found it useful as by then I was only just starting to be able to talk about it. It was also good to hear what actually happened as some of my memory was a bit off in regards to times and detail. I also gave my feedback about some bits of the birth I think could have been handled better and they actually said they are looking into inductions and making them more personal rather then everyone having the same structure. I found it useful, mine was over zoom.

I had one and it was helpful, but I wish I had asked more specific questions, and taken more notes during the conversation, so I could look back at them again when calmer. I was still very upset talking about it by the date of the meeting, so I had trouble taking it all in.

Does anyone know if you are allowed to request / keep a copy of your notes?

I had a videocall session for my birth debrief. My birth was very traumatic, I lost 3.2l of blood and was in high dependency unit for 2 nights. The midwife was very thorough and reassuring throughout and answered questions I had. I have been very badly impacted due to my experience and unfortunately the debrief was delayed quite severely by covid - I gave birth in January 2020 and had an appointment for my debrief at the beginning of April but didn't get my debrief until October - which did delay me getting therapy I need. However, I am glad I did the debrief before I had my therapy as I don't think it would have been helpful having it afterwards. (I've got a diagnosis of severe anxiety and PTSD) I didn't personally feel like there was any arse covering but they didn't do anything wrong in my case so I think that's probably dependent on whether or not they fuck up! I was reassured that should I go on to have any more children (currently not on the cards) that I will be allowed a c section no questions asked and I'd have support from the midwife who runs the debrief service - obviously pregnancies following trauma would be anxiety inducing so that's a service they provide which I wasn't aware of. I wrote out a list of questions etc. That I wanted to ask beforehand, some of these she answered just through the process of it and any she didn't answer I had the opportunity to ask. She was very supportive as I got quite upset about certain parts of it and she did a lot to reassured me I couldn't have done anything differently. She referred me urgently for therapy after my session and that did mean I skipped the waiting list for it (about 4-5 months).

I wish I had been offered one. When I got pregnant again I tried to see my consultant to go through what happened but she was always not available. We waited for an hour to see her once but they told us her clinic had finished and she had to go to a meeting. Never did see her all pregnancy.

It was only when I was in labour for the second time a midwife read my notes and admitted that I had been left bleeding for too long before action was taken.

I eventually got over it with counselling and hypnotherapy.

Mine was - I was pregnant with #3 - 2 had been so traumatic I ended up with PTSD

I got talked through all the issues but more importantly the midwife who mishandled the whole thing and belittled me was no longer working on the labour ward and would not be allowed near me on the post natal ward - also got a sticker on my file flagging up birth trauma so the team delivering dd3 where really kind and informed me all the way along. Also got my own room post birth.

I had one. A couple of things that are different to your situation: I was pregnant again and very scared and the meeting was in person and my partner came too.

It wasn’t transformative. A lot of the notes weren’t accurate and she couldn’t comment on my current pregnancy.

It helped because: I felt I’d got all the information that I could from the hospital and had it explained to me. Done ven if it wasn’t particularly helpful, I could cross it off the list of things which might help.

And the my said one thing which helped, and I can’t really explain why: they said that they see a lot of people who had the type of birth I had as opposed to other types of traumatic birth. It made me feel like it was okay to have found it hard. I didn’t realise beforehand that I was thinking that I should be okay about the birth because baby was okay.

Years ago I was supposed to have one at another hospital, that time baby wasn’t okay and oops they lost the notes, had no idea who was on duty that day etc. I let it drop because I was in a bad place but regret not fighting to see my notes.

Yes I had one and it definitely helped. It was the morning following delivery but I wish my dh had been involved. I def recovered mentally much faster than my dh who was utterly traumatized by the entire event!

I had one in 2015 but it was directly after the birth whilst I was on the ward. We found it really useful and I dealt with the experience quickly, I think. We had a really understanding midwife (who may not have been “trained” to debrief and didn’t treat it like a arse covering exercise) but sat with us and went through my notes. She said she though in her personal opinion that they should have acted earlier in giving me a emergency section and it might not have got to category 1 stage. That really helped. I am really thankful I had it so quickly after the birth as I had no “what if” questions and I wasn’t left wondering what had happened to me.

I’m sorry you had such a bad birth experience and I honestly believe debriefing should happen as quickly after the birth as people can cope with.

I had a debrief via phone a few months ago and found it very helpful. The midwife was empathetic and not at all arse covering. Duty of candour in the NHS means they should tell the truth. Some stuff was missing from the notes, and they’re all they have to go on. Anything in my baby’s notes was also unavailable and I wish I’d ask to see them - I suppose I still could.

HOWEVER the subsequent complaint I made to the trust was definitely responded to with a massive arse covering report. I’m still glad I did it though. Even though their response was entirely predictable, the investigation still brought to light some details that were missing from the original notes.

Time has been a healer and the fact I don’t plan to have anymore children.