if you had a terrible birth experience,who can you complain to?

[pregnantbabyelephant]

other than the hospital involved?
maybe the royal colledge of midwives
or aims?

anywhere else you can think of

had a rea.lly trumatic birth,andi would hate to think the same thing could happen to another woman

I also had a terrible terrible experience with my first son. I complained initially to the hospital and met with a board. Like you I wanted assurances that the same thing wouldn't ever happen again. Many things were changed but I was never truly satisfied that my own 'fallout' was dealt with sufficiently.

My GP has always suggested I go down a legal route but I haven't the energy. If it was a midwifery issue, I'd take it to the Head of Midwifery and the RCM cc to your MP or the Dept of Health.

Really sorry to hear this pbe.

You could indeed start with Chief Exec of Hospital Trust; cc it to Head of Midwifery at the Trust, Royal College of Midwives, your MP, the Secretary of State for Health and the Chief Exec of the NHS.

You could state that you intend to pursue further publicity for the issues raised, but any complaints pursued purely through the media are dismissed by Chief Execs as being unsubstantiable, so you are pursuing normal channels as well.

I have to say that if you can bear to write these stage by stage,i.e. write in the first instance only to the Chief Exec etc, you may get a slightly less defensive response initially.

i hope your letter tips the balance towards funding a better service.

Many MNers have gone to the hospital and gone over their notes after a traumatic birth - which you may or may not want to do. The Birth Trauma Association website is very helpful as is the TABS website. I had a truly awful experience and wound up doing cognitive behavior therapy that helped tremendously. The act of writing it all down, no matter who you wind up sending it to, is also very, very healing.

My cousin has just had a stillborn baby. The cord was wrapped around his neck. He was fine until the birth.

so sorry to hear about your cousins baby monkey.
how is your cousin or is that a stupid question

thank you for all the kind replies
due to what happened to me. i won't be having anymore children naturally
ill have to have a section.
so ill prob have a totallt exprience if i ever had another baby

but i want to help chage things, i do not want one other woman to go through what i did
i think i may help avoid that if i give my feedback to as many "bodies" as possible.
thanks for giving some ideas who else to contact

ys twotimestrouble it was a problem with the midwives.

thanks choosy ive already written to the complaints manager at the hospital, and it has been taken up by the chief exc.

but i think its a good idea to do it in stages

Monkey - I'm so sorry to hear that has happened to your cousin. What a terrible tragedy especially given there was no warning given the baby was healthy. In this situation the cord only becomes a problem once the baby starts descending through the birth canal. The only way it can usually be detected is if there is a last minute ultrasound but this isn't normally done. Then if the baby is being monitored obviously its distress should be a warning sign to the medics.
I'm no expert but that is how I understand it - this is just what I know from ds's experience.

Once again, I'm so sorry for your cousin.

I had a pretty horrific time of it and got in touch with our local Patient Advice Liason Service (PALS) if you contact your local hospital or NHS Direct they will be able to give you contact details. I won't go into the nitty gritty, but my complaint was about the midwives and total lack of aftercare. I eventually had a meeting with the PCT director, head of midwifery and head of the hospital and felt I finally got closure (it was lovely to be able to speak about what happened without bursting into tears .
They implemented procedures in the midwife led unit and two members of staff were moved to other wards and given more training.
I'm glad I complained as it made me feel better, meant no one else had to go through the same experience and I discovered at our meeting that they'd had 7 complaints about the same members of staff at roughly the same time .
The head of the PCT asked if I'd ever consider having another baby at this hospital, I replied NO WAY !!!!
Hope that helps and good luck.

I'm also sorry to hear about your cousin monkey
Forgot to mention - birthtraumaassociation.org.uk might help you too.

My advice: write to the chief executive of the hospital. I wouldn't bother with PALS. Worse than useless PALS were in my case. Hindered it more than help.