Access to labour notes

[podmumlet]

Could anyone advise me on how to gain access to my labour notes and get a debriefing? I believe there is some sort of process?

Somewhere in the haze of the delivery, I got told I coukd get s photocopy, then instead I got s one pager with my discharge notes a few days later.

It wasn't a particularly bad labour, although extremely fast for a first child (3 hours from first twinge to baby!) which left me with 3rd degree tears that are healing well.. But I would just like to know more, sort through my thoughts on the labour and file it away contently in mind.. At the moment, it's still literally and figuratively, a little bit raw......

Ta.

I would call/ write to the hospital (ideally your consultant) directly and ask, and if no luck that way then ask whether your community midwife can arrange this. Make sure you have the debriefing though and don't just get the notes - unless you have a medical background, the notes might not make much sense - mine were all abbreviations, trace printouts etc.

Start by asking your midwife? And be prepared to laugh and cry when you read them. I think it's a good thing to do. You have the right to see them. (But not add your own comments )

Hospitals/mw keep them for up to 7 years. You can access them at any time, though it may take a while for them to arrive.

I got my notes from PALS - looked on hospital website for details. I'm going to do the birth afterthoughts thing too - again on hospital website.

I started a thread on exactly this topic recently, here. Although I didn't want a de-briefing - again, I'd ring PALS to ask how to arrange this.

And if you don't understand all the abbreviations / medical terminology, you can always ask on here and someone will know, as I did on this threadhere! . Actually I was interested to find that I was actually able to understand quite a lot of the notes (and I have no medical background at all).

Thanks for the replies everyone and for the links Widgeon.

I'll be seeing a midwife one last time this week before gettig discharged, and will call PALS tomorrow.

:)

PALS also helped me - arranged for me to have a chat with a midwife to go through my notes. Very useful & helpful.

PALS will sort it our for you. You will probably have to pay for them if it's 6 weeks of more after the birth. I got mine a few weeks ago (a year after DD was born) and found them immensely helpful, even though, like you, the birth was not as bad as many I've read about.