How long after birth can you request your birth notes

[piratecat]

and do they send you everything?

thanks.

dd nearly 9. is it best to ring PALS at the hospital.

Hi

You have about 25 years. Medical records is usually a good place to start.

So i just need to ring the hospital, not PALS?

I would like to know this too

Yeah, You ring the medical records dept usually in the hospital, they should help. However if you wanted birth discussion ring the maternity unit.

Hth

thanks , yes it's just the notes i would be interested in. I did have a debrief with the head of maternity about 6 months after becuase of a very unhelpful midwife and no support.

All these years on I would like to look again and read more as i do think back then i didn't ask enough or look at them enough.

Can I ask - what are in birth notes? Are they quite detailed? I had an EMCS because baby was an undiagnosed breech. Will my notes have more info than this? (type of breech, explanation as to why I wasn't very dilated, what happened afterwards etc). I think I'm just curious, but guess I would like to know if there's anything in them that would be useful to know for next time (whether I have to have another CS or could VBAC).

I got mine last year. Ring the hospital records dept. who will send you a form to complete and get countersigned, got my DR to. I made sure I asked for full maternity notes, ante- and post-natal as well as the baby's notes for all 3 DCs. Our hospital trust sent a confirmation letter stating the cost (max £50 here) and the time frame for them to supply them. In the end I got them (300 odd pages!) free of charge as they didn't keep to the confirmed timeline, bonus! The envelope sat on the shelf for months and months before I could face opening it and it is only recently I've realised that my debrief and follow up with the consultant are not included. Guess I should chase that up and get them sent to me too.

theborrower mine are whatever was written down by the HCP at the time. It annoys me that things that were said/happened aren't noted down but I guess the HCP only notes down what they think is required, e.g. the Dr snapped umbilical cord trying to pull out placenta but all that is noted it that controlled cord traction was unsuccessful. Jeez you don't say!

What Stig said. I read mine in the car on the way home from picking them up though.

Mine cost £42, so be prepared for them to get pretty near the £50 limit.

I did this too. The request is made under the data protection act and means that they have 40 days in which to comply. If they don't they can't charge you as happened with me.

thankyou for the posts, £50 omg!!

You might find my thread here useful - just got my labour notes.

Didn't cost the £50 as I only wanted the actual notes from my labour (was only in hospital about 9 hours in total) and so there wasn't that much to photocopy.

pirate there is a x pence per page copied up to a max of £50.

The Borrower -

You're birth notes should have most things in, including how dilated you were at point of EMCS as well as type of breech (frank/footling etc) in the notes we use at our unit it will have a page that the docs write on with regards to operative birth - then usually it will have a box that has a suggested mode of delivery for next time. Some units also do a 6 week follow up appt so the woman can discuss these things.

As for what is written - can depend but we are advised these days to log everything. Mainly due to complaints / litigation. I am one of those who writes everything, even down to if the partner has left the room to pee & when he/she returns!

I had my notes and found the fascinating - especially as I was a midwife by then!

emptycrisppackets aaaah, thank you. I'll consider looking it up then, or maybe I'll just leave it until next time (not that we're TTC or anything, god, not doing that for a while... )

It could put my mind at ease mind you, since none of this was explained to me, just that I was only 3cm dilated (but was contracting every 3 minutes by this stage) and "Oh, it's breech. We need to do a section". Me: "What, now?" Them: "Yes, now. Sign this form"