Making a complaint

[ZebraZeebra]

My little boy will be one on Sunday, and it's becoming apparent that I am still traumatised by the labour. Initially I wasn't interested in making a complaint but almost a year on, I'm afraid of getting pregnant again and quite frankly - it's breaking my heart because I had so wanted more.

I believe a huge error in judgement was made in order to control my labour unnecessarily, which resulted in a harrowing experience for me. I have seen on here how to start the process, but I can't seem to find it. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'll be very grateful!

I would seek midwive counselling first and go through your notes in detail with him/her. I did that after a traumatic birth and it was very useful and helped me deal with the idea of another baby.

I agree with mad. A debrief and counselling may be the best way to start, especially if your aim is to recover enough from your last labour to try it all again. The problem with making a complaint is that it can be very stressful and can force you to re-live things. If you're not in a strong mental place to cope with that, it could do you more harm than good.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from making a complaint altogether - just recommend that you seek to gain a full understanding of what happened and why, as well as support to deal with it, first. That way you'll be able to better focus any complaint you do want to make, and hopefully find the process less stressful.

Thank you both for your posts - and I do think a debrief is the best way forward, because I can't make sense of it. From that point, once I understand it, I suppose I can decide to go ahead with a complaint.

I am absolutely positive in my mind I do not want to be treated by a particular community MW. It was her action - decisions she made that in my mind - that kickstarted an awful path of intervention.

Basically what happened was I had a sweep at 41+3. She started booking the induction for 42 weeks and all I said was - can we just review once I get there. I understand the risks but I am comfortable. Baby was completely fine. Her whole demeanour changed and she began insisting I needed scans and monitoring. At that point they said my waters had gone - even though there was no physical evidence to suggest that. They then said my baby would die if I didn't agree to an induction - so of course I did. They then did nothing for 15 hours and I was hysterical because I believed it to be an emergency. 12 hours after they started the induction, my waters broke.

I understand people make mistakes but they would not re-scan, they would not admit the lack of residual backwaters during an examination - along with the fact I had had no experience of my waters going - suggested they had indeed not gone.

But all that - I cannot understand the community MW insisting on scans and monitoring at 41+3. If I had not said anything, I'd have gone home, continued to be pregnant for 4 more days - might have gone into labour, might not - but I just cannot understand why I suddenly needed all that monitoring just because I wouldn't necessarily agree to a 42 week induction. Literally at the appointment - it was all fine and hunky dory, did the sweep and nothing, baby's heartbeat was fine, he was in a good position - it was ALL GOOD. The moment I said don't just book it in - I want to wait and see - her whole attitude changed and suddenly I needed all this monitoring.

I can't make sense of it at all.

Is there a consultant midwife at the hospital you can speak to? I wanted to go through my notes and was told by my mw that a registrar or consultant has to do that.

Iirc the time limit for making a complaint is 1 year so you might not have time to wait for a debrief. I think you should contact the hospital asap and tell them that you intend to make a complaint so that its on the system before the 1 year cut off point and then consider exactly how you want to proceed. Fwiw your experience sounds horrible and definitely worthy of a complaint imo

notundermyfoof thank you. On both counts. I posted in the months following my labour and the response here was that I shouldn't complain. It's a relief to hear someone say it sounds horrible.

Also following your post, I sprang into action, spoke to Patient Liaison who gave some email addresses so that I could get my complaint emailed in writing within the year limit. So thank you for that too!

Well done! I think too many people have the attitude that it all ended well so you should just be grateful to have your baby. Imo this is what allows these so called professionals to carry on mistreating women and ignoring their human rights. If no one ever speaks out nothing changes and more women will suffer the same trauma. Check out AIMS website for more advice on what to expect from the complaints process.