Nightmare labour- would you/should I lodge a complaint?

[doubleshotespresso]

Well DD is now 5 weeks old and is fine and thankfully doing really well.

Just looking for some thoughts from seasoned muumsnetter's, the hospital where I gave birth fell woefully short in many ways and there were several points of the labour where I and DP thought we might not have made it through at all... Absolutely terrifying at some stages. Apologies this is so long, but the detail will I hope help some of you lovely ladies give me some balanced and honest views....

So felt twinges the afternoon before I was due to be induced, but tried to stay busy and get through it. By the time DP got home from work contractions were well into a rhythm and by the time he got out the shower I was doubled up. So called ahead as discussed with midwife and was told to call back when they had been every ten minutes for at least 2 hours. Lasted until 9pm until they said they would see me in the next 2 1/2 hours. So got there and waited in reception with another couple in what appeared to be equal pain levels until gone midnight.

Finally got taken to a birth suite and introduced to a midwife who asked about birth plans etc.... Told her I would like an epidural if necessary which she assured me would happen in the next couple of hours. All good. Then she left..... Having given me 2 paracetamol.

Pain then multiplied to levels I was struggling to contend with and DP buzzed for her. She examined me and said it was going to be ages yet, but she would bring me gas and air. This sent me completely sideways and did absolutely sod all to relieve the pain.

She then announced to DP she was going on her break for an hour and would do the epidural when she got back. DP (thank God) insisted she stayed after a great deal of questioning as I was in agony by this point and the gas was clearly having fuck all effect. She came back 20 minutes with another midwife who examined me and declared I was now 9cm dilated (had been 3cm 20 minutes prior)

"Oh well there will be no epidural-push!)"

The second midwife argued in front of us with the first one and eventually bleeped for a doctor who arrived reasonably swiftly. At this point she took one look and said to the midwife "how did she get to this ?this baby is spine to spine, get a canula in(I still have bruises where they did this)" And screamed at me to push or I would need forceps/caesarean.... And so the three of them stared at a monitor showing the baby heartbeat was dropping, whilst shouting further and DP had fear in his eyes I hope to never see again.

This continued (shit the pain was awful-felt like my back was breaking) until gone3am My vision went, everything flashed white when the doctor thankfully safely delivered our beautiful DD by vontousse . There was an awful moment when they put her on my stomach and she was silent, but to our relief she then screamed the house down....

So, four hours later I was taken to theatre to get stitched (3rd degree tear lovely-the doctor didn't have time to cut me I was told afterwards) and was not allowed anything to drink in all this time, despite the tropical temperatures in the hospital. They were yet to label DD and I insisted this happen before I leave. DP was told he could come with me to theatre, given scrubs to change into and then refused entry when we got there. Anaesthetist should not have offered apparently. No idea why as the theatre room appeared to be like a social club corridor as staff drifted through the entire duration as I am laying there off my head on morphine with legs in stirrups whilst they removed swabs they had left inside me for 4 hours (the pain was just awful). Then when I thought we were all finished with stitches, six of them fell silent wandering around looking at the floor, ignoring me. Eventually, I said "what the hell is happening here?"

The doctor responded "nothing for you to worry about-we have lost a thread."

This was found on the floor eventually and I was taken back to a different room, where my heart rate then dropped and it transpired I had lost 1 1/2 litres of blood and the morphine made me drop out a bit.

Was then finally allowed water and left alone with DD (who I breastfed for the first time alone-beautiful but with no attention or help from midwife)...

By the time I could move my legs I literally begged to get in the shower which they allowed me to do (only been told since this should never have been allowed unaccompanied, but to be honest I think I preferred that).

At 7pm that evening I discharged myself as I could not bear to stay a minute longer and just wanted to get myself our new baby and DP home to a clean bathroom and away from all the madness that was happening nearby with other couples and their visitors etc....

I feel strongly that if I was not lucky enough to have had DP there, myself and or DD would most certainly have not made it through to write this and would hate for anybody to go through what we did. If I were to see the initial midwife again, I would want answers as to why she was so blasé and failed to put my wishes and safety ahead of her break-time. That said though, I would not want to see anyone lose their job, just review their treatment of women in the throws of labour, so feel like I should write and feedback my experience to what is supposedly a leading teaching birth centre hospital...

Your honest thoughts on this would be most appreciated. . . . . B

Also, complaints tend to be dealt with by managers, the most you're going to get is a letter 'apologising for your recent experience'. A debrief would be with a supervisor of midwives who could probably make changes to practice/advise staff more quickly & effectively as they are more 'shop floor' if you like.
I'm not saying don't complain if that's what you want to do but maybe have it as plan b rather than a.

Oh my! What a time you had OP.

Just seconding what others have said, discuss what happen in a birth reflections type appointment first and go from there. How does your DP feel about it?

I had DS 10 weeks ago and there were some pretty awful shenanigans at my birth too (also resulting in 3rd degree tear) and my DH had to intervene and demand an epidural. I got it but too late and 10 mins after id been given it DS was out and the epidural didn't have time to kick in! My DH was also pretty traumatised about it all. The community midwife who came to our house after every day told me to complain to hospital, she was horrified by what we'd been through and said that it was not acceptable. I think even if there are issues with overcrowding etc. you are entitled to a duty of care and if you don't feel that you received it you need to say so x

Hi OP
That all sounds very frightening and yes I think it would help to go through it with someone.

RE the epidural, it can take time to be effective. When I asked for pain relief I was told it was too late, and that hte baby was ready to fall out (he didnt). It was only when I went ot see the MW for my second pregnancy that she explained that an epidural wouldnt have had time to take effect, but I didnt ask for an epidural, I asked for pain relief. Had your MW not waited around then it sounds as if you could have avoided some of the pain.

I was given 2 paracetamol and that was the only relief I got, so I think I understand how let down you feel about the lack of pain relief.

I'd complain op, the whole thing sounds abysmal and terrifying and I'd ask to talk it through with a senior mw to understand as others have said. Just to say - I had nightmares about dc1's birth for a good 6 months after and vowed I'd never ever do it again (also had a few panic attacks about being pg again) but it does recede, you gradually feel better as you focus more on your dc and time moves on. Don't feel as though you'll always feel the terror so starkly. Nearly 4 years on and I try not to recall it all in detail!

Congratulations on your baby OP, sorry to hear you had a traumatic time.
I lost memory of parts of DS's birth due to blood loss following a fast labour (I went unconscious afterwards), DS also needed resus. I realised my experience was traumatic when I still couldn't stop thinking, talking, crying about it 3 months later - I found the birth trauma association website really helpful, and having a debrief with the head of midwives helped me to fill in gaps and find out reasons for some things (I didn't feel anyone was at fault with what happened to me though, so I was happy to talk to her). I believe some doulas will review your birth notes with you too, if you want someone completely independent.

Thanks for the additional replies, have slept on this and think I will investigateba debriefing session, though I still feel I want to complain, the more I consider things, the more I realise how shoddy the whole thing was and how close we camemto potentially harming or losing our baby. Regarding the epidural,yes I was aware it is not always effective and that perhaps not appropriate. I made it clear on arrival I would want some sort of oain relief if it was not possible. The gas and air was useless and in fact made the whole experience doubly terrifying as it sent me into such a horrible state and did absolutely nothing for the pain. Have investigated the use of gas and air and even the NHS website refers to its as controversial as to its effectivity. It was very quickly clear it was having zero effect for my pain, but the midwife seemd to not care at all. To be frank I ended up giving birth to our DD with less pain relief than most people take for a headache and ahe could not have cared a d thought it was fine to go on a break for an hour. DP said it was medieval the way she just stood there. Will be contacting the hospital tomorrow to try and get some sort of feedback session sorted out.

Many thanks everybody so far for your thoughts and opinions, it really has been very helpful for me.

Good luck with contacting the hospital, I hope you find the debrief useful. You can always go on to complain as well, and at least you will be ahead of the game in terms of how the hospital might respond.

If you do lodge a complaint, the debriefing session should help massively. You will be able to get all your facts in line with the file, and (hopefully) get a reasonable second opinion from a midwife about how things could and should have been handled better.

doubleshotespresso - really sorry to read your birth experience story. What I find appalling is the apparent lack of communication. As others have said, it might be really useful to see whether there is a senior midwife at your hospital in charge of debriefing women and their families. This might be a very useful first step for you to take. I would also complain, in your case. Depending on how you feel about your care after a debrief, you could either point out the general failings in your care, or complain about a person in particular.
I work on a labour ward, and reading your story, there are a few things that I might be able to shed some light on. It is really difficult to comment on your individual story as, despite being long (no problem!) there are gaps that make it difficult to see exactly what was happening when (hence the importance, if you think it might be helpful) to go and see a senior midwife about it).
It seems quite strange to me that the midwife who saw you first did not offer to examine you to assess cervical dilatation, as this determines your further care. At our hospital, if you are less than 4cm, you are not normally admitted to labour ward but either given the choice to go back home or go to the antenatal ward. If, as in your case, someone is less than 4cm, an epidural would not normally be offered (they are done by an anaesthetist, not the midwife, so the midwife depends on the anaesthetist's availability which can change suddenly if another woman is rushed to theatre for an emergency c-section). The reason for this is that whilst we would hope that the cervix opens by at least 0.5cm per hour once the woman is in active labour (usually from around 4cm), the latent phase (up to 4cm) can take much longer as the cervix not only opens but goes through lots of different other changes like changing from a posterior to an anterior position, softening, etc. If the midwife you saw first thought you were 3cm, then I am not surprised she offered paracetamol and gas and air to start with. The key to all of this is, however, communication - she should have told you exactly why this was the pathway she suggested, and she should then have listened to what you were thinking (ok, not ok, etc.). She will have had to inform the co-ordinating midwife on labour ward that she thought that you were 3cm (or whatever). In all likelihood, she will then have been allocated someone else to look after as well, which would explain the buzzer. Again, this should have been communicated to you in such a way that you would have understood, and your pain should have been acknowledged and taken into account!
Breaks is another issue. If she thought that you were in the latent phase of labour (we don't monitor fetal heartbeat at that stage on a regular basis), it would not be unusual at our hospital to give the parents-to-be a buzzer (considering that usually, at 3cm, they would / could still be at home) so they can call for help if needed. I have stopped counting the shifts on which I do not get a break. We should have a break every four hours, but it just does not happen. We go for an entire shift without having as much as a sip of water, and yet midwives are responsible for the wellbeing of both mother and baby. As squizita said, having someone who is tired / hungry / thirsty is not really what you want in that situation. With breaks, it is also often that either you take a break when you are offered it (it's not usually the midwife deciding that she'll go on a break, but the co-ordinating midwife telling her that she can go now), or you won't get a break at all. So you go, because you might be working your third night shift in a row, and you just need to sleep for half an hour (and grab some food).
It is possible to go from 3cm to 9cm in 20 minutes, but it is rather unusual in a first-time mum, especially with baby being back-to-back. Not sure why you were told to push at 9cm, as full dilatation is usually 10cm (maybe anterior lip which they thought you could push away).
Baby's heart rate dipping in second stage (when you are pushing) is not unusual - if you do go for a debrief, ask the midwife to have a look at the CTG trace to see what kind of dips there were, and how the baby's heartrate recovered (if at all) when you stopped pushing.
Very strange to do a ventouse delivery and not having the time to cut an episiotomy if baby really was having decelerations (dips) that took a while to recover (an instrumental delivery and baby being in distress are really the only reasons episiotomies should be done nowadays)...
It can be normal for babies not to cry immediately. The first thing to be done would be to dry them, after which they should start crying and pink up. You might remember your baby's APGAR scores - if they were 8 or above at one minute, then baby was ok when she was born. Having said that, as a mother myself, I remember that the first cry was such a relief, and I very much understand that after all you went through, seeing your baby silent (and maybe seconds felt like minutes, which would be very understandable) must have been very scary.
In our hospital, partners can come into theatre for the birth, but not for a third degree tear (so sorry you also had this!). There are usually a lot of people in theatre (the obstetrician, possibly a senior obstetrician supervising the one doing the repair, anaesthetist, anaesthetic assistant, scrub nurse (who is responsible, among others, for counting swabs and needles, etc.), circulating nurse (who can get things if needed as she is not in sterile clothing), etc. There can be a lot of coming and going - very unpleasant when you are lying there, very exposed...
If they lose anything, they will of course be very much looking for it (it would cause an investigation to leave swabs, needles, etc. in a patient) but it's totally unacceptable to brush away your very justified question with the answer you received.
Shame you did not receive any breastfeeding help, although as you said, you and her managed beautifully on your own. Also, someone should have helped you to the shower as you presumably were given a spinal in theatre...
I totally understand that you self-discharged after such an experience.

I hope that my long post might have shed some light on general matters. As I said at the beginning, I very strongly feel that there was an awful lack of communication between staff and you and your partner. I cannot judge the clinical care as I do not know exactly what happened. If you feel it would help, go and ask for an appointment with a senior midwife for a debrief, and then write a letter of complaint. This is the only way the hospital will take notice, and take action. It seems like a very busy night (4 hours between birth and repair of third degree tear is quite long) and the midwife might have been looking after other women as well, but you should have been informed of all this and your and your partner's wishes should have been taken into account. It's such a shame when such a special event like the birth of your baby is overshadowed by so many traumatic moments... :0( All my best wishes to you and your family!

We had a birth debrief. I can't say that it was terrifically helpful. There was a lot of 'I'm sorry you interpreted it that way' and no sense that the chaotic care I received was in any way unacceptable. Watching the doctors counting swabs was like some sort of Laurel and Hardy sketch. I had no confidence in the registrar who stitched me up, and when I had to be readmitted, we had to ask for a second opinion as we saw him again. I raised an informal complain through the consultant I saw afterwards, but do now sort of wish that I had kicked up more of a fuss.

Flyingstork -wow thanks so much for your thoughts and explanations. Yes you are right, communication was poor. I have no problem with an epidural not being given, what I cannot understand (or forgive) is the fact that it was very quickly and abundantly clear to anybody without medical training that the gas and air was a) utterly useless in stopping any pain b) clearly out me into further distress as it sent me totally sideways, It was so horrible I pray I never feel like that again and the midwife totally ignored my and my DPs requests for ANY alternative pain relief. I cannot believe many women get through on just paracetamol it was horrific!

When we met the midwife she did examine me, and then promptly disappeared for a bit-sorry if I did not make that clear.

The breaks/buzzer issue: i could feel the baby moving down at this point but she kept telling us "not yet,that will be ages yet". I understand midwives are not robots and need breaks, but to be honest cannot see how she ever felt it would be fine to leave for an hour at that piint. Things were c,early happening fast, I repeatedly told her this but was told no take more gas and you will feel better.

As for the theatre-there were 6 dealing direvtly with me and umpteen other random staff breezing through whilst my procedure was carried out. I am furious this was allowed and the anaesthatist made comment on this during the procedure. The fact I had to wait four hours for such an experience is again unforgiveable. Yes they were busy but I cannot accept that this makes it okay. If my Mum and DP had not asked questions of staff I genuinely believe I would have waited longer... I literally could not breathe it was so ridiculously hot in there (why do they make these place SO Hot???)

I could not wait to leave and hope I never have to go back there, so yes discharged myself. They gave me medication for one night only so had to return the following day to collect my medication for the following week. Why God only knows, feel like they did it just to make things as difficult as possible..... The lack of care during labour was appalling so by the time I had confirmation that DD was okay I was so focused on leaving that I just begged for a shower, signed the discharge sheet and ran. The after care as far as I could see was over-stretched and they kept moving rooms(not great when you are drugged up on morphine).

Thanks again for your expert explanations, hopefully I manage to obtain a few from the hospital too. Thinking about it an apology would be nice too!

You can complain and they will probably check if mw & medical staff followed proceedure and detailed everything in the notes (usually very detailed and specific). It is possible that you dilated very quickly and they didn't have a chance to give you the epidural. I had a similar birth, it was traumatic but I was just glad that our baby and I were safe in the end, I went for some counselling to come to terms with it. You could have ptsd, have you spoken with your public health nurse?

I have 3dc 2 who were back to back

Dd1 went into labour around 11pm and made 3 visits to maternity between 2am and 8.50am. I was told i was wasting their time and to go home this is the part of labour no one tells you about, take 2 paracetamol. Went for the 3rd time to a&e at 8.50am and found out the midwives had changed shifts, i was immediately examined and rushed to delivery where i had dc at 11am. That night the horrible midwife came in through the night, drew the curtain around and proceeded to grovel. I was young at the time and had no idea what back to back was.

Dc3 was induced and had a straight forward 4 hr labour.

dc3 went into labour at 2pm, made 3 attempts to get into maternity and was again sent home. I told them i think i am back to back but they said no i wasn't. Finally admitted at 9.50pm and had her at 11.50pm, another back to back with no pain relief.

This was in a hospital which was at one time in between having them the best in the country. I have no idea why some midwives seem to have no idea about back to back deliveries. The midwife who delivered dc1 was on the ball and horrified. I suspect the first midwife was rollicked for it. Dc3 they just seemed like they couldnt be arsed and it wasn't even busy at the time. I had no idea what a back to back labour was until i had one.

Back to back the baby is pushing on your rear end so nothing happens or opens. You then become dialated very quickly and birt soon after. You can go hours in full labour with your cervix opening and closing so it appears from them checking your cervix you are not in labour. To me ia should be obvious to a trained midwife if you are back to back. I couldn't sit down or lie down and had horrific back pain. They just write you off as a wuss who cant handle labour when in fact your in more pain than a normal labour. Dc2 was a walk in the park compared to both back to backs

Oops sorry on first post dc2 was induction in normal position. Dc1+2 were back to back

Oh gawd too tired to type on a phone in bed, done the same again. 1+3 back to back, dc2 2 normal position induction

Re having to go back for your medication. Wards only keep a very small stock of take home meds. Everything else has to come from pharmacy. Pharmacy deal with the in & out patient meds for the whole hospital so obviously are very very busy & it takes time for them to dispense each order - several hours is normal.
It sounds like the staff tried to be helpful when you self discharged by providing you with enough medication to keep you going overnight but you've misinterpreted this as them being difficult.

Ilovecoreyhaim so sorry you went throught this twice.... How awful, and yes the back pain was like nothing else- I truly thought my spine was snapping at on point! This hospital is supposed to be one of Londons finest teaching hospitals, was so disappointed at the whole place really.

Iquitelikeapples - my meds did come from the pharmacy ? (Due i think to the specific drugs I needed I think!?!) the day I left and the following day. And yes they took quite a while to appear, so I cannot see how or why it could not have been done in one big bundle.... That was the least of my worries at the time though to be fair. I was not the only new mum to be discharging myself either, it was clear many had had enough too.

Pico2 sorry to hear that, I agree that a complaint is most likely the best option. I have zero faith that any feedback I provide in a debrief will be taken seriously based on our experience there.... If they didnt care on the day I cannot understand why they would in a debrief.

congratulations on your baby girl and I am sorry to hear you had such a traumatic time.

my birth story was pretty horrific too and I also think that we might not have made it without my DH.

I didn't complain, but I wanted to tell you this. At five weeks in, I felt dreadful. really, really traumatised. I found myslef thinking about it all the time. I got flashbacks of bits that I had previously forgotten. There are things that happened that I still don't really understand or remember properly. but it does get easier and I started to feel better about it after a few months. I posted on here quite a lot and talked about it with friends and family.

so, complain if you want to, but make sure that you look after yourself too and those horrible feelings do go away. we're trying for number two now. I never imagined I would feel able to do that when DS was five weeks!

as an aside, my caps button has buggered off, so please excuse the lack of capitalisation! The bad spelling though, that's all me

Telling a senior midwife in a debrief might help you to feel someone is listening though. I'm not sure a complaint will have the same opportunity and of course there's nothing to stop you doing a debrief and then complaining.

Don't worry about your memory, you've been through a lot. It will come back. I have flashbacks to my own labour and afterwards which was far from pleasant but with time I've got a handle on it. I wish I had done a debrief though. It might have speeded this up, especially as one of my first thoughts on finding out I was pregnant again was 'shit, I'll have to do that again'. A good amount of sticking my head in the sand is currently dealing with that problem for the moment.

Congratulations on your new baby.

thetravellinglemon & littlebearpad - that is very reassuring thanks. Must admit it has all hit me a bit this last week, think now as I get. Bit stronger and my brain is becoming to feel my own again, the gravity and potential of the whole thing have hit me quite hard. There are so many little bits I still can't piece together and cannot get over the sheer lack of care at the labour-it was appalling looking back now.

Sad to read on here how many of you had a scary time too through mishandling an bad communication, it really should not be the case in this day and age. At this stage whilst I am certain I would dearly love another bundle of joy (DD has been a pleasure so far) , I really don't see myself or DP contemplating another after all that. Hopefully we mellow on that one, both still quite raw from the experience.

I completely see the value in the debrief, though my major concern would be keeping my cool in such a meeting. Having been absolutely serenely calm my whole pregnancy I now feel as if if they don't respond well to my feedback I may well lose the plot in there! Am talking what to do through this evening with DP, having managed to call maternity unit yet, DD is not loving this heat so been utterly zombified busy trying to stay awake and comfort her...

Thanks all so much for sharing your experiences, thoughts and advice. I know now I want to do something , just yet to decide what will be best. I am not wanting to land staff in trouble, rather get some reassurance their procedures and methods are reviewed and better comunication introduced so that nobody should have to endure similar to us.

If there are any midwives on this thread is back to back something which is not common or that MWs don't see often. I had never heard of it before i had dd1. The midwife who sent me home repeatedly with dd1 was in her 50s, idk how long she had been a MW though. She examined me twice and because i wasn't dilated came to the conclusion i was over reacting to the point she told my dp i was and because he knew nothing when i went home he just thought i wasn't handling labour well. After it happened and we had the chance to talk about it he said he could tell i was in agony buy did think i might be being a wuss because of the comment this is the part no one tells you about, go home and take 2 paracetemol. She became quite nasty when i was telling her my back felt like it was breaking and my rear end felt like it was going to explode. Surely alarm bells should have rang and there was a possability i was back to back due to what i was telling her. The MW who took over and delivered was lovely, examined me and said oh no your back to back you must be in agony then explained to me what was happening and told dp when he asked how long that i was ready to deliver and i had done most of the hard work at home.

More or less the same scenario with dd3, after being sent home all night i saw a different MW who said this baby is back to back and took me in to deliver.

DD 1 i had one dose of pethadine and gas and air, dd3 i had gas and air. I didnt want an epidural but it does make you wonder how many people have had the same thing happen when its happened to me twice in 6 years

Jesus that's terrible! DP did say afterwards that both midwives looked at each other and then down when the doctor arrived and asked how I had got to this stage... He took this to mean that DD may not make it but tried to stay positive for me and just persisted with the doctor. Thank God he was there-I just dread to think what may have happened,it is unthinkable.

doubleshot congratulations on your DD.

I had a debrief after DS2's birth. I was expecting it to be lots of back-covering and excuses about the hospital being overworked, but I was completely wrong. The two senior mws who I saw were great. They talked through what happened, listened to how I felt and answered all my questions. They clearly cared that I was upset about it, and they also voiced the fact that various aspects of my care were not as they should have been. I felt so much better afterwards that while I was given the option of taking it forwards as a formal complaint, I didn't feel that was necessary in my case. I guess my point is that a debrief might be really helpful, and even if it isn't, it by no means precludes you complaining, and should even speed things up as your notes will have been looked at already.