Did you have an internal exam after having baby? Are they routine?

[ayria]

I found my son's birth traumatic. There was no communication whatsoever and they just done their job without explaining anything to me at all. I'm currently having therapy and going through the bits I found highly distressing. I was left with PTSD as I felt truly violated. There's a lot I wont go into but I was losing blood throughout the delivery, they panicked (son's heartrate dropped, only found out from debrief) then she cut me.

I asked my sisters. Neither of them had an internal examination afterwards or any stitches. I got cut and tore halfway around and had an internal tear (only know this because I found out you could have a debrief nearly 4yrs later!). The injuries listed on my medical records are wrong so that didn't help me, it didn't explain why I could feel stitches inside. They didn't tell me what they were doing, looking for or why. They just started stretching me open with something, then, after a good while of fumbling around, I felt the stitches going through my skin with no warning. It was horrendous. Worse than giving birth! Then one of them put her finger up my backside twice, didn't warn me or explain what she was doing. Basically I was treated as a piece of meat. The only reason I assume she checked me internally was because of the blood (didn't know I had lost any at the time) but they don't always check because of that, do they? My sister said that they only do an internal exam if you tear but how can they know if you've torn without checking inside as well?

Did you have an internal exam after giving birth? Were you told why before it was done and was it explained? Did they tell you the findings?

I'm just curious as to whether it is done routinely or not as I'm informing the hospital in writing about the way my son's birth was handled has now left me with a mental illness.

TIA
xx

Gave birth for the third time 11 days ago, and I was checked for tearing (2nd degree) and I consented to the finger up the bum to check for any damage (I had a 3rd degree tear with DC1). Also had the suppository, which was fine. At all times i was informed about what was happening, and throughout all my deliveries I have been kept informed about everything. It's shocking that you did not receive the same treatment. Hope a debrief helps with your trauma...

Thank you. I really don't know why they said nothing to me and just prodded my body. It's hard sometimes to read other women's experiences where they knew what was happening when I was left in distress at what should have been the best day of my life. It wasn't just the exam afterwards, it was the rushed episiotomy that shocked me and after everything was out they shoved my legs up and said 2 words to me. I laid there listening to her talk quietly about my insides basically and knew nothing about what it meant whilst biting the gas and air mouth piece because I couldn't concentrate on breathing with it! My mum had to take my son of me because I couldn't physically stay still and hold him.

I am glad my midwife changed mid labour due to a shift change (I think). The first one didn't listen to me. I had to tell her multiple times that I had lost my waters and wanted to get changed as when I told her the first few times she prattled back in auto pilot that I would feel wet down there and if blah blaah blah 8 hours... Er no, I've been sat in a massive puddle for half an hour on my own in the dark, strapped to machines and I am actually 100% sure my waters have broken and I don't need to wait eight hours to try something else to get labour going.

My mum arrived about 40mins later and talked me through things, thankfully she basically took over my delivery as she's a midwife. Well, was until she left the nhs out of fear of low staffing and standards. Slightly off topic, but had she not been there I'm sure my experience would have been more like yours - autopilot staff, not explaining, forgetting that although they've done it a hundred times, it's your first.

I wish they'd taken more care with my stitches. I tore up the front- my inner labia split apart, as did my clitoral hood.

edit bit about stitches I've changed my mind about sharing with mumsnet

I also had a student in the room for the birth that I didn't know was a student until she talked to me afterwards.

Some parts of my labor make me angry, but I'm happier to forget about it.

I hope you compose a letter that communicates how feel and felt, that you get some closure, and that you might even get a reply that really truly acknowledges the principal behind your complaint - informed consent - perhaps with some impact towards change too.

Have you drafted your letter?

I gave birth a few days ago. I did receive a thorough internal exam which was fully explained both before and after it was carried out. I'm sorry you feel this way OP

Not to undermine your feelings OP but as you mentioned you heard the midwife talking while you were on the gas and air are you certain you didn't miss something? Gas and air can make you feel very out of it and details of my first 2 deliveries were hazy whereas with my 3rd the g&a ran out (homebirth) and it was much clearer. It also affects people very differently, my friend had to have it taken off her as she was utterly out of it, she couldn't have told you anything that happened to her or said to her while she was using it (I was there) Just a thought....

Sorry to hijack, but how do you get hold of your birth records? I'd like to see mine as DS1 was quite a long traumatic birth and although DS2 was much quicker I had a 3rd degree tear repaired whilst off my face on G&A.

ispy I've had people ask me if I missed something. No. She wasn't talking to me. She said two sentences that I overheard as she was discussing it with the training girl sitting next to her. I wasn't using the gas and air then, I dropped it on the floor before I was pushing because it's crap. I got given it back by the doctor afterwards when she came back in and she said nothing about what she was about to do just "You might need it" then sat down between my legs. I wasn't inhaling it because I couldn't concentrate on breathing with it, the pain was horrendous, so was just biting it. So no, I wasn't under the "influence" of anything. I remember every word that was said because for the whole duration of my labour, they said about 2, maybe 3, sentences each. No one was in the room for the majority of the time. I know some women can't remember things but I do, my therapist was surprised at how much I can remember because I have the details about what they did, their expressions and actions, but had no facts to make a conclusion.

Hiddle Ring the hospital you gave birth at and ask about Birth Reflections, or it might be called Birth Afterthoughts, say you want a birth debrief. You might need to say which birth you'd want to discuss, I don't know, I only have one child. They will take your details and someone will ring you back to book you in for a birth debrief.
For me though, I know someone that works at the hospital so she handed my details to the woman that does the birth debriefs, then she just rang me and told me when she would be round with my notes. I told her I can't go to the hospital as I'd panic but she comes round to your house anyway, so that was a relief! I found out about it from Birth Trauma Association, then rang the midwife I know to ask her about it and she offered to talk to her for me.

Another thing I want to know is can artificial rupture of membranes make babies heart rate drop on top of an already quick labour?

Decaff I have pages and pages of writing, research, guidelines, how I felt, what the debrief explained and how I feel they could have supported me throughout and afterwards. I've started the draft, yes, but it has to be a good day for me to tweak and write more otherwise I will go to sleep with it on my mind.

It was going to be a complaint initially, but I've decided that the whole letter isn't necessarily a complaint about everything because they didn't do anything physically wrong. They just didn't tell me what was happening or why. Doing things to someone's body without asking or explaining would leave anyone in distress or traumatised. And I'm now informing them about how the lack of communication left me living with a mental illness and trauma for years after. A simple action, an explanation, that they didn't consider or bother to acknowledge and it could have avoided all this distress for me.

I think I'm just getting closer to being able to let it go gradually. I'll let what they did slid, but how they handled what they did still makes me angry. I just want to know what their train of thought was, it wasn't an emergency situation when my son was out. I think I just want to be reassured that it should have been handled a bit better to prevent unanswered questions. The woman that did the debrief agreed with me that it should have been explained. It was then that I felt validated because no one cares if you have a healthy baby. You have to put up with how you were treated and not be miserable about the birth because a baby is what you wanted. Yes, but I didn't want to feel violated during the process, did I?

I want to know if that is their normal way of doing things, if not, then why did they do it that way. I'd like to bring it to their attention so that no one else goes through this turmoil if similar happens to them.

Ayria my birth was not as traumatic as yours but I too cannot seem to get over it psychologicaly.. Probably why I'm still on childbirth 4 months later.
I find the idea of an episiotimy so psychologicaly disturbing much more so than my emcs previously.
I too watch emergency births on YouTube but it sometimes makes it worse.
I think my only cure will be another child born by elective section ( aslong as that is a positive experience!)

My first baby had decelerations and needed to be born quickly so they did an episiotemy and a ventouse delivery. The decelerations are because the baby is in distress so they didn't ask my permission as such but I was told what they were doing at every step. The baby had a bit of resuscitstion but then she was fine. The interventions probably saved her life. It was traumatic though and I can imagine it would have been a lot worse if they hadn't communicated to me what was happening. DH found it quite traumatic too, apparently there was a lot of blood. I thought about it all the time for months and months but gradually it faded.

If it helps at all my second birth was very straightforward and I left the hospital the same day.

Sorry ispy. I just re-read my post and think I sounded a bit abrupt. I didn't mean to, I was just saying what happened. I do remember a lot of it, though, and I also remember how foggy I was when breathing on the gas and air just before she broke my waters. It seemed longer than my notes say until my son was born from that point but I was on G&A so I'll take that with a pinch of salt I suppose. I don't agree with it as my mum said it was about 20 minutes from my waters to my son being born and she broke my waters just after my sister left which I know was at a certain time. So that confuses me, unless they've wrote the wrong time in my notes to cover up something that they caused to go wrong with my son's heart rate (they're the controversial thoughts I have!)

stairway I found episiotomies really disturbing when I was pregnant. I wanted it written in my birth plan that I'd refuse one! She wouldn't let me. I didn't even think about 'what if the baby's heart rate drops?' (I thought c-sections were just for that) I just thought they were barbaric.
I made my poor partner watch videos for me then describe it. Helped a bit, then after my debrief I gradually worked my way through watching birth videos again, with the sound off, (I couldn't even hear the intro to One Born... any more as it made me panic and sweat!) then episiotomies. I watched them over and over again, paused certain bits and tried to compare it to mine. And also finding out that my son was in danger helped me with the weight of it. I couldn't have watched it before a birth debrief though as I knew if it turned out they did it for nothing, I would have resented the whole thing and resented watching it being done. So I waited.
Like you say, I think I would be disturbed by an EMCS. I guess I know how an episiotomy feels and you don't? It's the unknown people are scared of. Funnily enough, the reason for my trauma!

Apple I thought about the birth for months and months, too. But oddly, as time went on I managed to block it all out and I never spoke about any of it again. I didn't think there was any way of getting answers, it's taboo to be upset about how your birth went, isn't it? I didn't know what to do, I had been treated like crap and no one was listening. My stomach would turned if my sister's started talking about their births and they would mention things I did or that happened to me. I never engaged in those conversations. I don't know how I lived with it like that, I was living with PTSD symptoms and never knew until my sister had another baby. It brought it all back, especially when I was at her's at the wrong time and she was having a visit from the midwives. I was sitting there rigid, fuming and shaking. That's when I went home and realised that women shouldn't feel like this years later. Then Googled 'how to get over a birth' and PTSD, traumatic births and Birth Trauma Association came up. I went from there.
It's irritating that the amount of times I went to the doctors, they asked if I was depressed. No, PTSD is different from PND. The symptoms might overlap but PTSD symptoms are obvious if there are certain things you avoid and can't even utter a word about the birth and what happened. I knew it wasn't PND, because it was the birth that was effecting me. But no one took the time to enquire or ask me any questions, I couldn't get my words out about it, so gave up and thought 'I'm just going to have to live with this for the rest of my life'. I cried at night when my son was asleep about how they treated me and what they did to me, I waited for my son's night feeds so I had something to stop me thinking about it. Now I look back and think that was a really dark and horrible time in my life, I was obviously ill. The things I done to my body would probably sound really weird, I grated my skin with a pumice stone, FFS!

Apple Yes, I was hoping to have my second that I never thought would be possible this year. I was getting ready to have a nice, calm home birth but had a miscarriage Christmas Eve at 10 weeks. Obviously I blamed myself for it, thinking I didn't deserve another baby anyway because of this. I will concentrate on my therapy and we're hopefully going to try again, because I've always thought having another would be nice but forced myself to stick at one and never again put myself through another horrendous experience. But as long as the people handling it tell me what they know, I'm sure I would be fine. And I think I will only have that with a home birth, the one on one care.