Apologies for the length of this post but I feel that I need to give details so that you can understand what happened and why I am considering making a complaint about my recent birth experience in an NHS hospital.
I was admitted to hospital due to my waters breaking prematurely and continuous heavy bleeding. My baby was delivered that night (4 weeks premature). I had a c-section and there was more staff banter during the procedure than I would have liked, which left me feeling obligated to laugh along at the surgeon’s jokes etc when all I really wanted to do was be calm and quiet and await the arrival of my baby! Thankfully the staff were all nice though and the c-section was straightforward. We heard our baby cry as she was being born but then the crying stopped. Minutes passed and I knew it was not a good sign that my baby had not been handed to me. Eventually I asked the anaesthetist what was happening and he told me that my baby was having trouble breathing but that the doctors were helping. After an agonising wait of several minutes we got to see DC and moved to recovery. Later I found out that DC had to be resuscitated and that was what caused the delay.
We were moved to the ward and I struggled to breastfeed as my baby could not latch. Some of the midwives were quite impatient with me/us about this and one expressed colostrum from my nipples quite aggressively and did not stop when I said she was hurting me. I was shown lots of different breastfeeding positions and techniques by several different midwifes and lost count of the number of staff who watched me breastfeeding over the first two days and gave advice. I felt that they were all expecting a lot from a premature baby who couldn’t latch and on day two I asked for and was provided with formula to give DC as I wanted to make sure my baby was fed one way or another. My gut feeling was that the breastfeeding wasn’t going to work. I felt I had tried my best and was starting to get stressed out by all the “help” I was being given with it.
We were due to be discharged on day 3 and DC had thorough checks including documenting birth marks, blood sugar and was weighed (all okay) and we were told all was good. Then a new midwife arrived on shift when we were waiting to be discharged and told me that she had concerns about discharging us as I hadn't "established breastfeeding" yet. I explained that we were giving DC formula in addition to expressed colostrum and that I had had a lot of advice and help with breastfeeding technique and positions from the midwives already without success. I explained that I planned to continue doing lots of skin to skin and trying to establish breastfeeding at home, where I hoped baby and I would also be more relaxed. I said that I was happy to continue with formula and see how it went with the breastfeeding at home. The midwife said that she was not happy with this plan and that she strongly recommended I stay in hospital until breastfeeding was “established”. At this point I asked what my rights were with regard to discharging myself and baby as I really wasn't happy with the care I was receiving or the attitude of the midwife and felt like I was being treated as if I'd done something wrong by not being able to breastfeed and supplementing with formula. I did eventually agree to stay another night but by this point I hadn’t slept in 48 hours and was starting to get very tearful and have panic attacks due to the issues I’d had with the staff. I had been expecting a visit on the ward from someone from the perinatal mental health team due to my existing anxiety (this had been agreed as part of my birth plan) but nobody came, despite me asking to be seen by someone. Later that night I asked to be seen by a different midwife than the one who had issues with discharging us and we were discharged with no issues the next morning.
Then, the morning after we were discharged from hospital, a midwife came to our home for a standard check but ended up raising a safeguarding concern because she thought our baby's Mongolian blue birthmarks could be bruises, as the previous midwives/doctors hadn’t documented the birthmarks in her notes. My partner and I were very frustrated by this as we had actually asked doctors and midwives about these birthmarks immediately after DC was born and had also discussed them with one of the midwives who did all the checks prior to discharge. This midwife who did our baby’s checks documented two of our baby's other birthmarks but it turns out she didn't document all of them. As the visiting midwife thought they could be bruises we were ordered to attend A&E immediately. I hadn’t even unpacked my hospital bags at this point. She called ahead to the hospital explaining she was raising a safeguarding concern due to unexplained bruises. It felt like we were being accused of abuse. In shock we drove back to the hospital as instructed and made our way to A&E. I never expected to be sitting in an A&E waiting room with my newborn baby under such circumstances but that's what happened. Finally after several hours back at hospital doctors accepted they were not bruises but birthmarks. We have since attended hospital again to have the birthmarks photographed and officially documented.
I know the midwives on the ward were probably well meaning re: breastfeeding and the one who raised a safeguarding concern was just doing her job. It wasn't her fault that the previous midwives and doctors had not documented them as they should have. I saw the same midwife a few days later and she gave me a hug and apologised for all the stress caused. She suggested that I make a complaint as she felt it was wrong that other birthmarks had been documented in our DC’s notes but that the Mongolian blue ones that could potentially be mistaken for bruises were not documented. I was concerned that there would be a record of the safeguarding concern forever on our notes and having "attended a&e due to unexplained bruising" is not something we wanted on our records. The midwife said that she would contact the safeguarding team and later on called me to confirm that the safeguarding record had been deleted.
The whole experience really negatively impacted me and I have had postnatal anxiety and low mood. I expect I may have experienced these anyway but my experiences in hospital certainly didn’t help. Do you think it would be worth complaining to the hospital or should I just try and move on?