Triggered memories of traumatic birth

[Monstermoomin]

So I haven't really thought about my daughter's birth nearly 6 months ago because I've been busy with raising a baby and my other child!

Yesterday I had to take her to A&E (bloody bronchiolitis after a recent chest infection) and on the familiar drive to the hospital I started getting really anxious and panicky, which I realised was about her birth.

Fast forward to the early hours of today and I can't get back to sleep because it's all I can think about.

I felt like I was dying on the table (emcs) although it was my 2nd time having one and they took a long time to get through the scar tissue, I think I react badly to the anesthetic because I was uncontrollably shaking and shivering, feeling faint and sick ( I actually threw up during my first).

It's just all came flooding back to me and it's horrible. The failed induction (again), being needed because I was PROM, the invasiveness of the checks, the breaking of the waters (attempted several times because they couldn't get to it to break), the harshness of the consultant telling me she needed to see me in more pain to know my labour was progressing or they'd need to do emcs (I was having strong TOCO readings but wasn't in enough pain apparently). The failure of not being able to have a vbac like I'd wanted following emcs with my eldest.

Recovery room and feeling so cold they were layering me up with so many blankets because I couldn't stop shivering and shaking whilst having my blood transfused back to me.

The failure of the hospital to remember to turn on two phototherapy lights (don't even get me started) when she was severely jaundice and about to be rushed up to NICU (also failing to do her OBS, missing her antibiotics and talking to me in the most patronising way when I advocated for her).

I never really spoke about my traumatic birth with my eldest either as I just sort of pushed it down.

Just needed somewhere to vent and speak to others about their experiences.

It sounds like you had a really tough time @Monstermoomin. Also sounds like some of your care was rubbish. Have you thought about contacting your hospital for a debrief? It's a trained midwife who can get your notes and go through what happened, and you can talk about what is upsetting you and why.

Fwiw the shaking and feeling faint/sick due to the anaesthetic can be normal. It may also be because you lost more blood than normal. As is feeling cold when you are having a transfusion, it's because blood products are refrigerated. There is a machine that can (should?) Be used to warm the blood as it's being transfused.

It may also be worth seeing if you can self refer for some counselling, in my local area there's a specific PND/PNA charity that do counselling for birth trauma. It's accessed through the local IAPY service.

I really hope you feel better soon

Thanks for taking the time to reply @PinkPrawns2

I've just sent a message to the hospital PALs team to find out how I go about this, I also kept meaning to send off to have all of my medical records for my first birth, but life sometimes gets in the way!

Yeah I did wonder if it's just sort of an adrenaline response, but it's just a horrible feeling when your strapped to a table with your arms out too. They gave me something opiate based too I think and I don't really deal well with them (when I've had codeine it's not been great).

The blood that was transfused was my own they'd suctioned out and cleaned, so I think it'd still be warm but who knows!

I'll have a look into the IAPT stuff, I tried to access some when she was a couple of months old as I was finding it all overwhelming but it was CBT based stuff and all online and I just didn't feel like I had the time to be reading endless things and doing questionnaires etc, plus I don't find CBT is the right thing for me so I asked to be discharged as it was causing more stress than it was worth.

I'm so sorry you and your baby's birth was sabotaged. When you have 9 months of looking forward to a vbac and this doesn't happen that's quite upsetting but for adults to speak to you in such a way when you are looking to them for guidance, that's just beyond vile.

You deserve better.
Your family deserve better.

To know that you were still advocating for your baby despite these people missing things that could have caused more trauma, I'm in awe of your strength!

I personally wouldn't want a debrief from a hospital as I would be concerned about being gaslighted but this may help with closure.

Women's bodies are amazing, literally growing a human life and a new organ and nurturing them, you did this and no one can take that away from you.

Most hospital consultants have not seen a natural birth so put you on some sort of timer but I'm angry for you that you had to meet an expression pain threshold to receive pain relief.
I doubt that if an adult male had been admitted with pain or injury and requested pain the suggestion that he wasn't proving he was in enough pain to warrant them giving pain relief would never happen.

Be aware that most medications given to a labouring woman can have dramatic effects on their baby. Some effect airways and to reduce this the aim is to reduce exposure.

There is lots of birth trauma support information that can be found online from mums who have been through similar and you could talk through your experiences with others so that this experience does not sabotage anymore of your and your baby's bonding.

Hope you and your baby are okay following your trip to a&e.

I had a similarly dreadful experience 15 years ago and it took a long time to recover emotionally from poor treatment. It took me three years to get the strength to make a complaint. I felt completely discarded by the NHS. I've just about made my peace with what I lost during that time. Speak to PALS. They need to know.

Mine was hideous too, kept in Labour far too long, everything was tried until I ended up in theatre & then my daughter ended up in ICU for 2 weeks.

EMDR therapy has helped me. And time. 4 years ago & it will never leave, but it does fade slightly.

@Nowthenhere thank you for your reply. Yes I thought it was just me being 'hormonal' at first post birth with how patronising they were being but on a few occasions my mum was with me and I ended up saying 'its not just me right is it' and she agreed they were speaking to me in a very patronising way. I think it's because I was wanting them to explain the decisions they were making and understood some of the medical language enough to question things (and they didn't like it).

With regards to the pain threshold, I probably didn't word it well. It wasn't that she wouldn't give me pain relief. I was declining pain relief and she felt my contractions weren't really strong enough for my body to be progressing in labour because I wasn't screaming out in pain and demanding pain relief given the readings I was having (I was doing lots of breathing and feel I have a fairly good pain threshold) and said she needed to essentially see me be in pain to believe it was progressing to continue naturally. They did then up my syntocinon and my pain was getting worse but they felt it wasn't progressing enough and I'd end up too exhausted to labour, plus risk to baby being PROM and some other things. But I still felt she was being a dick ha.

I'll have a look online for other support forums thanks for suggesting.

Yes hopefully she's going to start picking up soon and we won't need any more trips there!

@bellinisurge thank you for your reply. Sorry you went through a traumatic birth too. I did make a complaint through PALS about her after care and all the incidents as I knew they'd put in several datixs so would be being looked at by the ward manager/matron and I wanted to know the outcome. They took forever to get back to me cos they'd assigned it to someone else who hadn't done it and I got a call from a more senior manager who basically just said they'd done a lessons learnt meeting (but nothing really changes).

@starclucks thank you for your reply and sorry you had such a traumatic birth and then afterwards with your daughter in ICU. I'm glad that you were able to get some positive support for it and I'm hoping just talking about it a bit more will help me at the moment.

I think if I were ever to have a third child (my husband would) then I'd need to look at getting some support before and during pregnancy to discuss my anxieties about birth. Although I've read lots of nice stories about elcs, I still worry thinking about it.

Oh OP I’m sorry. It’s very hard to process birth trauma when we’re catapulted into caring for a little one straight afterwards.

With DD1 I felt that there had been elements of my immediate postnatal care (including a cock up with the incubator she was in for jaundice and a very uncaring staff member). I contacted PALS 6 months later and whilst the process took a while I felt my complaint was listened to very seriously and I was so glad I’d written in.

Also worth having a birth reflections meeting and going through your birth notes. You are entitled to this.

sorry I wrote that too quickly! I meant to say there had been elements of my postnatal care that I felt fell very short of acceptable and set me off on a really really bad start as a first time mum .

@MummyJ36 thank you for your reply. I'm sorry that you had issues with her care too, it's so horrible isn't it. I'm glad they took your complaint seriously though.

I've requested a debrief through PALs so waiting for this to be arranged and I'm looking at requesting my medical notes (just need to buy some printer ink for the forms!)