Denied pain relief in labour and now frightened about another birth

[Helpmefiguireitallout]

Thank you for reading, this is going to be a long post. My little girl is now 2 months old. I started losing my mucous plug and had water dripping out at 41 weeks around 5pm on the Friday. I phoned the birth centre and a lovely midwife told me to come in. I came in and she then said she examined me, told me my cervix was closed completely and to go home and call when things change. Well, I ended up getting my first contraction at home and from then on it was absolute agony. I was so shocked because the pain went from 0-100, around 3 in 10 minutes. I rang back and she told me to come back again. The car journey was awful.

She had to examine me again, this was absolutely awful as I was in so much pain but she was really calming and a total pro at examining so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been I suppose. So then here is where the problems started… she finished her night shift and had to go, but before she did, she examined me again and I was 1cm. I was then left with the most uncaring Midwife and students I have ever encountered.

I worked in a maternity ward for 7 years up until a couple of years ago, I still work in the NHS but in a clinic now. I am well aware of the good and bad, as well as what is usually offered to labouring women, I worked in a London Hospital, so it was busy busy busy. I also started training to become a Midwife myself but stopped for various reasons. I know how some Midwives can be as I witnessed it myself over the years, and I just hoped that I would be lucky and would get a nice team looking after me. Well that didn’t happen at all.

I was in a small birth centre room at this point screaming my head off in pain with every contraction and shaking uncontrollably. The Midwife gave me a shot of pethadine, which really seemed to help, although it didn’t take the pain away fully it stopped the shaking and made me really sleepy. They couldn’t examine me again for many hours which is fair enough to reduce the risk of infection but it would have been nice to know if I was any further along. Anyway they did examine me again eventually and was still 1cm, pain was obviously bad I was crying, was offered 2 x more pethadine that did nothing these 2 times but it did stop the shaking.

I was begging for an epidural but was told no repeatedly. The reason was because I wasn’t 4 cm yet, and in order to get an epidural it needs to be done in labour ward, but I am not allowed in labour ward until at least 4cm. I asked for gas and air, they said no repeatedly for the same reasons above. All they kept saying was to eat a sandwich, reapeatedly, I have never wanted to scream so badly in my life because they weren’t listening to me. I was telling them I can’t eat or drink… well I was trying to drink but eating was out of the question. I explained that I would throw up everywhere but they wouldn’t stop going on, they even got my Husband involved trying to convince me. I was crying telling them I don’t need a sandwich I need pain relief over and over again but they still wouldn’t accept me not eating until they brought me some toast which I physically couldn’t eat. They were actually laughing at me, saying what do you want me to do? WHAT I WANT IS PAIN RELIEF!

I was screaming in pain when the cherry on the cake arrived… they were going to move me to the shared antenatal ward. They did move me, still no gas and air allowed, I was screaming so loud with every contraction every few minutes. The other patients and partners were laughing and sniggering, also tutting. I am sure the other women were terrified that they had this level of pain to come too so they were probably laughing to distract themselves. I begged for pain relief and to be moved. They refused, still no gas and air allowed.

I know that on my ward women were given entonox on the antenatal ward, and it was no issue at all. They were also hurried through to labour ward for a private room if they were screaming the ward down and scaring other women. This went on for the whole night until around 8am when the first lovely Midwife came back on shift and came to see what all the screaming was about. She was asking the staff member why I was left in this state with no Entonox and not getting me over to labour ward? The staff member was arguing with her, she said I am the Midwife in charge go and get some entonox. Not even 2 minutes later I had Entonox… when they had lied to me earlier saying they don’t keep it on the antenatal ward it’s only on the labour ward they aren’t allowed to use it here. While having Entonox she examined me again and I was 4 cm. Finally!!! Moved to Labour ward. She was an actual angel… I feel like she saved me.

I took the gas with me not letting it out of my mouth and I was in heaven, the pain was like waves of a feeling but no pain at all. Why had they denied me this for so long? Anyway, straight to Labour ward where a lovely anaesthetist gave me an epidural. It was amazing! I had to press a button every 30 mins but before I was allowed I had to ask the Midwife to take my blood pressure before topping up. They broke my waters and they were full of meconium, I then started getting a really high temperature.

This is when the problems started again… her and her student went on their break at the same time and by the time they got back the epidural had stopped working. They didn’t believe me… and kept telling me to press the button which I was but it wasn’t doing anything, turns out it was empty. I was finally allowed a top up and the anaesthetist arrived to fit another supply. She must have accidentally done something wrong as from then on it was all agony and screaming again, the Midwife and student didn’t believe me until finally the anaesthetist came back again and tried to figure out why it had stopped working.

At this point the shaking started uncontrollably again. I asked for gas & air while we waited for her to return as she was busy and had to leave. I was in my element with the gas and air and they kept trying to take it off me as I was using it too much. It got to around 2pm and doctors came in to review me as I was now 7cm but had been 7cm for far too long with no progression. They decided to do an emergency c section. My epidural was topped up in theatre and actually worked this time.

I was shaking so hard they had to strap me down. My little girl was born and had an infection, had breathed in her meconium so was struggling to breathe and was taken to NICU. She had breathing tube, feeding tube and cannulas. The treatment postnatally was an absolute shit show and my baby wasn’t with me I had just got to give her a kiss on the operating table when she was whisked away. They put me in a postnatal ward with everyone else’s babies. I asked them if they thought this was appropriate considering my baby was in NICU and I was still numb… couldn’t meet her properly yet. The Midwife responded by saying what is the problem with being around other babies??? We can’t give you a private room! I persisted that it was not nice and they moved us to a private room.

We were both on antibiotics and eventually she came down to join me in a shared NICU/Postnatal ward. We were then both moved back to the postnatal ward which was hell. Purely because of the noise, other families are so so inconsiderate and loud. We had people moving furniture around and throwing suitcases around at 2am. The woman next to me had a drug problem and social services were taking her baby away. We got to hear her whole life story from the other side of the curtain. It was awful… she was kicking off constantly and then crying constantly, part of me felt sorry for her. It was a lot to deal with, we all complained but they wouldn’t give her a private room so we all had to listen to her on the phone constantly to social workers about her court case the next day and her baby being removed.

We were finally discharged after a total of 5 days. I don’t know if I can go through this again but eventually I want to give my daughter a sibling. I am terrified of being left in pain again until 4cm, what if the same happens again? Personally I think as soon as they broke my waters and saw the meconium and my high temp and high blood pressure, they should have took me for a c section straight away. I sit here and think sometimes how long was my little girl struggling for in there… thank god they got her out when they did. Why did they hang around though? It was hours and hours since they broke my waters.

I am obviously going to ask for a planned c section next time, if there is a next time. I have lost all trust in that hospital and all medical staff. I feel like a couple of them enjoyed watching me suffer. All I needed was the gas & air and I was coping really well but they denied me this for 13 hours, only when that angel Midwife came on shift and got me some was I able to cope. Has anyone ever experienced similar and what did you do for your next babies?

Yes women, know your place - you must be “restrained and polite” when terrified and in extreme pain or you won’t get pain relief.

Fuck me what a model of healthcare.

Imagine telling men in a car crash - no pain relief if you are crying with pain.

If there’s a next time I’d look into natal hypnotherapy and the mechanics behind giving birth. Things like screaming tense your body up, the muscles stiffen and make the pain a million times worse AND can delay your cervix opening, as the body has a trauma response. This likely happened as evidenced by the shaking.

Learning to breathe with and through the pain got me easily through the first part of giving birth. I had gas and air later on when nearing 10cm.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t have pain relief if you want it, but there are lots of ways you can work with your body and make it easier on yourself very simply. Look up Maggie Howell.

ps I’m not a hippie, the very opposite!

Nothing to do with being a woman, there is no need to be rude to someone trying to do their job. Even when scared and in pain you can respect other people. No one said no pain relief if you are crying, thats ridiculous but if they say no to something then there is a reason for that whether you are a man in car crash or a woman in labour, the only difference is that with a woman in labour the midwife needs to consider effects on the baby too.

Are you unaware of all the failings in maternity care that have prompted the recent reviews? There is absolutely NOT always a good reason for the decisions that medical professionals make when women are in labour.

The pain during my first labour was unimaginable. I didn't have a good experience at all and there was very little pain relief because the gas and air ran out and they couldn't get an anesthetist for an epidural. The doctor who carried out the birth checks on my baby made a joke about my labour the previous day but missed a serious condition that he was supposed to be checking for. I didn't find his joke funny. I had my second baby in a different hospital. I knew exactly what pain relief I wanted and made that very clear to begin with. The midwives were brilliant. In the end I didn't go for an epidural. The pain was awful but nothing like as bad. Unlike my first birth, It wasn't traumatic.

My friend had a very difficult first birth and had to have counselling. She said it was really helpful and went on to have a second.

I think there is a lot of crap said and published about child birth. The idea that because it is natural people won't necessarily need pain relief and just need to get over it is the weirdest one. Nature doesn't care about pain. After all cancer, slipped discs and kidney stones are also natural.

I think you were actually very lucky you got pethidine. I got 2 paracetamol and dihydrocodeine tablets the whole time. This was 7 months ago 3rd baby and by far worst pain and slowest labour. I was 0cm for 7 hours, wasn’t allowed anything else. Eventually 3 doctors came to check me as I was feeling no relief at all between contractions, midwife was not allowed to check as she had already checked 30 minutes before and I was still 0cm. When 2 doctors eventually decided that yes I was 10cms I grabbed that gas and air. What didn’t help either was that my legs had been put up in stirrups so I couldn’t move into a more comfortable position.

If I knew this would happen again I think I might go for an elective section as I have never felt pain like it and i know there was not much else that could have helped. I know people go on about being relaxed and hypno birthing but I went in with such a relaxed positive attitude and it did fuck all.

Well I’d definitely use a different hospital! This one sounds awful! I’m sorry that all this happened to you but it’s not what most people experience so chances are next time you’d be better cared for.

I genuinely think that the profession of midwifery needs to be abolished. Much as I met some lovely midwifes and they did outnumber the dreadful ones, I met some absolutely awful midwifes. The care I experienced at times 5 years ago was dangerous. I can't believe that after the recent report into maternity services experiences like this one are happening. I'm not sure if it is compassion fatigue or some other failure but I don't believe anymore that midwifes can provide a good safe birth experience in the UK. I don't know what the answer is but despite the damming recent media coverage nothing seems to be changing and so I think there needs to be a drastic overhaul of the system.

I had a cunt of a midwife 30 years ago, I will never forget her name.

Our trust offers a Birth Reflections appointment from 3 months PP. I’d look into requesting one of these- an impartial person reviews your birth notes and you get the opportunity to talk through your experience and how it impacted you. I didn’t have a traumatic birth experience (although it did end very suddenly in an emergency cat 1 C-section) but the aftercare we received was lacking and has caused further problems down the line, so I will be requesting one when the time is right.

I’m sorry you experienced this- the state of maternity care is shocking.

I'm so sorry this was your experience, and please do ignore those that downplay how you feel/felt and suggest this is a "normal" experience for labour and delivery. It is not and it shouldn't be. This is why we have a low birth rate and high c section rate.

I had a difficult first birth with some complications and terrible aftercare, but not on the level that you experienced I don't think. It really did put me off having a 2nd for a long time. However when my oldest was about 3/3.5 we felt ready to try again and I had a 2nd when she was 4.5. I had an elective c section at a different hospital and no-one ever disagreed or tried to change my mind. It was an incredibly healing experience and the team that looked after me were lovely. The whole experience was so calm and happy compared.

I hope you get the help you need and can come to terms with what happened. The best advice I had from a midwife early on was to keep talking about it, and I still do. People are shocked at my treatment and it helps me know that I am not crazy for feeling how I did/do about it. Do get a bieth debrief. I didn't but wish I had.

It’s nothing to do with ‘feeling relaxed’ or ‘having a positive attitude.’ It’s about learning practical tools that help your body through labour - and practicing them for months. If you didn’t do that you won’t benefit so don’t dismiss it.

Wow.. some women really are heartless...

I didn’t get any sort of pain relief with both of my labours ( the second was induced with a drip I might add). Mostly down to not being checked and precipitous labour. It is very traumatic and hard to come to terms with. I didn’t do anything about either of them or talk to anyone professional about it. I think I probably should have. I’m not trying to patronise you but if you were in a lot of pain at 1cm it may be that your pain threshold is low? I didn’t feel pain until I got to 4cm. Women’s bodies are very different though. I think they usually are quite reluctant to give pain relief very early on so if you experience a lot of pain in those early stages I think I would be opting for an elective C section for any future births,

That’s not strictly true about epidurals - having one sited very early on does increase the chance that labour won’t progress normally. It also limits most people to the bedspace (because even with low dose epidurals most people aren’t able to mobilise) and the longer a catheter’s in your back the higher the chance of infection. If an epidural’s being put in for a long latent phase then it’s usually followed by an ARM and augmentation to try to get labour progressing before the epidural has chance to interfere. In the uk the standard of care is that there does have to be a bed on the LW where there is 1:1 care and continuous monitoring because just every so often epidurals cause some really funky stuff to happen.

Absolutely nothing to do with pain thresholds and everything to do with us all having very different labours. My labour was very painful v early on and I contracted every 3 minutes for 48hrs from the v beginning all the way through. It was incredibly tiring. But when I hit the "magic 4cm" and they finally gave me gas and air? It was waaaaaayyy easier. OP is right - the NHS is not set up for women who have incredibly difficult and painful early labours. We get treated like dirt and like we're not actually labouring. I'm telling you now that my early labour was far harder to deal with than the rest. Especially as they sent me home and told me to sleep 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 yeh no 🙄 I lasted 2 hours in the bath in agony on all 4s before I gave up and went back in begging for pain relief. I did hypnobirthing and it's the only reason I copied in those early stages. In fact it was working so well in combo with the gas and air that midwives that came in thought I'd had an epidural in the later stages.

You shouldn't belittle other people's experiences in labour. Some people feel absolutely nothing until 10cm, but who would they be to suggest that you obviously have a "low pain threshold" as you actually felt some pain at 4cm? In the same way I can believe some people felt absolutely everything and far more than I did. I personally didn't find the later stages too agonising. For some it is. We're all different.

I am a very quiet person. I was only screaming out with each contraction as it built up. I wasn’t shouting at them, I am not disrespectful. I could hardly talk, more like a weak talking through crying, almost begging. Was the Midwife who laughed at me, rolled her eyes and said what do you expect me to do reasonable??

I wasn’t belittling. I acknowledged that women have different bodies. There’s lots of variables obviously.

Did you ever find out what position the baby was in? Having had an OP baby Vs OA they're so so different. OP had me begging for a section/epidural/mercy killing by 4cm. Back to back contractions and intense pains. OA was a walk in the park compared to it.

I have just requested my notes, so hopefully I can find out. It took them quite a while to get her out during the c section, she was too far down the birth canal I think. Again I don’t actually know as no one spoke to me. I could feel fingers in my vagina pushing up, and hands under my ribs pushing down simultaneously. I genuinely thought my ribs would break. I felt everything but at the same time it didn’t really ‘hurt’ more like extreme pressure. I genuinely thought I would be given all pain relief asap during labour… I had no idea about the 4cm rule. I thought I had a high pain threshold, genuinely. I was as shocked as anyone about my inability to cope with the pain.

To those who say the OP has a low pain threshold, that labour doesn’t hurt until 4cm, that they were able to breathe through it, that it was all down to their lack of fear: thank your lucky stars that your baby wasn’t in an awkward position. I had a back to back baby who half turned, and I know exactly what the OP means. Imagine your very worst contraction, starting from less than 1cm, with no break, for 12 hours. No gradual increase in pain, no pause between contractions - just peak pain with no end in sight. You can’t breathe through it, you can’t walk through it, you can’t squat/ rock/ bounce through it. Screaming at the top of my lungs was the only thing that gave me a little bit of relief. And after 12 hours of that I was still at less than 1cm.

Thankfully for me the professionals at my hospital had a better understanding of this and gave me the epidural I needed at less than 1cm. They also scanned me and confirmed the baby was, as suspected, in a difficult position. Thank goodness for their professionalism and compassion.

A couple of the midwives and the two doctors who looked after me came to see me afterwards to check I was ok and acknowledged what a difficult labour that had been.

And for those who are ridiculing the OP for finding it difficult to be on the ward, without her baby, surrounded by other mothers with their babies: also thank your lucky stars that it didn’t happen to you. You literally feel like you’re missing a part of you. Every bit of your being wants your baby with you, and hearing all the other babies around you makes in 10 times worse. My hospital actually has a policy that mothers with babies in NICU are put in a private room. They weren’t able to find one for me, but they tried and kept trying throughout our stay - without me even asking. I was wheeled up to see him as many times as I asked, and I was encouraged to ask, including in the middle of the night. Again, thank goodness the professionals are more compassionate!

What is it lately with people getting below standard care from NHS staff? I’ve had occasion recently to be with relatives on hospital visits, and the attitude displayed by some nurses is really awful. I guess we are starting to realise that not all nursing staff are ‘angels’..

Everyone has different pain thresholds, and different labour experiences. If a midwife really thinks everyone should act the same, especially when she can’t know the level of pain experienced by someone, then she shouldn’t be in the job. Have a bit of empathy. Nice that some have okay labour experiences, but many don’t.

"pain threshold" is a load of nonsense. People just have different births. One person claims to have a high threshold just means their baby decided not to push their elbow out.

I had two very painful long labours. In normal life I deal with pain fine. It was definitely the poor communication from the midwife team that made them intolerable. You have my sympathies.