unhappy with how my labour went.

[melzie]

Just wondering if anyone out there has been unhappy with the birth of their child and gone back to the hospital to discuss it. I would like to do this but not sure of the way to go about it. Im thinking you get in touch with the maternity unit and ask them. Any ideas?( hmm)

7 months on I'm still debating this, apparently you can ring the maternity unit and ask, you can get hold of your maternity notes through PALS but how you get hold of PALS is a different matter...mine don't seem to have an active phone number!
Hope someone comes along whose actually done it, I've got a post-it note on the wall reminding me to get on with it

i complained through pals. i think you're right, go through maternity to discuss it if you want to go through it all.

Hi.
How long ago was the birth?
I also wanted to do this after ds1 was born. Our hospital gave us a card with contact info (which I lost) but I'm sure if you just speak to your MW she'll tell you who to contact. I think this is quite common now.

I never did get round to getting in touch and tbh with time it all settled down in my head and is not a big issue for me. I did have a long chat with my midwife - she wrote in my notes "insisted on a a lengthy debrief"

Thanks all. I will call today and find out. Its been 8 months now but feels like yesterday! I need to discuss it because at the time I was not happy and felt bullied. I think seeing my notes might help me understand what happened. Plus if I plan to have more I dont want the same thing to happen again. Im also a Doula and now realise how important my job is because if I had one with me I would have had another voice of reason with me. We are so quick to do whatever the docs tell us because they are the pros but they are sometimes effected by the hospitals pressures. Lets hope I can get some closure on this x

Hi.
If this is still affecting you after 8 months then I'd say definitely get in touch. Make sure that you are clear about what you are trying to achieve. Is this about getting more information from your notes or about a chance to complain about how you were treated? If it is both of these then I'd say use the first meeting to gather information and then go on to complain afterwards. The person they assign to going through your notes is probably not high enough in the food chain to be worth complaining to

Yes I think your right. You have to be careful with these people. They dont take kindly to complaints about their work mates. Im not sure I want to complain yet but since the birth I have looked into some of the things that were happening and the advice I was given and now know that I had other options but were never given these. Im sure there are plenty of women out there that feel the same but when the outcome is good and you have this beautiful baby in your arms you tend to let it go. I need to clear things up for my peace of mind and for future work.

I know what you mean about wanting peace of mind. I've just remembered that for me things settled down after I picked up a friends midwifery textbook and browsed the relevant sections. Everything seemed to slot into place and I started to view the problems we had as being a fairly inevitable consequence of ds1's position and size rather than a consequence of my crapness. Sounds like your situation was very different though, but it sounds like getting more info will definitely help.

I requested a copy of my notes after my birth - went into hospital to view them and copy the bits I wanted. I also made a complaint at the same time.

I recently had a proper debrief session (2 years after the birth - it was affecting this pregnancy and my independent midwife thought it would be beneficial). I found they were quite happy to take on board that I was complaining about the people they work with tbh and they made it clear that they would give her feedback about how her care could/should have been different. It was very, very helpful.

FWIW my midwife arranged mine through her supervisor and the appointment was with that supervisor plus one of the delivery suite supervisors.

Well I had quite a result today. I got through to a midwife that does a debrief with you if you request it. Im going in on Friday afternoon. I will let you know how I got on after. It will be interesting whatever the outcome. Thanks for the advice guys x