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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

Debriefing tomorrow ....... what questions do I need to ask?

5 replies

mosschops30 · 10/02/2010 10:27

heres what I have so far:

  • were the right decisions taken over my induction
  • what was the problem with ds2's head during labour
  • when were the major decelerations in HR and how long each time
  • did she notice anything unusual during the EMCS
  • why was my blood loss so high
  • who was the anaesthetist

any more ideas? please have a look at my childbirth dramas if you dont know what happened to me, it was pretty bad!

I also want to know how I can complain at length about my experiences, how do I go about this and who do I write to? I suppose I could ask this at the debrief

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
mosschops30 · 10/02/2010 11:37

bump

OP posts:
Poledra · 10/02/2010 11:43

I didn't have any questions ready for my debrief, TBH. I just went in and we started reading through my notes and the questions came up through that. I did lots of crying.

Re complaining, you could contact your hospital's Patient Liaison Service (PALS) for that - I think it's one of their raison d'etres. Link to info on the service here

Hope it goes well tomorrow

FatSeal · 10/02/2010 12:15

Good luck for tomorrow, I hope it helps. I've just quickly looked your story over and will say that, whilst mine wasn't quite as quick as that, the feeling sounds similar, and I struggled to cope with rapidly accelerating contractions and pain levels with no assistance or reassurance from the midwives. To make it all a hundred times worse, they bunged me in a birthing pool and left me there to drown (as it felt like at the time). When I spoke to the hospital later, they did say that they are aware that fast labours are usually extremely painful and difficult to cope with, and I think we would both agree with that.

It seems very quick after the experience to be talking about it, I found I didn't really start to address birth issues until more than a year later, although I have heard that immediate debriefings can prevent a lot of psychological problems later on.

I made a formal complaint, via a long letter and also a painting that I had done (in counselling sessions) to the hospital and I felt that they handled that very sympathetically. We had a big meeting with their patient liaison officer and head midwife, and the head obstetrician would have been present, excepting that I had not had any obstetric interventions, so it was really a midwifery only issue.

The Birth Trauma Association website I found really helpful, they have a section on making a complaint, and also entered into email support for me. The artwork I did was put into one of their newsletters, it was a bit of a soul-baring moment but is something that down the line I feel strongly about sharing and making more open.

Best of luck with getting your head round everything, and try to enjoy your new baby- 5lbs 8oz is a perfectly respectable weight, dd was 4lbs 15oz just to add to the worries afterwards.

mosschops30 · 10/02/2010 13:09

fatseal i think you may be confusing me with someone else, my labour was deffo not fast (4 days of induction followed by 12 hours labour and then EMCS) - ds2 weighed 8lbs 6oz.

Thank you for sharing your story though, your meeting sounds like the kind of thing I am after, I would dearly love to stop what happened to me happening to someone else.

Poledra I have read my notes twice already (once before I came home and then again before I was discharged home after re-admission). Im not sure there will be anything in there to suprise me but I do want to get some things cleared up

OP posts:
FatSeal · 11/02/2010 05:55

Yes, I realise now I have been a complete muppet and somehow got you confused with FrozenNorth, I am very sorry

Best of luck with today's talk, and I would recommend following it up further with the hospital too.

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