Obstetric violence - legs forced open against my will

[NibliaBiblia]

When I was in labour with my daughter, the midwives spent twenty minutes trying to force my legs open to get me flat on my back with my legs up. There was no emergency. It was so they could get a better CTG reading. I physically resisted for as long as I could and verbally told them to stop. They didn't stop until I gave up. After that they did other things without my consent, but I did not they to stop them again.
I complained to the hospital and they have done nothing. I complained to the police and they told me there must have been an emergency. I've complained to the NMC and the CQC. I hope they will do something but it's a long process so I won't know for a long time.
The police used to say that domestic violence was a private matter. They used to say that if you got in the car/went into the apartment/were drinking then you must have agreed to it. I think this is exactly the same type of justification, applied to equally criminal behaviour.
I don't think my experience is abnormal. I think this is fairly routine. They thought that when I gave up that meant I consented.

Probably because her whole body was screaming to her not to be on her back? It's completely understandable.

Much more likely to give birth more easily if not on your back.

A CTG is like any other medical procedure, it is offered when there is a clinical need and then it’s the patients choice to consent or not.

How would you feel if you were subject to a prolonged assault for no reason?

The only good reason for forcing an adults legs apart is to prevent a crime being committed. Its hard to think of a situation where this might apply and this was not one of them.

Wow. Why on earth does she sound mentally unwell? It’s not mentally unsound to not want to be physically assaulted

It's not a prolonged assualt for no reason, is it? It's midwives trying to deliver a baby safely to a woman who may be panicking. It's hardly someone lunging at you in a dark alleyway.

There’s a reason that a significant percentage of women who go through labour end up with PTSD. Overriding personal consent when women are at their most vulnerable will contribute to this. It’s a damn shame.

Unfortunately I think when your a ftm medical staff ignore you more. By my third and forth I was listened too completely. I refused to lay on my back in labour to progress until I got a epidural ( pre eclampsia and epidural lowers bp). I have had three very high risk births. Midwifes can still listen even when there are three midwifes in the the room and two Dr's.

Who would want to be a nurse or a doctor or a midwife today. You'd see thousands of patients in just a few years of working, and with each one not only are you expected to get everything right with the actual medical part (fair), you have to be a certain personality type that matches each patient and treat each patient as they want to be treated regardless of how well or little you know them, while you're juggling some normal-obs and some emergency patients, on low pay, in terrible conditions often, on night and day shifts... otherwise someone's going to sue you for "assault" because they resisted you doing what you needed to do otherwise they'd sue you for not doing your job properly and monitoring the baby in the way you've been taught to monitor them. So many patients want bespoke, private healthcare levels of treatment on the underfunded, stressed, near-broken NHS and if they don't get it they're going to accuse you of ABH or GBH and go to the police. Some nurses and doctors deserve to be shopped, of course they do. But this is a patient who, because she'd been told in antenatal appointments that it was best she feel comfortable at all times, has gone to the police to report an assault because her midwives in trying to monitor the baby, insisted she lie on her back and give access rather than stay on her side and .... don't even know what.

Unbelievable.

It legally counts as assault. I mean where do you draw the line? Episiotomy without consent? Caesarean without consent? Drugs without consent? We aren’t in the 1950s where it’s felt women in labour are of feeble mind and can’t make decisions.

I’ve been a midwife for over 20 years and managed to never assault someone. I have sadly had to stop a few colleagues in the past.

What access does lying on your back with your legs open provide for CTG that other positions don’t?

There are a number of reasons, they might have been examining baby's presentation or doing fetal blood monitoring.

Until its born, a baby's right to life or health does not supersed a mother's bodily autonomy (abortion excepted as this is not legal after 24 weeks in the uk, except in certain specific circumstances). Women are allowed to make all sorts of decisions that may harm their babies up until the moment of birth.

It's worse. I was sexual assaulted walking to work once. No physical injury but someone walked up behind me in a destroyed area and grabbed me in between my legs. I was a bit shaken up but there's nothing special about walking to work.
This is how i became a mother. With the women who assaulted me shouting at me to push, pulling at my vagina, staring at me. And there was nothing wrong with me or my baby, that's apparently just normal to them.
I'm over the sexual assault. I was over it within a few months. I don't know if I'll ever really be over this.

I trained in the early 2000s and was told then that no means no regardless of possible consequences. There’s no excuse.

I cannot believe the number of people justifying sexual assault. The midwife spent twenty minutes physically fighting OP to force her onto her back, with her legs apart (although good god, what was your DH doing? Mine is not a violent man, but frankly, he wouldn't have allowed that and would've stepped in the way to try to calm me down and sort it out).

Anyway! Clearly, it wasn't an emergency.

That twenty minutes would've been better spent by the midwife NOT stressing out and exhausting the labouring woman (great way to stall and complicate labour) by assaulting her, and just doing the monitoring in a position that OP was more comfortable with.

A woman does not lose her bodily autonomy because she is in labour, and the midwife was being unhelpfully combative by escalating the situation, and not working with OP. It was also assault. I'm sorry that you haven't received any form of official validation of this, OP.

I’m so sorry that you experienced this, OP. I’m a former midwife who saw assaults and coercion happen many times to women in labour, just as you describe. It’s horrible, dehumanising, and should be taken way more seriously than it is. That so many people still think it’s okay to assault and coerce women into things they don’t want ‘for the good of the baby’ (as evidenced on this thread) is disturbing, sad and shocking. Women are not just containers for fetuses whose rights cease to exist when they get pregnant, FFS. It’s exactly that kind of attitude that has contributed to widespread anti-abortion laws in the US.

They spent twenty minutes trying to physically pry my legs apart. That is assault.

I don’t think anywhere does fetal blood sampling anymore. It’s been found to be inaccurate and useless. If they were doing a vaginal examination that’s even worse as it’s also sexual assault

Were they shouting at your to push, OP? Or just randomnly screaming insults at you?

Did this all happen while baby was coming out? Is that why they were examining you internally? Can you describe the events of your birth?

Only read OP’s posts.
Clearly being restrained while your legs were being forced apart for 20 mins is assault.
How many people were restraining you? Were you crying out to stop and they ignored you and carried on forcing your legs apart with no reason given?

Why did they? What was going on at the time? Was your baby born soon after, or had you just arrived on the ward?

The amount of people with absolute blind faith in the NHS is quite alarming!

They do a difficult job, in difficult circumstances of course. But the idea that every single medical professional is kind and competent and doing their best is...the sort of a thing a child would believe! It's like believing that all police officers are stand up citizens. Or priests.

I very much doubt the consultant cut you just to show the students a ventous birth. A cut heals much easier than a tear, which it is intended to prevent. With all the scandals of mothers not being listened to when they know there is something going wrong and midwives not intervening I am at a loss to know what is going on in maternity services.

It does not matter how important it is. What the emergency is. You have a right to not consent at any point and that takes priority.

I think it does matter how important intervention is and what the emergency is. Would you put bodily autonomy above the life of your child? Of course, health professionals must explain what and why something is being done and not be insensitive, but sometimes it is life or death in a maternity ward and consent may not be available.

Not sure why OP objected to her baby's heart rate being monitored. It's done to make sure the baby is not becoming distressed, which is dangerous.
As to 'free birthing', women have died and children died or been injured through this practice. It's an appalling choice to make because it isn't safe - because childbirth is not safe, in case anyone had forgotten this.

I hope the couple didn't win?