When I gave birth to my daughter Evie in July 2021, I was sent home with a baby and made to feel grateful we’d had a good result, instead of understanding what happened in hospital.
In fact, I had unknowingly suffered life-threatening sepsis and whilst Evie and I were both given antibiotics after birth, I didn’t learn why until the following year when I received my hospital notes.
I was aghast something so serious could happen without me knowing about it and determined to ensure this didn’t happen in the future.
I was pregnant during Covid and many will know the pain and loneliness which came with being induced and labouring alone.
The midwife team was short-staffed and I couldn’t use the gas and air or my TENS machine by myself, so I struggled with increasing pain until I was given pethidine.
Finally when I was in active labour my husband was allowed in.
Then my heart rate started to drop, while my baby showed signs of distress, all indicating I had an infection.
But no one could tell me what was happening.
Instead, when I was ready, I pushed three times before a midwife told me to stop.
Evie’s heart rate was so high that they needed to try an assisted delivery.
When that didn’t work, I was taken for a caesarean and thirty minutes later Evie was born, weighing 9lbs 8oz.
I cuddled her briefly, but instead of doing skin-to-skin, they took her away to put a cannula in her hand and start antibiotics.
Meanwhile my temperature was still low. Staff ran tests and gave me antibiotics too, but never explained what was happening.
Over the next few days, tests on Evie came back clear, but my condition deteriorated.
My bowel was in shock, causing excruciating pain, which took five days to relieve.
Six nights after Evie was born, we were discharged from hospital with a bag of drugs, but no explanation about what had happened.
I couldn’t move past my traumatic experience and it played on my mind so I requested my notes, which took six months to arrive.
When I read I’d suffered maternal sepsis, I was shocked. It was such a serious condition, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been told about it.
I assume it was what Evie had too, but we will probably never know.
The lack of information about what had happened in hospital meant I suffered anxiety and intrusive thoughts in the first months of Evie’s life, particularly when she cried.
What made things worse, was the sheer number of stories of poor birth experiences I heard from family, friends and acquaintances.
Currently, around one in three women find some aspect of their birth experience traumatic and so it seemed nearly everyone had a bad story of their own to tell.
The stories they shared often had common themes.
During pregnancy and labour, women didn’t feel they were given all available choices, they didn’t feel they were treated with respect and they didn’t feel they were given all the information they should have been.
It was a situation in dire need of change.
With two stepchildren and as mum-of-one, I became determined that my children would come to me with positive birth stories.
Along with my sister Sara Bristow and friend Louise Allen, we decided to start the campaign group, Right To A Good Birth (RTAGB), with three goals.
We want everyone giving birth to be given the correct information about their condition, at the right time; for patients to be able to make an informed choice on care and for that care to be available; and for pre- and post-partum women to be treated with respect.
Currently, through our newly-relaunched survey, we are collecting data on pregnancy and birth experiences from women across England and Wales to prove change is needed and to end unsafe, distressing or inconsistent maternity care.
We understand maternity services are doing the best they can with what they’ve got and we are not asking for high-cost intervention, but instead cultural change in policy.
We have heard so many stories which wouldn’t have been acceptable in any situation except childbirth.
It’s frustrating things can happen to your body and your baby, and people don’t think you need to know.
We believe now is the time to break the cycle of negative experiences and for that we need you.
Please complete our survey at Right To A Good Birth and sign up to be a supporter.
Your stories can make a difference to mothers of the future.