Horrifying story about how neglect by midwives caused a baby's death.

[Aloha]

I have to say, the attitude of these midwives sounds completely familiar to me. I feel so lucky that I got my caesarean.
When my friend had her baby at the Royal Free I was shouted at for getting her some food because 'she has to get up and get it herself' - she was alone apart from me and had had a baby a few hours before.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article191790 7.ece

Not really surprising though, is it. If midwives feel they have permission to talk to their patients the way some mothers are talked to, then it says something about the culture of the hospitals they work at.

I also thought it was interesting that the father is a journalist working for the BBC - I wonder how many of these sort of cases there are that we don't hear about?

It is extremely disturbing that hospital staff are still treating labouring mothers with contempt and cruelty. Anyone would think feminism, AIMS etc. had never happened.

It's no wonder people turn to planned sections when they hear stories like this. And, sadly, there are probably many stories which we never hear about.

More detail available here: www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/061407/news061407_12.html

Did anyone see the Panorama expose of maternity units? Staff in the documentary, unaware they were being filmed, were plainly overstretched and unable to do their jobs - this seemed to have hardened them and rendered them unbelievably callous. IIRC one midwife pointed out that they would never have appropriate staffing levels until their neglect killed off a mother, that babies had died but their lives are cheap.

Shocking that the MWs were given additional training, not sacked! One of them should be shot.

This sort of terrible distressing story makes me very glad I opted for homebirth for dd. I had heart-rate monitoring for ds who was born at hospital and we had a period of time when docs where crowding our suite - then after oxygen levels were deemed ok (ds had bloodtest b4 delivery needlescratch on his crown) - everyone disappeared and delivery was fine but the staff had a tendency to ignore me and dh - and we didn't really have a clue about what was going on most of the time - I hated that.

With homebirth I had continuity - with the same midwife throughout - no shift changes. The knowledge that transfer to hospital would be insisted on if there were any concerns about progress of labour etc. I was so much happier.

My heart breaks for that poor couple

terrible situation poor people.

After I had ds I had a midwife say prettymuch thesame about the pain. She was an evil witch.

How dreadful. Makes me feel very lucky. A midwife was always present during my births.

Mmm, I'm not sure homebirths are that much more satisfactory if unexpected serious complications set in.

With the lack of immediate medical support and back-up available I'm sure you'd be equally vulnerable, be well and truly panicked and both mother and/or baby could be in more real danger than if serious complications set in during a hospital delivery, even with competent, caring midwifes in attendance.

Having said all that, I feel that homebirths are fine and should be the model for a birth when everything goes smoothly and to plan with no complications. However, no one has the luxury of hindsight when taking the decision to opt for a homebirth.

This story is truly shocking and my heart goes out to those poor people who lost an otherwise perfectly healty baby due to negligence.

It reminded me of the sorts of scenarios played out in the BBC drama series "Bodies" which was about medical incompetence on an O&G unit in a NHS hospital.

Sadly, I can quite believe it, having been told in labour that " of course it hurts, that's why it's called labour" - and being told when on a drip to make contractions stronger, with a failed epidural, than I couldn't have any more pain relief for at least 4 hours.

Am dreading going into hospital this time.

Message withdrawn

terrible Am 19 weeks pregnant and shouldn;t have read that

When in premature labour with DD2, I was left alone for hours on end. Was told that my contractions were not strong enough to open my cervix, but she refused to examine me. I was put on a drip to stop my contractions and left alone, I had a reaction to the drug and my heartrate went to 130bpm, somehow I managed to press the buzzer and the midwife came down and realised that I was having a reaction and said 'oh we better stop this drug, you could go into heart failure' and then left me again. My parents came to see me and noone checked on me the whole 2 hours they were there, and when they left, they went to the midwife station and told her that she should check on me, but she didn't.

She forced Pethadin (sp?) onto me saying 'you are not dealing with the pain Mrs XXXXXX' I refused as I knew it can cause breathing problems, but she jabbed it in anyway telling me that it will be fine as long as I dont deliverly within 4 hours, dd2 was born 2 hours later, with an agaer (sp?) score of 5.

When I finally went into the final stage, I buzzed and another midwife came down, and told me that my midwife was on lunch and she could take over, I was finally examined and found to be 8cm dilated, dd2 was born 1 hour later

That is absolutely terrible and feel for the parents.
I'm so lucky i had a 3 fabulous Midwifes during my labour(they switched shifts) and each one stayed with me throughout.

So sad. I had dd at the Royal Free and it was the worst experience of my life. I won't go into details. Suffice to say I did not go back there to have ds.

I have refused to go back to the hospital that I had my other kids at, because of many reasons, but my borth expenience with DD2 just made me think 'no' with this pregnancy

oh fucking hell that is horrific and a bloody indictment on maternity services at that hospital
why are there vast differences nationwide I know demand is far more in some areas but why oh why can resources not be tapered to demand.
These parents must have bene so traumatised I cannot even think about what they must feel.

That's an awful story - but I think fortunately for evey awful M/W there are many many other good ones.

As a student nurse I did witness an awful m/w at a London hospital, a sweet young mother, who's husband couldn't come in coz of their faith, very alone, needed stitches, and me and my firend were trying to support her, while the m/w gave her a lignocaine inj. then started stitching without waiting for it to work, She was in agony, and all the m/w could do was say "you should be looking at this end, not holding her hands!"

working for the NHS I feel Like I ought to come up with something to support these care staff - but the problem is, when care is so awfully lacking, there is no excuse, and i think their actions (on the face of it) sound criminal

so glad I opted for CSs.

This obviously isn't just about lack of money and resources is it, it's about a whole culture of contempt for women.

You can train thousands of mw's tomorrow and five years down the line the resources may well be there, but as long as it is considered acceptable to consider and treat labouring women as "silly girls", labour as a humiliating and traumatic experience will still be a common ocurrence.

(35+1 pg)

No, Tutter. You shouldn't. Unless you are booked in for a section... walk away.