Share your maternity care experiences with CQC - £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EllieMumsnet]

We are working with CQC (Care Quality Commission), who through a current campaign #yourbirthplan would like to make the public more aware of their inspection reports and ratings which can help women make informed decisions about where they give birth. With this aim in mind, they would like to hear your experiences of maternity care.

Here’s what CQC have to say: ‘’While women may have the choice to have their baby at home, in a midwife led unit or in hospital – we know that many are not aware. We believe that all women should be fully informed about the options they have regarding their choices over where they give birth – it is important that expectant parents are fully informed about the options they have available to them throughout their pregnancy and understand the benefits and potential risks of any choice they make – be this at home, hospital or birth centre.

There are multiple sources of information to help make a decision and our aim is to raise awareness including our inspection reports and ratings – as one of these sources, to help ensure they are fully informed of all the options available to them and have the best possible birth experience.”

Perhaps you want to share your experience of maternity care in hospital? Maybe you gave birth at home or in a midwife led unit? Or perhaps you want to tell us about your experience of how you chose where you gave birth?

Whatever your experiences are, share them on the thread below and everyone who comments will be entered into a prize draw, where one lucky winner will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

The CQC is responsible for inspecting all hospitals, including private hospitals, GP practice, dentists, care homes and home care in England. Its maternity service inspections include all services for women that relate to pregnancy, including ante and post-natal services, labour wards, birth centres or units and theatres providing obstetric related surgery.

Each inspection answers five key questions: Is the service safe? Is it effective? Are the staff caring and responsive to people’s needs and is the service well led?

I didn't realise there were inspection reports. I will be looking them if I get the courage to have a second child. My antenatal care was excellent, as was the care given during labour. But it's the post natal care that is putting me off doing it again. I was in hospital for almost two weeks due to high blood pressure. But the ward wasn't really set up for caring for mums afterwards, more for getting them out asap. When I was finally discharged I was meant to be monitored daily by midwives. They were obviously very busy and quickly discharged me to the care of my GP, where the receptionist wouldn't listen to me saying the hospital only gave me a weeks worth of meds but there was a 2 week wait for a GP appointment!. After finally being listened to I then had to walk to the surgery every other day with a newborn that wanted to clusterfeed to be monitored. My stitches also got infected but apparently there is no 6 week check where I am. So yet another trip to the GP was needed. I have to say the GPs I saw were lovely but my memories of that time are very stressful.

I had two good experiences in the midwife led birthing unit at my local hospital. My only slight issue was with myfirst Dd there was a lack of breastfeeding support but that was partly me not being confident enough to say I was struggling and unsure what to do.

Like a lot on here my postnatal care after my 1st child was horrendous, absolutely no help from the midwifes who were quite literally chasing their tails on the ward. I had severe undiagnosed post natal depression it was not a good time. Fortunately my second pregnancy even though high risk and complicated by needing surgery when pregnant was amazingly handled by the brilliant consultant and midwifes in hospital. So much so I called my child after the consultant who looked after us. Eternally grateful for the fantastic NHS care I received.

Gave birth at local hospital although that would not have been my first choice. To be fair, treatment was perfect, midwives were very gentle and so sweet. However, it was painful experience and one I don't like to remember as had 4th degree tearing and trust me that was the worst pain ever.

My first choice would have been having a water birth, although therre's always next time haha.

It was a while ago now but I didn’t enjoy the experience after giving birth to my second child. I had torn quite badly and lost some blood. I needed stitches and the midwife said ‘oh my shift finishes now I’ll ask my colleague to stitch you up’ it didn’t make me feel very good. I wouldn’t have given birth in my local hospital again had I had more children.

My first birth I was consultant led and ended up with a 37 week induction due to being scare mongered into taking antibiotics I didn't need leading to severe liver deterioration and sepsis.

Midwives didn't believe I wasn't having a break in contractions until I was put on a trace and then examined 12 hours after having pessary to be 4cm dilated. I was then sent straight up to labour ward, took over 3 hours to get a line in me before they could break waters.

Broke waters at 1:15pm, argued with consultant at 1:40pm that I needed to push and was told no as I had just been checked to be 6cm. They look again, oh no I'm 10cm and must push.

Clip falls off baby's head so they end up doing ventouse as didn't give me time to cope with pushing.

I then argue with consultant that I can feel her needle going in and out of me as she stitched me up as the local didn't work.

After 3 days of being in post natal they say they may keep me in longer due to high blood pressure, I refuse as they had done nothing about it the whole time I was there and cleared baby so off we went.

Second baby - home birth thankfully. Did argue with midwives though to leave me alone as I just needed to push the baby out. I did hypnobirthing and was more focused and could feel him sliding back but got the right contraction and pushed him out.

I cannot fault the staff for the job they do but I wish they would listen to patients and think outside the box.

My most recent experience was outstanding - my concerns were listened to and I felt in control of decisions made and like I had a say (consultant led, planned section). Delivery went really smoothly, after care was outstanding and they diagnosed a heart murmur, arranged scans and consultant appointments within hours of diagnosis. I felt supported, informed and not overwhelmed. My first born was very poorly and his care was handled very poorly and we were uninformed / kept out of the loop though it wouldn’t have been hard to open a dialogue and answer our questions. The difference for me was that this time round I chose the hospital I’d deliver in, it wasn’t the closest to home but we carefully read the CQC report, NHS choices feedback and visited the ward to get a better feel for care delivered.

I gave birth at my local hospital; the experience with the midwife was not good and she actually ruined what should have been a good experience as physically the birth was very straightforward - she caused me a huge amount of stress :(

The doctor who came to make sure DD was delivered promptly was great, although I would have liked to feel a bit more in control in terms of consent; I was basically told by him that he would be performing and episiotomy if I couldn't get DD within the next push, but luckily I did.

I was also sent home despite being in a lot of pain and despite and despite the ward being empty so they could hardly say they were overstretched, it was at this point that my birth experience really started to go downhill and even writing about it makes me nervous as I'm 36 weeks pregnant with my second baby and will be birthing at the same hospital :(

I had to tell the midwife on duty that I was already fully dilated & going to give birth any minute! At the hospital at 5am in labour with my 5th child the student midwife put me in a side examination room and tried & tried to examine how dilated I was but she just couldn't do it and was causing me more pain than the contractions. I kept telling her from the moment we got there that I was going to be ready to push in about 10 mins but she wouldn't listen & kept saying "I don't think so plenty of time by the looks of it" - she was going on my pains & the fact I seemed to be coping very well with them so she thought I had ages to go yet. After telling her that I didn't want her examine me again & that another midwife best do it she went and got another midwife who found I was fully dilated & they just got me into a labour room as I started pushing before I had my pants off! I told her I knew my own body & had done it 4 times before so I knew I was ready but she knew best apparently as she was the "medical person" apart from that experience I've had 4 really nice births with friendly kind midwives and really nice hospital stays.
Only thing that wasn't good with those four hospital births was the midwife who looked after me for the 9 months for each child has never delivered me or been there which seems silly to spend 9 months trusting & getting to know her for her not to be the one to deliver the baby and a stranger do it !

Overall I was pleased with my maternity care. I was encouraged throughout my pregnancy to have a home birth. This was not something that I wanted and in the rnd I had to be quite sharp with my midwife before the topic kept being raised. I feel that the biggest improvement that could be made to local services is more investment and training more midwives as often the choices of the birth centre and home births for the women in our area who would like those options are not avaliable at the last minute due to staffing. Also I had quite serious postnatal preeclampsia, this probably would have been picked up quicker if id been seen more by one pwrson rather than a different support worker each day. The service is very stretched.

I felt alone, unsupported and powerless in both my birth and postnatal care.

I had an easy pregnancy and was low risk but ended up having nearly every intervention going and 2 haemorrhages which I think could have been avoided if I had been listened to earlier in my labour.

Birth experience was terrible rushed atmosphere and lack of staff. Felt unsupported by midwife. After birth minimal help with feeding ended up getting a lactation consultant to help. Lack of pain relief staff not present when in patient ended up with PND because of it

With my first I was aware I had some choice, because I’d researched that myself. However actually getting my choice wasn’t easy - I initially wanted to be at an out of area hospital and managed to ring though to book in for my first appointment. However they were less then helpful and I was made to feel a bit of a nuisance (“we’re very busy”..”we have a waiting list..” etc) so in the end I just rang and booked in with my local midwives/hospital.

I wanted a midwife-led birth in the suite at the small local hospital, but that didn’t go to plan as I became consultant-led and ended up having an EMCS.

In terms of birthing options I very much had to research that myself and that meant I had to rely on up-to-date information.

If I ever have another I know that I would make different choices.

Despite nothing going how I would have liked, me and my baby were safe and healthy. I'm now 7 weeks postpartum and have been fully recovered with no pain for at least 5 of those weeks. I had the same midwife throughout my antenatal care which was brilliant and she also came to do my checks at home. The midwives in hospital were marvellous as I fought everything to try and get some semblance of the birth I wanted. I was induced with a drip and wanted natural as possible. I ended up with a cannula, catheter, morphine, three epidurals and begging for a c section. They got me through it and I had a natural birth in the end. The ladies on the post natal ward were equally as supportive as I tried and failed to breastfeed. No complaints what so ever. Despite it all it was a positive experience. Even the food was good!

My first pregnancy went well, I had a lovely midwife who halfway through tried to put me with another because she was so busy but the midwife was very pro breast feeding and kept giving me her views so ended up back with my first one. When I went into labour I was told to stay home and within an hour we were heading in, I gave birth 20 minutes after arriving, I got told off by the midwife there (mine was with someone else) for holding my tens machine lol! I needed stitches afterwards but it was staff change time so the person who had seen me first left and had to be reexamined by someone else. I then had to wait for them to get sorted before I could get stitched. I then got taken to the ward and put near the window where a wasp came in and they actually brought raid in to get rid of it! There was me and someone else with our newborns lol! My aftercare was ok, I had minor postnatal depression and I was told it would go by the health visitor. Then they stopped coming.
My second pregnancy was awful, I was ill throughout, I had to have x rays and numerous appointments to see if could find out what was wrong. Had same midwife as first but she was always late and was always quick to leave. I went into labour at home, baby came quickly and was born in the bath. The paramedics arrived shortly after and my midwife was again with someone else. The cord broke in delivery and I again needed stitches so was taken to hospital. This time because I hadn’t given birth there I did not need to stay in nor did baby get the checks they are meant to get. I also had to wait for stitches because again it was staff change over time.
Afterwards our daughter was extremely poorly and we fought for 3 months to get a diagnosis of cows milk protein allergy. The health visitors only came 3 times and I had severe postnatal depression and got no care at all. So not a good experience 2nd time round.
Then had miscarriage and had to sit in waiting room with mums and pregnant women, they also rang me while I was out to tell me I was miscarrying, it was horrendous and then there was no aftercare. Another not good experience.

They seem to be coming from the perspective of women not knowing about their choices re homebirth and birth centres, and not being aware of the risks of hospital. My experience was the exact opposite, and the thing I didn't know I could do was refuse examination without gas and air and refuse augmentation without an epidural being fitted. I was told all about the risks of sections and pain relief and nothing about the risks of eg homebirth.

In my first birth, I was subjected to deliberate epidural denial. The midwife just didn't bother paging the anaesthetist. I know this because when he eventually turned up, it was too late, and he made it very clear that he'd only been asked 5 minutes earlier.

With my second pregnancy, I told the midwife at booking in that I preferred the vibe of the MLU but wanted the option of an epidural hence was going to have to choose a CLU. She pooh poohed the idea that I'd need one, clearly trying to get me to choose the MLU. When I asked for an anaesthetic consult to be arranged, she 'accidentally' forgot to book it and I had to go through PALS. It was very obvious which 'choice' I as a low risk twentysomething was supposed to make.

The NHS has a real problem with failing to inform women about their rights wrt ELCS and the risks of vaginal birth. We need to move towards informed consent for attempting vaginal birth as well as sections. Hopefully the CDC will look to address this.

We had an awful birth experience with a midwife who just didn't seem to care. When my waters broke I could see there was meconium in them. She took a look and said 'oh, that doesn't look good. Anyway, I have to see someone else now so go and take a walk and come back in twenty minutes'. We were then put on monitoring and stuck in a side room. However no one was looking at the monitor. We could see the baby's heart rate kept dropping but didn't realise how serious it was. It was only when the charge midwife looked that she raised the alarm and we were rushed into an emergency c-section. From that point, the care was good and the aftercare on the ward was really good (especially from the midwife assistants). We just got unlucky with the birthing midwife, I think.

I had quite a bad experience and I have been recovering from PTSD. I had wanted to give birth in the birthing centre rather than the labour ward but ended up in the labour ward. 4 days prior to this I bled a little so went into to hospital and they said they wanted to induce me as I was there! I said no as I wanted a water birth and it wasn't my due date. Had A sweep then they sent me home. I was then in labour for 4 days and I knew I was going to have my baby soon so phoned up and they said I wasn't allowed in as they didn't believe I was in labour. I then had to lie to be seen by saying I was bleeding again and lucky I did cause I was 5cm and my contractions were never 3 mins apart they were 10 mins apart. I had lovely midwives at the start then the trouble happened when they changed over I had a midwife and a trainee midwife the main midwife was harsh rough and refused to stop when I asked her too during an examination. I then managed to have a water birth but the midwife didn't get all of my placenta out and three days later had the rest of it removed. They also made lots of mistakes sewing me up and it meant it took a year to heal naturally.

I really wanted an epidural with DC2. I was sent home from hospital when I went in as they said I was hours if not days away from birth. 20 minute drive home, literally got in the door and I told DH I needed to go back to hospital NOW. Got to hospital, fully dilated, "oh, it's too late for drugs now".

DC1, I agreed a student could be in the room for the birth, which was such as good decision as she was lovely, and if she hadn't been there I would have been left labouring alone for long periods of time as it was a busy night.

Midwife-led both times. If I was to have a third DC I would probably go consultant-led if it meant I was more likely to get the pain relief I wanted.

I'd hoped to have a home birth, but once the midwives arrived I was told I needed to be transferred in as my bp was too high. By the time we got to the hospital my contractions had stopped, and we had to fight for them to let us try to get them going again without immediately resorting to a drip. We had some fab midwives who were very supportive, and some who were hopeless - the one who took three attempts to get a cannula in was not in my good books. We ended up on the ward, expecting to be transferred back to delivery at 1am if labour hadn't restarted earlier, then at 10pm wanted to kick my husband off the ward which they hadn't warned us would happen, and didn't go down well in my hormonal state.... So mixed experiences! Actual birth was fine.

I was induced at 39 weeks because of obseteric cholestasis. I really didn’t want to be, and against hospital advice had held off being induced for a week. However when my bile levels had shot up from 14 to 61 I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I hate something as minor as a smear test, so was extremely terrified of a knitting needle like hook being used to break my waters; I’d understood being induced as - they try a number of things to get baby out (pessary, breaking waters, oxytocin drip).

After getting shock news about my bile levels and trying to process the fact I wasn’t going home that night a solemn midwife came in to give me my first pessary and explain the process. I pointed out my fear of having waters broken and she said ‘well that’s the point of being induced, to break your waters.’ She then got impatient that this scared me and left me to ‘think about if I was going ahead with it’ for an hour or so.

Luckily my waters broke on their own after 2 pessaries. The labour progressed, the birth was tough with my little one getting a bit distressed but it went well considering and the midwife helping me through labour was very reassuring.

I had a bad tear, so was wheeled into surgery not long after and stitched up. When I was wheeled out I had a catheter and couldn’t move my legs (I’d had spinal a block). At about 12am my husband was told to leave, my baby was placed in my arms and I was left in a dark room with three other sleeping women. No one came to tell me what happens next; I couldn’t reach my phone in my bag because I couldn’t move (I asked a cleaner who came in to pass it to me); no one came to put my baby in the cot (I couldn’t sit up); and I was just left there unable to sleep because of fear of dropping my baby. It was traumatic.

I had to go back into hospital a week later with my baby (she had a weight loss so I was shown how to breast feed and top up with formula.) It was hard work to get a midwife to help me with anything; for example if I needed some formula. I had to harass the reception staff, every request felt like an inconvenience to them. I was still recovering from my tear so uncomfortable and in pain and scared myself (I’d also passed huge lumps of blood.) On day 2 no consultant came to check the progress of our baby - I started getting cabin fever: being in hospital, my baby blues were awful and I seemed to cry every hour. We were told our baby was over her problem so we were waiting to get discharged officially. Still the consultant wouldn’t see us. At changeover the night shift lead midwife introduced herself and I burst into tears and told her I was expecting to be in my own bed that night. After this, and more harassment at reception, we were finally discharged at 11pm because we were all healthy and didn’t need to take up a hospital bed. We were offered an apology that no one came to check our progress.

This was my first baby and first stint in hospital - I now dread having to ever go back into hospital after this experience, and the aftercare I received post birth has darkened my memory of giving birth to my daughter.

I had our first baby in May and I really don’t think the level of care I received before, during or after was of a standard I expected.

The first few appointments were ok but then my assigned midwife left and they didn’t replace her so I ended up with a different midwife or a student midwife each appointment. They didn’t seem to communicate with each other so at every appointment I had to go over and over the same information.

The appointments always felt rushed and they were never on time as they were running behind.

I was asked if I wanted to give birth in the Maternity ward at the hospital or the Midwife led unit, Home birth wasn’t even mentioned as an option and wasn’t discussed. I was heavily pushed towards the MLBU as they said I had a “low risk” pregnancy despite having HG sickness and severe SPD.

Pain relief was barely mentioned, at the appointment when it was discussed I had an absolutely horrible midwife who basically said I was a wimp if I needed pain relief and THEY would chose what pain relief I was allowed

At 40+1 I was given a sweep and told by the midwife to call the MLBU when contractions became painful as we live a fair distance from the hospital. I called and they couldn’t have cared less and kept trying to tell me to stay at home but I literally begged to come in as I was in so much pain and my contractions were very close together. We got there and waited around for ages for someone to come and see me, when they did they were incredibly dismissive and rude. I was examined and told that I had no idea what was coming and that things would get far far more painful and to go home and get some sleep!! I tried to get them to let me stay, given the distance we live from the hospital but they were adamant I wouldn’t be giving birth for at least another 24 hours as it was our first.

Long story short, I gave birth six hours after we got home, with no pain relief, on the bathroom floor with my DP having to deliver the baby.

Ended up waiting on the bathroom floor for half an hour for an ambulance and the midwifes.

Paramedics and midwifes who arrived were brilliant, and horrified at my treatment at the hospital. Had to be stitched up at home then taken to hospital where ironically (as they couldn’t kick me out fast enough before) they pushed to keep me in and I told them not a chance.

So, no - going to say I wasn’t happy with the care I received!

Oh and the aftercare was a shambles. It was mainly student midwifes who came to our house who didn’t have a clue what they were talking about and couldn’t answer any questions.

The entire experience has completely put me off ever having another child

I had a very good experience with my first pregnancy, although it ended in a 30 hour labour and emergency C-section, the midwives that helped me through the labour, the surgeon and anaesthetist and the after care on the ward with nurses and midwives were faultless, both myself and my son contracted an infection and had to be treated with intravenous antibiotics, were stayed in hospital for 5 days but the treatment and care we received was second to none and I would definitely recommend the hospital and staff that looked after us.