201 babies and 9 women died, 94 babies with life changing injuries, all avoidable

[Lovelyricepudding]

At one hospital. Who knows about other hospitals? A system set up for internal investigation that looked like it may have been designed to avoid external involvement.

This is the state of maternity care in the UK.

I’m not sure it’s misogyny, in fact quite the opposite as it was the drive for natural births after the perceived over-medicalisation of childbirth.

When ds was born natural childbirth was the only thing and in fact there was quite a bit of Caesarian shaming amongst other mothers making women feel they’d failed for not doing it “properly”. It was all birth plans and the idea that a birth is under the mother’s control. No wonder people were bewildered and disappointed afterwards when a bit of whale music and three puffs didn’t cut the mustard.

I had a horrific delivery. I nearly died and was in hospital for two weeks. Ds was sickly. The care was awful. Some of the midwives were mean and lazy (I saw one at night with earplugs in doing Take a Break puzzles). I was given a private room (to avoid distressing the other mothers!) and the ward manager shouted at me and demanded to know why I was there (whilst I was having a blood transfusion). The cleaner had special needs and they were unable to clean properly. The loos were full of blood and all sorts and the cleaner was just pushing the mop around smearing it farther around.

I am happy to say that when I went there again they had had a revamp and it was, although horribly busy, much, much better organised and although I had another difficult birth they seemed keener to offer support and intervention.

I gave birth here too - 2008. Clearly, both me and my DC were very lucky.

I was on the Midwife led unit and they were fanatical about not having the consultants come in and assist. I was there for quite some time (prolonged birth) and saw a few midwives come and go on/off shift. Some were lovely, and some were downright vile e.g. when trying to explain why I really couldn't face an internal examination, one Midwife's response was ' have you been raped in the past or something?' or another one who simply refused me pain relief until I let her do yet another examination (I was really struggling with the 'rummaging' after one of them had been really rough with me).

Lots of indicators of something being catastrophically wrong here after years of this being in the news, and then reading the findings today.

There is a West Mercia Police investigation into this - OP LINCOLN. They are asking for people who have concerns about their care to contact them.

mipp.police.uk/operation/22HQ19D84-PO1

Those poor babies and mothers. I could weep for them.

Those poor families. Unfortunately it's entirely unsurprising. Similar stories where I gave birth, and still an obsession with natural birth.

to all those affected
Hoardasurass

As I said, the natural birth or - quite literally - die thing was rampant with mothers too. I remember walking along with a woman and meeting an acquaintance with a new baby. This woman immediately demanded, “Was it a natural birth?” The mother said yes and the woman I was with nodded and replied, “Well done - you must feel empowered.” I was stupefied.

And I have seen threads on here etc with people saying they feel “failures” for having caesarians as if they have somehow missed out on a wonderful experience. A colleague gave birth in 20 minutes and was invited by the midwives at the hospital to come back to talk to expectant mothers. I kept my counsel but felt that was a mistake - using the one in a million woman as the shining example.

Unbelievable and testament to the lack of care and rigour that is applied to women's health generally. With Black women 4 times more likely to die in childbirth, countless women's lives are affected by avoidable birth injuries, when maternity services are scandalously under funded and resourced and giving birth is a chaotic and unpleasant experience for so many women what is the response from the NHS?
Ears covered, eyes closed and let's invest millions of £££ in pointless diversity initiatives.

Having had the experience I had at the hands of our supposedly wonderful NHS this doesn't surprise me. At all.

All 3 of my dc were born at Shrewsbury within the time frame. All maternity staff had an anti c-section attitude, during my 2nd pregnancy I was told "you WILL have a VBAC', no discussion of any of the risks.
I experienced some callous, uncaring staff, including a consultant who would not speak to me, just said to the midwife "tell the patient I am going to examine her" and after a painful internal, walked away without explaining why I needed the exam and what was found. The midwife had to come back and explain later.
We were lucky, I had 3 healthy babies and no complications.
A little girl, born the same week as my dd2 died.

I've had two by CS not at Shrewsbury and, stupidly, I do feel embarrassed about it. I don't think I'll read the report. I can't imagine what it must feel like to lose a child and when it's completely avoidable...I hope people go to jail for this. For the families involved, I hope you get justice, I hope time brings healing.

Not surprised in the least. I had ptsd for a couple of years following negligent staff and baby nearly dying. The worst thing though was how NASTY most of the midwives were, especially on the ward after. Not just to me, to all the women. The hospital lied on my discharge papers about what happened but I was too tired and glad to be out of there to chase it up. I said after I would rather give birth behind the bins at Sainsbury than ever take my chances in a maternity ward again. What really struck me was thd contempt for the mothers. It is mysogyny. 100%

@TammyOne

Not surprised in the least. I had ptsd for a couple of years following negligent staff and baby nearly dying. The worst thing though was how NASTY most of the midwives were, especially on the ward after. Not just to me, to all the women. The hospital lied on my discharge papers about what happened but I was too tired and glad to be out of there to chase it up. I said after I would rather give birth behind the bins at Sainsbury than ever take my chances in a maternity ward again. What really struck me was thd contempt for the mothers. It is mysogyny. 100%

I could have written this word for word. Head spinning a bit reminiscing it all, so can't articulate more. 100% mysoginy.

And the so-called natural birth movement is not empowering, it's exploitative (making big bucks out of selling a dream) and gaslighting (blaming women for things largely out of their control)

RobotValkyrie & TammyOne

This is so difficult for so many women to contemplate. It brings back so many grim experiences of child birth.

This needs to be something that we're challenging politicians about on the doorstep - what are they doing to solve it?

Women and children still dying. Now

And the ceo will still not resign

Fuckers. Fuckers

Can’t tell you how much this is wrong

@MrsOvertonsWindow

Unbelievable and testament to the lack of care and rigour that is applied to women's health generally. With Black women 4 times more likely to die in childbirth, countless women's lives are affected by avoidable birth injuries, when maternity services are scandalously under funded and resourced and giving birth is a chaotic and unpleasant experience for so many women what is the response from the NHS? Ears covered, eyes closed and let's invest millions of £££ in pointless diversity initiatives.

All of this. Forever.

Let’s ask men if they could be pregnant.

Let’s not bother about women and their babies

The women of mumsnet have been posting about this for some time - I've had times I just want to shout about it. I mean all we can hope is that lessons might actually be learned but it's just so sad and so unfair.

I don’t think so. We are treated like children when we go to have our babies

My first was resuscitated 3 times. So long in labour

I didn’t know. It was my first baby.

You trust the staff.

I dintd after my first

This is just horrific. Honestly, if I could have my time again I would have an elective c-section every time (spoken as someone who was persuaded to go down the natural birth route then ended up with an emergency c-section because my baby was in so much distress).

@Gingernaut

The bravery of the two mothers who initiated the investigation cannot be underestimated.

Eight seperate bodies were involved in inspecting care at the trust and all found nothing to be concerned about.

It is only thanks to Rhiannon Davies and Kayleigh Griffiths that this investigation was ever instigated.

I agree. I heard Rhiannon Davies’ interview on R4 Today this morning. Women all over the UK owe her and Kayleigh a huge debt of gratitude to taking hold of this and not letting go until a public enquiry was launched.

There was also an extended feature in the Sunday Times on Sunday which included family testimony which was so devastating I’ve had to bookmark it so I can finish it in a second sitting. It was unbearably sad and angering. 💐 for every woman, baby, father and family affected.

’natural’ often means mediaeval levels of pain and risk to life.

This. I feel so angry with myself that I agreed to go down the natural birth route and then caused my baby to suffer severe distress (failed forceps delivery followed by emergency c-section) as a result. If I’d had an ELCS it could all have been avoided. I then had PND because I felt I’d failed my baby already and he’d only just been born.

These bosses went on to do things like counter-fraud, run “leadership and safety in health” courses(!), and one of them on £100K+ even lied about his qualifications. What happened to him? Well, nothing, so it seems.

Another one resigned for a day in order to make £500K. While claiming a pension.

Absolutely sickening.

Bosses at disgraced Shrewsbury NHS trust went on to lucrative health jobs.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/47251ed0-affc-11ec-8570-b43daaf58ea1?shareToken=36ab8b3b9a56ebc916a43d34259ef2fe

It doesn't surprise me one bit. NHS maternity care in some places is worse than most developing nations. They fiddle the data to make it look ok but it's reallllly not. If we couldn't have afforded private I wouldn't have had any more children. I have life changing injuries. And no one cares. Most women don't even bother to complain because there's so little point. The two women who instigated this should be made heros.

Sad that “DH going on a stag do” is trending on this site ATM yet this thread isn’t. SMH.

I worked in the NHS for 35 years. I never even contemplated giving birth in an NHS maternity unit. Nor did I ever contemplate a vaginal birth. So much brainwashing.