Hannah Barnes article on traumatic birth

[JeannieDark]

This was a tough read but I'm so glad it's being discussed:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2024/04/trauma-ward-childbirth

Really good article and I'm glad it's being seriously looked at by the APPG. I know this is a subject personal to Hannah but she really is a great journalist and has a natural talent for taking you on a visceral journey with her writing.

This is a very good article. Hannah doesn’t seem to be slowing down in shining a light on poor clinical practice. Thank you Hannah - I wish more journalists had your integrity, grit and courage.

I had ptsd as a result of a traumatic birth. By chance I eventually stumbled upon e m d r which helped. But there were years of suffering for me and my family.

Wow that was full on. She writes so well.

My god. The thought of going to hospital to give birth makes me feel ill (unless absolutely medically required). Quite literally the last place I would want to be.

All the prodding and poking and measuring, and bright lights, and stressed out workers, and beign told what to do... all get in the way of giving birth.

Fucking sweeps! Such a ridiculous thing

My experiences of both my births (2018 and 2021) were super similar to hers, up until point of delivery - thankfully I only had episiotomies and no other tearing so didn't have the extra perineal complications.

I'm pregnant with number 3 now and terrified.

Yup resonates with me. I had my second child crowning in a side room with no midwife and no pain relief because they said it would be hours yet. Had to hop beds in labour ward with his head half out and still no pain relief.

Third baby I had a letter from the consultant saying I was to be given gas and air as soon as I asked because of how I labour. I get to 2-3cm and then half hour later I'm pushing. They don't give pain relief until you are 4cm. I got no pain relief for that labour either even with the letter from the consultant. Ended up with emergency c section and no feeling or control in my bladder. The child is coming up to 2 years and I've still not been seen to see what can be done about this. I could not even get out of bed or reach my baby but no one helped me in the ward.

Told I couldn't have painkillers stronger than paracetamol if I wanted to breastfeed. Utter crap. I had to argue my point repeatedly that there were safe options and they absolutely refused until my male partner asked then they gave me painkillers. He's not my husband yet they listen to him and ask his opinion on multiple things in MY labour.

Fucking horrific how women are treated.

I had PTSD and PND after a traumatic labour resulting in an emergency c section. The baby was too big to fit through my pelvic bones. I was later told that my baby was 97th percentile and I should have been induced about a month earlier. Even after giving birth there was just a total failure of care for several reasons. I suffered permanent injury from the c section. I cried every day for months. Six years later I still can’t look at myself in the mirror naked.

Of course there was no support available. My family were scared if “they” found out how badly damaged I was then “they” would take the baby away. Or “they” would take me away, or medicate me, so I wouldn’t be able to look after the baby. God forbid that someone else might have to lift a finger! Much easier to hush it up and make their own lives easier by denying me help. There is still a very strong focus on “mum must look after the baby” and a refusal to consider that perhaps she can’t.

Birth injuries simply aren’t talked about. There’s little enough talk about vaginal birth injuries but even less is said about c section injuries. And this culture of expecting an injured woman to look after a newborn is frankly disgusting and needs to be challenged.

The one thing that terrifies me about being pregnant is this. I have 2 and my mum has been my birthing partner for both - mainly because she really gets their nurses attention and shouts when she panics.

With my first they didn’t think my labour would be so quick and they wanted to leave me for a few hours - she said “nope - women in my family have quick births - her contractions are close together - a nurse/midwife had to be there”. It terrifies me that my mum, who isn’t a medic at all had to step up as I had no idea what was normal and what wasn’t.

The second time was much better but again, it took my mum screaming the place down to be taken seriously - I got to the point where I couldn’t walk myself to the maternity floor and the nurses were asking “why isn’t she going to the maternity floor - how did she end up in A&E” (where the Uber dropped me).

I can’t believe we still do not get treated seriously.

This was such a hard read. Post-natal care in this country is a joke. I’ve spoken about this before but my son was six weeks premature and we were sent home despite him showing clear signs of lethargy. We had to be readmitted less than two days later because he suffered desats, had suspected meningitis, and had such severe jaundice he almost needed a blood transfusion.

I will never forget when I begged a midwife to look at him once more because he was so quiet and was told “he’s just a chill baby.”

Yes I was lucky I only had a second degree tear but the experience up to that was very similar, being refused pain killers until I was passing out. In a subsequent pregnancy I was dismissed by a GP when I reported abdominal pain in early weeks and told it would be a UTI and could wait until after the weekend. Turned out it was an ectopic and ruptured on the Sunday and I almost died. I will never forgive that GP for refusing to see me, dealing with it on the phone and then dismissing me, and then later blaming me too.

I had an emergency c-section with my first after eighteen hours of labour. He was a big baby and was two weeks over due.

My experience for my dc2 birth was very similar to Hannah's. I had forceps rather than a ventouse but ended up with a 4th degree tear too. I also had the added complication that my bladder stopped working. This was only noticed when I stood up to have a shower, the day after the birth, and I flooded the floor. My bladder had overflowed. I then had a catheter fitted and had it in place for 3 weeks post birth. I was terrified the catheter would be permanent. My wound also got infected and started to breakdown.

My baby had bruising to her face after delivery. She also had to have physio on her neck for the first six months but I was not told if this was connected to her delivery.

It makes me sad and angry that other women are having to go through the same thing. I was made to feel that I shouldn't complain as my baby and I survived, so I have pushed my feelings down.

Like you, my son also needed physio for torticollis. I suspect this was related to his birth since he was “stuck” and not progressing for a few minutes and the midwife didn’t do an episiotomy quickly.

People think the transition from women being the patient to being ignored happens once the baby arrives, but I think it happens much earlier. As long as the baby “looks okay” via monitoring, we tend to be ignored.

Also, what is it with poor c-section care here? Almost every person I know or am acquainted with has an infected c-section incision at some point. What the actual hell is going on?

I know it can happen and does happen in the US, but it seems like it happens constantly.

A very good article. I genuinely don't know anyone who didn't feel traumatised by their birth, even without experiencing 'major' complications. I know lots of people who felt they were dying, me included. I don't think it matters if a complication is temporary - the rushing in of people to help, the fear for your baby, how you feel in the moment etc. all go on to generate a sense of trauma that persists long beyond the moment. Of course, the author's experience goes a lot beyond that and I felt so sad and angry for her reading the article. I also got a sense of how ridiculous our whole attitude towards childbirth is. How many women and babies used to die in childbirth? Now we gaslight women into thinking that because it is natural, our bodies will know what to do and with a bit of an oxytocin boost (string of fairylights and soft music perhaps) the baby will walk out. This evidently doesn't happen! We are not prepared for the sudden onset of labour which is nothing like we have experienced before and cannot be stopped once it is started, nor are we prepared for the experience of the unfamiliar hospital, the interventions, the strangers around us, the vulnerability, and the loss of dignity that all come with a normal birth, let alone the complications that can occur.

Every time I had a question for my midwife, I was asked why I was asking - "why are you asking medical questions when pregnancy isn't medical?" Our antenatal course leader brushed over tears / instruments / sections - "this only happens if you're unlucky". In reality, of a class of 9: 2 sections planned for medical need, 3 emergency sections (I was one), at least 2 forceps, and some significant tearing in all of the mothers who gave birth vaginally. Refusing to talk about these things does not mean they don't happen, it just means that mothers have to carry the fear and guilt and pain and trauma on their own.

Being ignore is so right. I've all but given up going to medical appointments for my kids unless my OH is with me, they don't listen to me and he can turn up and say EXACTLY the same thing and be taken seriously. I still remember the infuriating head tilt and 'is this your first?' YES but that doesn't mean I'm imagining things!!

When I had my children over a decade ago, I lived near a hospital and had one induced birth there, and 2 home water births with the community midwifery team. Thankfully my pregnancies were all uncomplicated, with the exception of Firstborn not particularly wanting to get started on the journey out.

The experiences were chalk and cheese. The hospital was lonely, painful, and scary and the post-birth experience stressful. The nurses on the post natal ward were brusque and quick to offer formula, to the fury of the midwives who complained that mothers were all coming in planning to breastfeed and all going out started on bottle feeding.

At home, I had a midwife turn up when I called, and a second arrive when I was going into Stage 2. Afterwards I lay on my sofa with my newborn while my husband rushed out to get pizza. The lack of advanced pain relief - which I'd needed in hospital - I'd not needed at home at all. I have realised that I need to pace and crawl and bend over a birthing ball to get through Stage 1, not lie mostly tethered to a bed by fetal monitoring machines.

Everything that happens in a hospital is about how the hospital functions, not what the patient needs. By qualifying for a home birth I was able to sidestep some of that and make my births more about what I needed, and I am so grateful they were uncomplicated amd to the community midwives for being able to do their jobs properly in the home birth system. I have no idea if home births are still as protected as they used to be, though.

100%. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous none of the coursework in my antenatal class just said, “this is going to be the most painful thing you may have ever experienced.”

It feels so juvenile and ridiculous. Also refusing to use actual medical phrases. We are adults, you don’t need to say “back passage” when you can say perineum or rectum.

Tbf, average literacy age in my area is something like 10. I certainly didn't know what perineum or rectum meant at that age. So I do think lay language is necessary but the best approach is to use both, so people can learn the correct language if they don't already know it.

Yes, as I say, I have two children and still feel like this. My DH works in healthcare so he does the bulk of the kids medical appointments (of which there are a fair few for DC2 as they have some additional physical needs) as I feel I normally just get ignored. DC2 is under a couple of clinics long term but I still get "is this your first"...no it isn't, that's how we could clearly see their development wasn't usual. It it had been my first I may not have noticed there were any issues.

Brilliant! It's outrageous that tearing isn't addressed more. I have a short perineum after a year wasn't repaired properly and a prolapse I can't get physio for on the NHS (simply no pathway to refer me according to my GP). It's utter shit.

Your experiences were very similar to mine - first in hospital and then others at home. I don't like hospitals and tense up when in them, which caused (I think) my first labour to stall for several painful hours. I wasn't that impressed by some of the staff and I felt I was expected to get with their routine whether I needed it or not.

The home births were calm and controlled, with midwives I knew and who had confidence in me. The babies were big, but because I was able to move and could do what my body needed me to do, that wasn't a problem.

I was very lucky that I lived in an area where home birth was seen as an entirely acceptable option and was supported by excellent community midwives who were in turn supported by a hospital consultant who had faith in their abilities and judgement. Women - both expectant and birthing mothers and skilled obstetric professionals - were actually listened to, and it made all the difference.

@WeightoftheWorld I realise it isn't the focus of this thread but the being ignored makes me so angry too. I'm a fully functioning, intelligent adult who doesn't need my OH to chaperone my opinions about my child's health. It's so sexist, and it just flies under the radar enough to be really difficult to measure and prove that it's happening. But my OH notices it too, that's the only reason I realised I wasn't going mad.

@Matthew54 yes! Also - we are adults and don’t need to be gathered in a circle like schoolgirls (whilst the men are sent to the pub of course!) and informed in hushed tones that we might poo ourselves as if this is the very worse thing that can happen!

100%. It’s so snide. Half the time in hospital I felt like fing screaming about all my university credentials to get them to treat me like an educated person and not a hysterical banshee.

A very powerful article. I’ve had two c sections, both very traumatic in their own way. We treat animals at the vets with 1000 times more care and compassion than we do mothers in maternity and postnatal wards.