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As the time for giving birth nears I am filled with more and more apprehension. I cannot help but feel that birth is over medicalised and interventions happening more as a “just in case” preventative measure. (And yes I do know birth is a dangerous business both for mum and baby, where numerous complications may arise!)
Those who have followed my pregnancy journey have seen how I long for a calm and quiet homebirth, but have compromised, facing my fears, and conceded to giving birth in the hospital (as long as they have a birthing pool available!… we’ve even joked about taking our own in.)
Just as I am getting my head around things I read this on one of the closed forums I follow:
“I’m so annoyed!!
My son’s girlfriend has just had a baby in our local maternity hospital. Labour was induced at 38+4, due to high blood pressure 167/95 and oedema. I personally wouldn’t have considered induction, but they seemed happy with the decision.
Anyway, when she got to hospital they broke her waters and a few hours later set up a drip (oxytocin?) to induce contractions. Around midnight, they decided to stop this – she was tired and they thought she needed a break from the contractions, but she carried on contracting on her own. She also had pethidine at around 5am to try and get some sleep.
She was considered to be in established labour when examined at 7am. She was examined again when the shift changed at 9am and found to be 8cm dilated – so a rate of around 2cm per hour.
The new on duty consultant considered this was too slow and told her she hadn’t progressed enough, and had to have a caesarean! She was still groggy from the pethidine and can’t even remember signing the consent forms. The midwives on the ward disagreed with the consultant but were overruled. So she was taken to the theatre.
Whilst he anaesthetist was setting up the epidural, my DiL felt the urge to push, but was told by the consultant that she was imagining it! Luckily the anaesthetist actually refused to continue setting up the epidural and insisted that rather than lining up medical students to observe, that they might actually get some midwives in the room – she actually refused to give the epidural until a midwife had examined my DiL – by the time they had scrubbed up, she was pushing, and the baby was born normally 30 mins later, observed by a group of students – my son reckons in total there was around 12 people in the room.
All was fine with the baby, she has now successfully breast fed, after a slow start, but my son’s GF still had the high blood pressure – not that high in my opinion – 160/95 – her normal, non pregnant BP is a touch on the high side anyway and the 3 readings they have done today were all done apparently when the baby was crying – raising mum’s BP, surely?
She has also been very stressed at having to remain in hospital – the visiting hours are draconian – my son is still at work until his paternity leave starts on Monday and no-one but the father is allowed to visit between 9am and 6pm, so she’s on her own and feeling very vulnerable and upset.
She asked today if she could discharge herself and have a community midwife come to check her BP and she was told…(and I’m really getting quite angry just typing this) “What happens if you discharge yourself and go home and you have a stroke and die and this poor baby is left without a mother? – Is that what you want?” Seriously, that is what a hospital midwife said. Another one said that “if we let you go home and you died of a stroke, your family would immediately sue us and we don’t want that”
She was also informed that if she did discharge herself before a midwife was sure the baby was feeding properly that they would have no choice but to phone Social Services and report her for child abuse!
I would go and argue her rights for her, but as I said, no-one but dad is allowed in until after 6pm, by which time of course all the Drs are nowhere to be seen. I also found it very disturbing that on a 6 bed ward, My son’s GF was the only woman who HADN’T had a c-section. Anyway, hopefully she will be out tomorrow – rant over!
Siobhan”
I know it’s probably an isolated incident, but it still fills me with fear. I have experienced the scaremongering- not to this extent, that’s for sure-, on the other hand I trust that most of the NHS staff are lovely and caring. Yet somehow feel the system is having an identity crisis and creaking under all the pressures from different angles. This interferes with the decisions being made by professionals who have different priorities to weight up.
Really interested to hearing your views on the case above
and on birth and labour in general?
Have you faced anything even remotely similar?
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WOW! Just, wow! That poor woman! I’ve only ever had very positive experiences with NHS midwives, but my second birth was at a birth centre where the emphasis was very definitely on natural births. The scaremongering is what has annoyed me the most.
It is very upsetting to hear that this can happen to someone!
OMG I really don’t think I have the words to express how angry this makes me feel! That poor girl! Let’s hope there’s more support for her once she’s out to help her deal with such an awful experience! Grrrr angry!!
I’ve asked Siobhan to let us know the outcomes. It is outrageous! Something so special to be turned into a spectacle is just awful.
Sounds like she has just cause for complaint, which is worth doing just so that other people do not have to go through the same thing again at that hospital.
One day, when she’s got over all of this, she should ask for a debrief with the head midwife so they can go through all her notes she can understand what happened and the hospital can explain why they took those actions.
She can have various things written into her notes for next time, if there is one. (or she could give birth elsewhere, that’s her choice too). I understand she has a right to have this.
I feel sick for her sake. What a horrible reality. I had to fight not be be induced because I was pretty sure about my dates, but the scan dates put me at 42+5 when I finally had a home water birth. It’s exactly stories like this one that made me terrified of going in for the induction, despite all the ‘dead baby’ threats.
You know your body, you know your rights, and above all, have someone you trust – a doula – to be by your side the whole way.
I hate reading stories like this because it reminds me that nothing has changed since I gave birth to my daughter 9 years ago. Mother’s and babies are still being put at risk because of the conveyor belt approach some hospitals still have to childbirth. It just makes me so angry, and terrified that one day my daughter might have to deal with this.
I wrote about our experience recently http://violetposy.co.uk/2012/02/24/writing-prompt-survival/ what I didn’t put in the post (in case my daughter reads it) was that my husband was asked to choose which one of us they should save. It was something that should never have gotten to that point and he to this day feels guilty about having had to choose.
Not a very happy story, but thankfully a happy ending for both of you. I have told my OH if it comes to a choice he should choose me… I will never hold it against him.
Sadly this sort of thing isn’t rare – I had to put up with a lot of shroud waving during my pregnancy with Littler – if you try and argue they just try and scare you so you give in…
It’s because of this and friends awful experiences that when people say we were brave to home birth I say that I believe you are brave to go to hospital and risk all of these things
I have been induced with both my babies. The first time due to suspected pre-ecampsia. I asked for an epidural as was on gas and air and for hours and it was getting too much. They said they’d need to check my kidneys first and two hours after I’d asked I was given one. By which point I’m sure I was fully dilated but they didn’t check. I need the epidural 4 times before it worked. Then I was in distress and so was the baby. I was prepped for a section but they used forceps and got the baby out quickly. I had 15 people in the room. And this was my good birth. The other one was a whole other story, resulting in an emergency section and I still have a numb foot.
Ermmm I had a similar experience with Baba I have to be honest. I was induced due to high blood pressure and the midwife that delivered Baba was lovely she also delivered Rhianna (that was obviously a very different birth) but I was kept in the night I had Baba. He was bottle feed and was feeding fine and I had him at 6.30am so when I asked to go home a good 6 hours later I was told the exact same thing by the midwife on the ward. That if I discharged myself I would have a stroke because of my high blood pressure and would die! Lovely for a first time mum to hear. I stayed in that night. But when they told me the exact same thing the next day and still wouldn’t let me out Mr L hit the rough. Now you don’t generally mess with Mr L thankfully in these situations. Within half an hour the consultant was done, who stated that I never had pre eyclampsia and he wasn’t sure why I was still there and discharged me there and then. I at the time was a little embarrassed about the scene Mr L was making in hindsight I am so flaming pleased he did as they were keeping me for something that I didn’t even have. It does seem to be the norm to scare people to stay at hospitals I have to admit xx
I had a horrible hospital experience with my son 8 years ago, it still upsets me how awfully I was treated & spoken to when in hospital. I had my daughter at home and had the most beautiful experience. It was calm, I was in control, the midwife was amazing & I was calm enough to do what my body wanted to do at the right time. I know everyone hasn’t had an awful experience, but mine really scared me & took a long time to get over. I am blessed that I had a wonderful supportive husband and family & of course two gorgeous children.
How and where to childbirth shouldn’t be such an issue, it constantly amazes me still how women are treated when giving birth in hospital.