It took being in labour for 54 hours for midwives to listen

Trembling as I watched the woman on TV push her baby out, I quickly snatched the remote and switched over to another channel. 

I dashed to the bathroom to splash cold water over my face, but it didn’t help – within seconds, a flashback of my own birth hit me, and tears began streaming down my face.

Even though it’s been seven years since my amazing son Milo was born, the trauma of the experience has never left me. Still, to this day, I can’t look at anything relating to childbirth.

It’s why I wasn’t surprised when I read about the findings from the UK’s first parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma.

It stated that pregnant women recalled being treated like ‘slabs of meat’ and that there was a ‘shockingly poor quality’ of care in maternity services.

That was certainly true in my case.

I’d been so excited when I found out I was expecting back in 2016. I decided to do a hypnobirthing course to help me relax during labour, and planned to have a water birth. 

But things didn’t go to plan.

After spending 19 hours at home struggling with contractions, my partner and I drove to and from the hospital three times but kept getting sent home because I wasn’t dilated enough. 

By the fourth time, I was shaking, vomiting, and couldn’t walk. I was in so much pain and was sent up to the maternity ward.

Screaming with every contraction, I told the midwives the pain was worse than it should be and that something felt wrong. I was abruptly told that I wasn’t in ‘full’ labour yet and was overreacting because it was my first time. 

It may have been my first time, but my instincts told me something wasn’t right. I felt belittled and patronised.  

It wasn’t until an excruciating 54 hours of labour later that I was eventually proved right. 

It later emerged that Milo’s head had been in the wrong position, which was not only blocking my cervix and preventing me from dilating, it was also putting his life at risk.

I knew my experience wasn’t normal, but nobody listened. Instead, as I endured hours of torturous pain, I was finally given pethidine for some relief. 

This was only after being yelled at by a midwife to stop complaining when I shuffled into the hallway, begging for help. 

Up until that point all I’d been offered was a gas and air mask, which had a hole in it. I kept telling the midwives that it wasn’t working, but like everything else, my pleas fell on deaf ears.

I didn’t even have a bed for most of the time I was on the maternity ward because they had none free. Instead, my partner and I were put into a side room with a corner sofa, which I lay on. My partner lay on the floor with his head on a rolled-up jumper, trying to get some rest when my pain relief kicked in.

I now know that if they’d listened to me when I said something was wrong, Milo could have been turned into the correct position much earlier on in my labour and perhaps delivered naturally.

Instead, 54 hours from the onset of labour, I was being wheeled into theatre for an emergency caesarean because my baby and I were now in danger. The midwives had attached me to a monitor that showed both our blood pressure’s were dropping dangerously low. 

I was terrified as the anaesthetist stuck the huge needle into my back to numb me from waist down. Warned not to move as the injection went in, I sobbed hysterically.

Within seconds I was out of pain, but my ordeal didn’t end there. As the numbness spread down my legs it also began spreading up through my chest. Panicking, I realised I couldn’t breathe. I heard the anaesthetist mutter: ‘S**t, I’ve given her too much spinal block’ as he placed an oxygen mask over my face. 

I couldn’t talk, breathe, and could only move my head and arms.

As tears slipped down my cheeks, I reached out to a nurse standing by my side, with an expression that would have said: ‘Please hold my hand, I’m scared.’ 

I was desperate for someone to comfort me, to tell me my baby and I were going to be OK. Instead, she just looked at me coldly and folded her arms.

The experience wasn’t much better for my partner, either. As the surgeons cut me open and yanked our son out, he felt something wet on his shoes and looked down to see my blood splattered all over them.

The delivery was so forceful that Milo was born covered in bruises and with a dislocated shoulder. That’s how ‘stuck’ he’d been in the birth canal. Yet, nobody had paid any attention to me when I’d tried to tell them something was wrong.

I was so relieved when I heard Milo cry, yet when I reached out to take him in my arms, I began convulsing so violently as a reaction to the drugs, I couldn’t hold him. Things got worse when he was then taken to intensive care for 10 days with breathing issues, and I had to stay in hospital with high blood pressure. 

I felt battered, broken, and in such shock, I just lay on my bed staring at the wall for hours. When I was first taken down in a wheelchair to see my beautiful baby – lying in an incubator and covered in tubes – I broke down.

I hadn’t expected birth to be easy, but I could never have imagined this.

The lack of attention and compassion from the midwives, and sheer coldness shown towards me had made me feel like an irritation; an annoyance rather than a woman struggling with an incredibly long and painful labour. 

In theatre I had indeed felt like a ‘slab of meat’ rather than a person. I felt like I wasn’t even human. 

I was so traumatised by my time on the maternity ward that, three days after the birth, I collapsed in hospital while visiting Milo. My body had gone into complete shock and for almost half an hour I lay unresponsive, not moving, not speaking, and barely breathing. A crash team was called as the nurses thought I’d gone into cardiac arrest at one point. 

I was given a shot of something to eventually bring me round and I sat in A&E shaking uncontrollably.

Thankfully, my traumatic birth never affected my bond with Milo, and, once we brought him home, he grew into a happy, outgoing little boy. I love being his mum.

But although my surgery scars have healed, the mental ones haven’t.

I had trauma therapy following the birth due to suffering nightmares and flashbacks, and complained to the hospital trust about how I was treated. They sent a letter back about how long I’d been in labour, but not addressing any of the issues. 

I was invited in for a meeting, but I couldn’t go near that hospital ever again. Just passing it in the car would give me a panic attack. 

Giving birth is a very personal, human experience and requires a human approach. I understand that hospitals are understaffed, and midwives are exhausted and overworked. I empathise with them, but seriously, how much extra effort does it take to hold someone’s hand or offer a few words of compassion and warmth? 

Or even just to pay attention and care?

You may not think it makes much of a difference, but for a woman terrified of losing her baby and her own life when things go wrong in labour it can do more than that. 

It can make her feel that she’s in safe hands.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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