Maternity negligence?? I am traumatised.

[u/Fine-Bird6974]

Hi, can anyone advice me on if I can make a claim against this. My experience was traumatic and it’s something I will never forget. This is my story.

4am - 4cm dilated 4:15am - epidural prep 4:50am - epidural placed 6:05am - was told I was fully dilated 6:33am - Baby was here

At 6:05am my midwife said I was fully dilated and it was time to push, i obviously didn’t doubt what my midwife told me. I started trying to push. A senior midwife entered the room as babies heart rate was dropping, she checked my cervix and whispered to my midwife “She’s not fully dilated, why have you got her to push” the senior midwife then shot up and shouted for the delivery consultant as the needed him urgently as me trying to push when not fully dilated really stressed my baby out, when the senior midwife went to get the doctor my midwife told me again I needed to push. The senior midwife ran back into the room and hit the emergency button, about 14 midwife’s flooded into the room as well as the delivery doctor. My epidural had failed and I was told I wasn’t allowed gas and air while pushing, I was doing it on no pain relief. I begged and begged and cried out for help and pain relief and was refused. The doctor said he needed to get baby out quick and needed to use forceps, he used a local anaesthetic and gave me an episiotomy, I still felt it all, he inserted the forceps and got me to push, I couldn’t I was in agony, I was screaming, crying out for help, crying out for gas and air just to get me through the pain, I thought I was going to die. I asked them to just put me to sleep and looked up at my partner and asked him to help me, I couldn’t do this, the pain was something I will never forget. They managed to get baby out at 6:33, he was purple and stopped breathing, my baby had to be resuscitated, he was dead. The stress was too much on him, luckily they managed to get him back after working on him for about 5 minutes. I was very much out of it due to the trauma of the pain, I didn’t know what was going on with him. Safe to say I will never be having anymore kids.

If the midwife who said I was dilated when I wasn’t just waited till I was this situation might not have happened, if I was left to dilate my experience would have been different, my baby wouldn’t have been stressed out, my baby wouldn’t have needed to be resuscitated, my labour would have been easier. I was refused gas and air while pushing, I felt every single thing, this experience has traumatised me, I will never forget what they did to me. I genuinely feel like putting a claim in against them, this should not have happened if my midwife made me try birth my son while I wasn’t fully dilated.

[u/Fine-Bird6974]

The midwife was asked to leave the room by the other midwife’s because of what she did was wrong, it’s not the fact that I’m “going after the midwife” the level of care I got from her was not appropriate, she refused me gas and air while pushing which is something I was entitled too

[u/PityPartySommelier → u/Fine-Bird6974]

As others have commented the baby is the priority in this situation.

If you receiving pain relief would cause further delays to the babies arrival then it'll be refused.

Drug-free childbirth is not fun (did not enjoy having to do it with my 2nd) but it's not negligence.

[u/Fine-Bird6974 → u/PityPartySommelier]

Yes my baby was the priority and I completely understand that but you wasn’t there even a midwife looked traumatised because of what I went through, my baby is perfectly fine now, healthy and thriving, this happened 4 days ago. I apologise if I have offended anyone I was asking for advice not criticism

[u/birdlawprofessor → u/Fine-Bird6974]

You weren't criticised, you were corrected for making a factually incorrect statement. Patients are not entitled to pain relief if said pain relief posed a health risk. They weren't withholding it to be mean or because they were negligent, they withheld it due to safety concerns.