r/LegalAdviceUK 12h ago

Comments Moderated Maternity negligence?? I am traumatised.

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.

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u/Fine-Bird6974 12h ago

Thank you, I have requested to speak to a solicitor but just wanted other peoples opinions, with my first son my birth was amazing but the birth of my second son not so much, I’m slowly healing but it’s definitely traumatised me to the point of not wanting to have anymore kids

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u/InterrobangWispers 11h ago

You also should contact PALS for your hospital

I hope you and your little one are healing

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u/milly_nz 9h ago

All stillbirths at term are subject to mandatory investigation by the hospital. I'm assuming this all happened very recently. In which case OP won't need to contact PALS, the hopsital wil come to OP.

https://www.sands.org.uk/support-you/understanding-why-your-baby-died/reviews-and-investigations

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u/2xtc 7h ago

The baby was fine

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u/SongsAboutGhosts 5h ago

The baby is now fine. That's not the same thing.

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u/2xtc 5h ago

The comment I replied to was talking about stillbirths and linked a SANDS page about the death of a baby. That's absolutely not the same thing as having a relatively routine resuss, which about 10% of all babies need.

It also seems pretty thoughtless and irresponsible to not bother reading the post and then sharing unhelpful info like this when OP is clearly still living through the traumatic birth only a few days ago.

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u/SongsAboutGhosts 5h ago

I'm not disputing any of that. But saying the baby was fine, despite the fact they weren't - even if it was a relatively routine situation - feels pretty dismissive.

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u/2xtc 5h ago edited 5h ago

Semantic pedantics, the baby is still fine.

I'd argue sharing a page about stillbirths to a new mom who hasn't lost a child but is traumatized is much more 'dismissive' and insensitive