The second theme summarised just how important birth professionals are – and often this was individual members of staff. Women regularly felt very let down by those who they expected to support them. There was acknowledgement that this was often due to service pressures, although not always. Women also felt cheated by the information they had received prior to birth, noting that they needed more information about labour in general, and a more balanced view of birth (including the possibilities of intervention and recovery after birth). There were shining stars mentioned in many stories, most frequently in relation to support following the birth or in planning a second delivery. Partners were rarely mentioned as a source of support or conflict, but usually instead were mentioned in regard to their own trauma.

1. THE CARE NEVER COMES: ‘I felt very abandoned and scared, just completely uncared for’

The stories frequently had an ‘us and them’ feel to them, with women describing feeling unsupported and isolated – ‘nobody spoke to me, nobody comforted me when I started to shake and haemorrhage and vomit’, ‘I was told that I couldn’t have a shower and left waiting in a triage waiting room for my husband to collect me in blood stained PJ’s’. 

 At a particularly vulnerable time, women reported feeling abandoned by the staff around them ’39 hours of being ignored and scared’, ‘I felt very abandoned and scared, just completely uncared for’. Women felt pushed and pressured during birth, ‘we had to keep the doctors at bay who were pushing for intervention’, ‘from the very beginning I felt pressured and rushed’. Related to this, there was a sense that their own instincts were not being listened to – ‘This was the first time she even thought about checking how dilated I was…I was ready to push’, ‘after lots of pleading that something wasn’t right, they asked a paediatrician to check [my son] over. We’d both got sepsis’, ‘I was told to trust medical professionals over my own instinct.’ 

 Women sometimes felt in the middle of disagreements between staff, ‘midwives were arguing’, ‘raised voices’, ‘one doctor telling me to push, midwife telling me to stop’. They also reported hearing how they were being spoken about, which could be disturbing when concerns were being raised ‘Doctor shouting he couldn’t find a swab inside me’, ‘awareness of the surgeon struggling’, ‘the surgeon was saying [about my placenta] ‘it’s piecemeal’.

There were examples of staff being rude, hostile or even verbally abusive ‘Doctor began screaming at me to push’, ‘The doctor humiliated me’, ‘She continually rolled her eyes at me’, ‘She was talking about me as if I wasn't there’. There was a lack of trust that professionals had the women’s best interests at heart, including after birth when there were a number of cases when note keeping had not been accurate: ‘She told us her shift was finishing at 7:30 and my little boy was born at 7:24pm - coincidence?’, ‘The ward nurses came and literally kicked me out of bed at 8am’, ‘there was nothing in the notes’, ‘none of this was recorded by the midwife’. 

Women were also disappointed by the stories they’d heard before birth, with a sense that antenatal classes need to be more honest about the more negative possibilities of birth – ‘The expectation that every woman can have a normal birth sets women up to feel rubbish postnatally if she can’t’, ‘don’t hide the truth on what to expect, they could have explained how likely assistance will be, how pain relief is perfectly acceptable’, ‘Would have been easier if I’d never gone on the [hypnobirthing] course and instead spoken to women who’d had different kinds of births’.  

2. THEY’RE OVERSTRETCHED:  ‘I was sent back down after 3 hours as there was no one available’

Women were all too aware of the way in which cuts to services and understaffing were impacting on their births. They reported arriving at hospital to find there was no room for them, being told no midwives were available to deliver their baby, being seen by clearly stressed staff – or not being seen because of a lack of staff, and blamed poor aftercare on service pressures. ‘I was sent back down after 3 hours as there was no one available’, ‘[I was] without a midwife for significant chunks of time, and crucially when I was in transition’, ’The care was affected due to workload and staffing’, ‘with the budget cuts, they are failing to provide adequate aftercare’. 

3. I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT SHE DID FOR ME: ‘She truly cared about me having a positive birth’

TEven within the strained services though, there were shining lights. Key in this seemed to be helping women feel supported, ‘Obstetrician was fantastic, factual and supportive’, ‘Midwives [were] completely encouraging and supportive’, ‘She listened to me and rationalised my concerns’, ’I was well-supported and encouraged to allow things to unfold at their own pace’; and also safe – ‘I felt held and safe’, ‘made me feel safe’; treated with kindness – ‘[midwife] was amazing’, ‘there were a few midwives who were lovely’, ‘she truly cared about me having a positive birth’. The impact of these individuals was considerable ‘the consultant was the turning point’, ‘I got the most amazing midwife who I remember as my superhero’, ‘I will never forget what she did for me’, ‘[she] gave me back my belief in myself’.

4. HE WAS LITERALLY MY HERO: ‘I couldn’t have done it without him’

It’s worth mentioning how partners are described in the birth stories. On a couple of occasions they are heroic – ‘I couldn’t have done it without him really reassuring me’, ‘he was literally my hero’. But more often they are described by their exclusion – being left in a corridor while women are wheeled into theatre (‘my poor husband was left crying in the hall’), or being sent home while the birthing mother is left alone – ‘One of the things I really struggled with after a traumatic forceps delivery was the hospital not allowing my husband to stay at night, I think it would have made all the difference if I'd been allowed to have someone I trusted with me’. Their traumatic experience is described more fully in Theme 3, Delivery into Parenthood.

Can staff be kind if they’re burnt out?

The impact of individuals cannot be underestimated, and within this we must ask questions about why professionals are not able to be empathic. There is something here about the power imbalance, with the birthing woman in a position of vulnerability, and the professionals in a position of power. At times a reliance on protocol and what’s expected rather than listening to the birthing woman and their experience. But also the intense pressure on services is clearly impacting on women’s births – can staff be kind if they are burnt out? 

It’s also notable that partners are not mentioned as often as one might expect as a source of support. Instead it seems that they enter into an alliance with the birthing mother, equally helpless and unheard. Often they are given the role of trying to galvanise help which is not forthcoming. Does this mean that we need to think more about how the couple as a partnership can be supported? Rather than viewing a birth partner simply as a source of support, perhaps we need to view him or her as another agent in need of support and reassurance.

Next

Move to Theme 3: Delivery into Parenthood here or return to the summary of Make Birth Better Campaigns here.