Midwife ‘refused pain relief and said think of rum and cannabis’
A MIDWIFE slapped an expectant mother’s bottom and suggested she imagined ‘drinking a glass of rum and smoking a spliff’ to cope with the pain, a hearing heard yesterday.
Samantha Stanton allegedly refused to give the patient an epidural and shouted at her, ‘You’re in labour, you should be in pain’.
A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel also heard that she told the woman she had ‘lovely large nipples’ and squeezed them without consent.
Stanton faces a fitness to practise hearing over her conduct during a night shift last June at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. Conor Kennedy, for the NMC, said: ‘The mother was crying, and the registrant asked if they were tears of joy. She replied, “No, they are tears as I’m in pain”.
‘ The registrant then replied, “What do you expect you’re in labour”.’
Stanton was said to have clashed with the mother from the beginning of the labour.
The father told the panel that the midwife initially dismissed their requests for a birthing pool.
He said: ‘We told her that we had a birthing plan, and we wanted a birthing pool. She told us one wasn’t available, and then when we discussed other options, told us everything should be natural, and was very dismissive.
‘When I asked about epidurals, she told me that she didn’t believe in them.’
When the mother was placed in a birthing pool, Stanton told her to imagine she was ‘drinking a glass of rum and smoking a spliff’, the hearing was told.
Mr Kennedy added that it was
‘Blood curdling scream’
when the mother was in the bath that Stanton told her she had ‘lovely nipples’ and then ‘squeezed them without permission’.
The mother also said she needed to go to the bathroom, only for the registrant to allegedly tell her ‘you’re not going in my bath’ and urge her to stand up and use a cardboard box. It led to the mother having to be moved from the bath.
Mr Kennedy told the panel that Stanton had undertaken a rough internal exam against the mother’s will that led to her letting out a ‘blood curdling scream’ and only stopped when the father intervened.
Once the baby was born, the father was so concerned about its appearance he tried to stop his wife seeing it.
‘The baby looked dead,’ he said. ‘I did not want to upset her so I told her that he looked fine. I was scared I was going to lose the mother and baby.’
The panel heard Stanton told him it was all going to be fine but the father added: ‘It was like she was pretending and hadn’t realised what had happened.’
He told the hearing in Stratford, east London, he had then gone to find another nurse, and told them he didn’t want Stanton anywhere near his wife. He added that his son was ‘an amazing baby’ now.
Vivienne Tanchel, defending Stanton, said the midwife touched the woman’s nipples only in the context of talking about breastfeeding.
Stanton denies most of the charges against her, which include acting unprofessionally towards the mother, shouting at her, conducting a rough vaginal examination, slapping her on the bottom or thigh and missing epidurals.
The hearing continues.