How some mums are so traumatised by their NHS post natal care they say they’ll NEVER have another baby
KELLY DERRY first asked the nurses on the maternity ward for more pain relief at 6am. The 29-year- old had given birth to her daughter 18 hours earlier, but the epidural — the anaesthetising injection given to some mothers in labour — was now wearing off, and she was in terrible pain.
‘When the nurses did the early morning drugs round, I asked if I could have something and they said yes, but then continued on to the next bed,’ says Kelly, a retail worker from Boston, Lincolnshire.
‘I knew they were very busy, so I assumed they’d come back with some tablets as soon as they could, but an hour-and-a-half passed, I was in more pain — and still no relief.
‘I asked another nurse, who said she’d get me some, but she never returned. Then I asked another, and another. All three said they’d get me something, but no one brought any. By mid-morning, I was experiencing severe abdominal cramps.
‘I knew it was normal after a natural birth, because this was my third baby, but by lunchtime — a good six or seven hours later — I couldn’t take it any longer. I ended up texting my husband, Steve, and asked him to nip to the shops and get me some painkillers.
‘He arrived half-an-hour later, our other two children in tow, with some co-codamol. He was shocked that I’d not been given anything by the nurses, but I was just relieved to see him.
‘I took the tablets and, within minutes, I was feeling better. I didn’t say anything to the staff about it — I just wanted to get out of there.’
Failing to prescribe basic painkillers to a new mother may seem like a rare but unfortunate oversight, and even Kelly admits she had some sympathy for the staff on the very busy postnatal ward in her local hospital.
Sadly, though, her story is far from unique. Thousands of new mothers are being left without pain relief, food and water in NHS maternity units, according to a new survey.
So dire is the situation that one in five new mothers say they were psychologically scarred by the ordeal, so much so that many have vowed never to have another child.
The survey by parenting website Mumsnet of some 1,220 new mothers found that 45 per cent of those who’d given birth in the past three years said they felt abandoned with insufficient pain relief.
Sixty-one per cent said they could not get food, and 22 per cent were not given water to drink. A fifth were without washing facilities.
earlier this week, other damning figures were revealed when it emerged that maternity staff are making 1,400 mistakes in NHS wards every week.
A Freedom of Information request by the BBC revealed how a shocking 305,019 errors were recorded by midwives and nurses in the past three years. These range from records being lost to the needless deaths of mothers and babies.
Figures show that at least 259 women or babies died between 2013 and 2016 due to avoidable or unexpected circumstances.
Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, says denying mothers basic standards of care on maternity wards is just the tip of a very worrying iceberg.
‘Women who’ve just given birth should not be going hungry or thirsty, or having to ask repeatedly for pain relief, or wash in dirty bathrooms,’ she says. ‘NHS resources tend to be focused on pregnancy care and birth. That focus falls away when women leave the labour room.
‘Women deserve similar levels of attention in the crucial days and weeks following birth.
‘New mums are often acutely aware of how much pressure NHS workers are under, and they’re extremely reluctant to complain. But it’s becoming clear that women need to be offered better ways to give detailed feedback to hospitals on their experiences, so that changes can be made where necessary.’
The Mumsnet survey highlights how nearly one in six mothers actually discharge themselves early to escape poor care.
Perhaps most worrying of all is that 5 per cent of those questioned developed post-natal depression, which they said was at least partly caused by how they were treated.
That was certainly the case for Kelly, who discharged herself early, against the wishes of staff, and who developed post-natal depression a week later.
‘I’m convinced that my depression had something to do with how I was treated on that ward,’ she says.
‘I wanted to freshen up, but was told that I couldn’t have a shower because there weren’t enough staff to look after my baby — which I completely understood.
‘But also I couldn’t take my baby into the bathroom because she might overheat. If I went to the toilet, she had to come with me — and they were filthy.’
SHE
adds: ‘ By teatime, I’d had enough and discharged myself. The nurses wanted to keep me in for another day, but I knew I could take better care of myself and my baby at home.’ At home, though, Kelly began to feel the creep of depression.
‘I was very weepy and clingy with my baby,’ she says. ‘I didn’t even like Steve or family picking her up.
‘A week later, my GP diagnosed me with post-natal depression. I’m fine now, but so disappointed that what should have been a lovely first few hours with my baby turned into something stressful and upsetting.
‘The aftercare with my two other children, who are three and four now, had been fine, so I have no idea what’s gone wrong in the past few years. It must be down to funding.’
Indeed, only 8.5 per cent of total maternity care spending in england goes on post-natal care, despite it being a crucial time for mothers to bond with their babies and learn to care for the child.
The National Childbirth Trust says women are being let down.
‘It’s completely unacceptable that new mums are not being properly looked after on post-natal wards,’ says NCT senior policy adviser elizabeth Duff.
‘We know many women get good care in labour, then are left to fend for themselves — and their babies — afterwards, and this situation has to change. There must be enough midwives to support them.’
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Royal College of Midwives believes that much more investment is needed to help achieve the best outcomes for mother and baby.
‘ Surveys of women’s views of maternity care — including this latest one — repeatedly inform us of their unhappiness with the current provision of post-natal care,’ says Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the RCM. ‘In 2017, this is certainly not good enough.
‘If we are to invest in better postnatal care for women, we must invest in more midwives. england remains 3,500 midwives short, and our maternity services will continue to struggle in supporting women if this shortage is not addressed.’
In the Mumsnet survey, 62 per cent of women said their post-natal ward was understaffed and 19 per cent said staying in hospital affected their mental health.
It’s particularly worrying because suicide is the leading cause of death among new mothers.
Yet 43 per cent of health boards in england provide no specialised maternal mental health service.
Milli Gee, 27, from Southend, who gave birth at 33 weeks to twins RubyRose and Lilly-Joy in July 2015, feels that her post-natal depression and post- traumatic stress disorder diagnosed last year was a result of her treatment on the maternity ward. She’s now having counselling. ‘Although the pregnancy had been problematic, and it was a premature birth, I was fully prepared for my daughters to end up in Special Care,’ she says.
‘What I was unprepared for was being abandoned in the maternity unit with no pain relief and having to argue with nurses and midwives about seeing my babies.
‘The girls were born at 2pm by
C- section and i asked four nurses if i could have a wheelchair so my partner, Kenny, could wheel me to go and see them. But i kept being told i’d have to wait until morning.
‘There was no way i was going to wait that long and had to demand that someone bring me a wheelchair. But it was 10pm before i met my daughters for the first time.
‘i was in so much pain but at least i’d been given an ibuprofen tablet.
‘The next morning, i was moved from a private room to the maternity ward and the curtains were closed around me. i felt i was pretty much forgotten after that. i remember being in terrible pain and asking for more pain relief, but nurses kept telling me: “We’re very busy” and they’d walk off.
‘it was seven hours before i finally got some pain relief — and that was only because Kenny went up to the nurses’ desk and got quite angry about it.
‘i was hungry and thirsty, too. All i had to eat were some toffees that my mum had brought in.
‘i kept thinking that someone would pop their head round the curtain to make sure i was ok — even get me some water — but it never happened.’
Milli decided to discharge herself later that evening. ‘i’d had enough,’ she says. ‘The doctors wanted to keep me in for one more night and wouldn’t let me go until i’d passed urine, so i went to the toilet, but it was dirty.
‘on the window ledge were four bowls of other women’s urine samples. it was the hottest day of the year, so you can imagine the smell. i wanted to get home as soon as possible where i knew i’d be better looked after by my mum. once home, i felt much better and, when the twins came home 21 days later, i was so relieved.
‘i never put in a complaint. i wanted to get on with my life. All i know is that i felt forgotten about, at a time when just a little care and compassion would have gone a long way.’
Lauren Woodley, 30, a legal secretary from Chalfont st Giles, Buckinghamshire, was left in agony for more than nine hours after giving birth in February 2016.
The married mum-of-three had undergone four days of exhausting labour before her son, Alex, was born at 37 weeks by emergency Caesarean. ‘After i’d had Alex at 2pm, he was moved to neonatal to be monitored, while i was taken to a ward.
‘We were told there would be a drugs round at 5pm so we’d get pain relief then,’ says Lauren, who is married to Kevin, 31, an area installations manager for a kitchen company.
‘But 5pm came and went and no one came. By 9pm, all six of us on the ward were in so much pain. We were pretty much screaming for nurses by this point.
‘it was 2am — 12 hours after i’d given birth — when the drugs trolley came round and we were all woken to be given pain relief.
‘Thankfully, we were given food and drink, but i didn’t get to see my son for two days because no one could get a wheelchair for me and i was told that they were too busy to take me.’
LAUREN adds: ‘ he was finally brought to me and placed in a cot, but at one point, one of my friends witnessed a stranger — a male who was visiting the ward while i was sleeping — actually trying to lift my baby from his cot. he stopped when she approached him.
‘When i complained to the nurses, they brushed the incident off, telling me that he couldn’t have taken my son anywhere because he was tagged.
‘But when i was discharged three days later, i discovered there’d never been a tag on him at all.
‘i put in a written complaint to the hospital about the aftercare on the ward but heard nothing back.’
An Nhs England spokesman said: ‘in an Nhs survey of 20,000 new mothers, 95 per cent felt they were treated with kindness and understanding, and 88 per cent felt that if they needed attention, they received it.’
Yet that leaves a disturbing 12 per cent who didn’t.
Among those questioned in the Mumsnet survey who would have been likely to have more children, 5 per cent said the experience had contributed to a decision not to expand their family.
Lauren says: ‘ i’m a mum- of-three and had wanted four — but after my experience on that ward, there’s no way i’m putting myself through that again.’