Mother hits out at rules after facing traumatic scans alone
IN AUGUST 2020, already suspecting something wasn’t right, Laura Santiago went into hospital for a scan to find out if the baby she was carrying was okay.
Sadly, her baby wasn’t. She was told the baby wouldn’t survive and she would miscarry.
After being given the news, Laura was told she could have some time in a side room to take the news in.
But she did all that alone as Covid rules meant her husband was sat waiting in their car in the car park.
Laura, from Trebanos, then had to leave the hospital to tell her husband the devastating news.
That was traumatic enough for anyone to endure, but since then she has miscarried twice more, and needed four NHS scans, and at none of those was her husband allowed with her due to rules in her health board area.
Each of those scans have been offered to her early as a result of a referral because a complication was suspected. After each Laura has had to take that lonely walk by herself out of the hospital to break the news to her husband.
Laura, now 37, says she is most bitter and angry about the fact that at her most recent scan after falling pregnant again – where she was given good news – her husband also wasn’t allowed to be with her.
Back in August 2020 Laura went for an early private scan and was told her baby wasn’t measuring as expected, so she was referred to the NHS for an emergency early scan.
While partners are allowed at private scans, they were not at NHS ones at that time, so husband Mike had to wait outside in the car park.
“It was the first time we were going through this experience, but I understood that there were so many different measures in place and things were changing so quickly.
“I felt like the whole country was on this journey of trying to figure out exactly what was going on and my part of that I had to go through this by myself and those were the rules.”
The hospital staff were “amazing”, she said and she was told she could use a waiting room for as long as she needed – but she was alone.
“He’s my husband and the baby’s father, but I’d already started that really traumatic journey on my own and I think I then almost kind of continued in terms of dealing with it emotionally.
“It just started the feeling of being really alone with what I was going through”.
When she fell pregnant again she had a private scan that again caused concern. When she was referred to the NHS it wasn’t clear whether it would be a viable pregnancy so she needed three scans – none of which Mike could be there for – along with blood tests before it could be confirmed the pregnancy was not viable.
Then she had to be admitted for a procedure, again alone.
“It just felt increasingly and incredibly shocking and cruel,” she said.
Her third miscarriage was lost early on before any scan.
“I think what I find really frustrating is that we were in the middle of Six Nations. I’m a big rugby fan and I was watching the incredible scenes with people back at the Millennium Stadium and seeing 70,000 people there but I had been alone in hospital.”
She is now pregnant again and has seen a private consultant who once again referred her for an early scan.
This time Mike was allowed in the hospital waiting room, but still not into the scan room with her so by the time Laura got to the scan she was in tears.
“I had to go in to the scan and I was sobbing because I’ve been here so many times before and I just didn’t know what news was going to be given to me, and then the first step is to see the heartbeat and it was a flood of emotion and I was so happy and so excited, but I didn’t get to share that with my husband.”
Last week, after being given the good news, she went to the waiting room to tell Mike, but saw another patient there who was in tears.
Not wanting to add to that woman’s apparent pain, she tried to mask her joy.
“What I think I’m actually more bitter about is getting the good news on my own after what we’ve been through. I think that’s what’s really stuck with me because this has been one hell of a journey for us and an incredibly painful one.
“If this pregnancy is successful this will be our second and our last child – I don’t intend to do this again and I wanted to enjoy the full experience of it.”
She is now booked in for another scan at the 12-week point, but as it has been referred through the early pregnancy unit she is not clear whether her husband will be allowed to be there.
“You’re only given an early scan on the NHS for a reason – if you’ve got medical history or it’s suspected that something is wrong. So why are those [when] you can’t have support? It is really mind-boggling,” said Laura.
The rules are different in all of Wales’ health boards and Laura can’t understand how, two years into the pandemic, the rules aren’t consistent and a testing system isn’t in place so partners can be there.
At her most recent scan, the phone call in which the staff member explained that the rules are still in place should have lasted a few minutes, but instead it was much longer and much angrier.
Laura knew it wasn’t that staff member’s fault, but was so incensed that she was in the same position as two years previously after the rules have been relaxed so much.
Her story was raised in the Senedd yesterday by Plaid Cymru’s South Wales West MS Sioned Williams.
Laura wants to speak out so that the rules are applied consistently across Wales so that in “every part of the pregnancy journey, pre and postnatal, I think it’s time for partners to be allowed to be there for the support and the experience of it at every stage”.
She added: “You’re bringing life into the world or being told that you’re not bringing life into it and there are very few things in life that are more profound than that, and for some bizarre reason someone has decided that you have to go through parts of that alone.”
There are added complications for Laura too.
She was diagnosed with a brain tumour on the day she went into labour with her son Theo, which affected the decisions being made about her care.
The tumour was slow-growing and she had regular scans to monitor it until she felt ready to leave her son to have the operation but, given the complications she had, she felt even more passionate about being able to enjoy a second baby and to get the rules made consistent for all women.
“Because of everything that happened with my pregnancy with my son, I was going through the symptoms and trying to get diagnosed with what became the brain tumour, I didn’t get to really enjoy that pregnancy. So I consciously made a decision that, even with my experiences, now I’m treating every pregnancy as optimistically and positively as I can because I think every pregnancy deserves that.
“I don’t want to lose the first three months by just being worried and concerned and anxious about what’s going to happen.”
She thinks the whole experience has, however, led to her dealing with the grief alone.
“Having gone through it three times alone, what it did was make me deal with the whole thing more on your own,” said Laura. “I think if my husband had been there for the scan and been told with me, I think that’s something we would have dealt with more as a couple together.
“But when you’re told on your own you kind of just go into an independent mode because you’ve gone through that by yourself.”
She said midwives are telling her they also disagree with the rules.
“Most of them I’ve spoken to say these rules would never be a choice and they’re pretty disgusted with it and it’s so infuriating. It is like noone’s listening to the people that know.
“For them, they have to deliver this information time and time again and they must get reaction over and over and over again.”
Sioned Williams MS asked the First Minister for the Welsh Government to ensure “better treatment” for women all across Wales and to look at the guidance and ensure a consistent approach to maternity services.
Mark Drakeford replied that he felt “enormous sympathy” for Laura.
“During the whole of the pandemic some of the most difficult circumstances faced by the NHS has been over maternity and the involvement of both partners in what should, in normal circumstances, be one of the most exciting times in their life,” he said.
“It hasn’t been right during the pandemic so far to try and issue a set of rules from Cathays Park that would override the necessary clinical judgement that can only be advised by the person who has clinical care for the mother and the unborn child.
“As we hope to recover from the worst effects of the pandemic, the Welsh Government will be offering advice to the NHS as a whole and it will for example seek to standardise the length of visits the families are able to make while somebody is in hospital, to make sure the approach to lateral flow testing is consistent across Wales, and the circumstances in which both parents can be involved is also consistent in one part of the NHS to another.”
Mr Drakeford said that was possible due to vaccinations and the way the NHS has learnt to deal with Covid.
“At the depths of the pandemic the view taken by those who advise us in the Welsh Government was that sort of national approach had to give way to the need to allow clinicians to exercise the judgement only they can exercise in order to safeguard mothers and unborn children.”
We approached each of Wales’ health boards and asked about their rules from the first maternity appointments through to scans, checks and birth. The rules are different for each. In Swansea, for example, if a woman is induced – a process that can take days – a named partner can only visit for up to two hours and at staggered times “depending on where the woman’s bed is in the unit”.
Patients in the Betsi Cadwaladr area have to order and take lateral flow tests before attending and, while it is voluntary, if the partner chooses not to take one they may be told they cannot attend appointments or the inpatient ward.
In Cardiff, people visiting patients are told not to sit on the beds and not to bring flowers or balloons.
I had to go in to the scan and I was sobbing because I’ve been here so many times before and I just didn’t know what news was going to be given to me, and then the first step is to see the heartbeat and it was a flood of emotion and I was so happy and so excited, but I didn’t get to share that with my husband Laura Santiago