WITH the umbilical cord wrapped around her unborn baby’s neck and the heartbeat monitor beeping wildly, Anna Clark begged for a C-section.
"There’ll be no caesareans on my watch," her midwife replied. "There haven’t been any with me for 18 months, so keep pushing.”
Fearful for the safety of the baby who would not come out, Anna kept asking for a medical intervention.
Only after 70 hours of labour did medics at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary finally relent and send the exhausted mum-to-be for an emergency C-section in 2009.
Anna, 53, from North Yorkshire, told The Sun: “I woke up a few hours later on an IV drip and we were informed our baby was alive and well, but he’d had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and almost died.
"Meanwhile I was on an IV drip with acutely high blood pressure and informed I’d almost died too.”
They are not alone.
Thousands of mothers have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and life-changing medical problems as a result of the Royal College of Midwives' (RCM) 2008 guidance that "intervention and caesarean shouldn't be the first choice, they should be the last".
At the weekend Gill Walton, head of the trade body, apologised for the organisation’s previous policy of promoting normal births and telling midwives to “wait and see” when potential complications arose.
But even in the wake of maternity scandals at Shrewsbury and Telford Trust and University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust, mums-to-be are still not being offered interventions when needed.
Anna says: “I still believe both Joseph and I could’ve died as a result of that midwife’s reluctance to let me have a C-section, and I hear so many similar stories.
“Hospitals still seem to put management techniques and targets ahead of patient welfare.”
Ms Walton admitted that some midwives are still promoting the idea that natural births are best.
And there is evidence that hospitals are not “learning lessons”, as promised.
Excessive force
In December 2020, a report by senior midwife Donna Ockenden following an inquiry into maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospitals Trust found that there was a use of excessive force and a reluctance to carry out C-sections.
One baby had died in 2007 from skull fractures after forceps were applied incorrectly.
The rate of caesarean sections was around 12 per cent, which was half the national English average of 24 per cent.
On the day that the preliminary report stated that the NHS Trust had “missed opportunities to learn in order to prevent serious harm to mothers and babies”, 27-year-old Charli Hadley’s concerns about the safety of her birth were ignored when she was admitted to the Princess Royal in Telford.
Even though she had been told her baby, whom she named Harry, was large, only a natural birth was ever discussed.
When Harry did not emerge during the long and exhausting labour, in which epidural pain relief failed to work, six staff rushed into the birthing room looking concerned.
Charli told The Sun: “When the doctor arrived he had forceps in his hands. The pain that I felt when he applied the clamps around Harry's head was worse than the initial contractions.
“I was sliding down the bed and the midwife and my husband had to hold me.
“My counsellor said she thinks I have PTSD and severe anxiety from the birth and the events after.”
Horror injuries
Harry was born healthily at 8lb 5oz, which is bigger than average, with cuts and bruises down his face.
But the doctor failed to carry out a proper examination of Charli before applying stitches - and that led to horrifying complications.
After returning home Charli was rushed to Shrewsbury hospital for emergency surgery to prevent leaks from her bowel.
Initially, her gynaecologist warned she may need a stoma fitted and that trying to repair her wounds "would be like trying to stitch a jelly".
She says: “If it had been spotted after I gave birth and repaired properly, I would have made a full recovery and wouldn’t have had the complications I later suffered.”
Charli needed two operations but the damage has been long-lasting, affecting her both physically and emotionally.
Charli is one of seven new negligence cases from 2020 and 2021 taken up by solicitors Lanyon Bowdler in Shropshire.
The firm is also representing some of the 1,800 patients who claim to have been mistreated on Shrewsbury and Telford maternity wards from 2000 to 2019.
Campaigners believe this is a nationwide issue rather than one restricted to a couple of rogue hospitals.
Niamh Butler, a 36-year-old solicitor from Newport in Essex, bled for 16 days after a traumatic birth at Kingston Hospital in South West London in 2018.
She says she was refused a C-section despite having a family history of requiring them and her baby being back-to-back, which can result in a longer, more painful labour more likely to end with caesarean or instrumental deliveries.
She says: “I’m a small size six, compared to my husband Derek who is 6ft 3in, so I knew a natural birth would likely present challenges.”
Her daughter Darcey required three pulls of the ventouse and four pulls of the forceps to be delivered during her 21-hour labour.
Niamh recalls: “I was in a very bad way. The instrumental delivery had caused a grade 3C tear, along with significant muscle damage.
“Recovering in hospital, I bled for 16 days – I constantly needed to go to the loo and I had immense abdominal pain. I kept pushing for scans, but was refused.”
Pelvic injury
Nine days later, medics finally agreed to a CT scan which showed she had suffered a pelvic injury and required surgery.
Niamh says: “Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, and I also still suffer from chronic coccyx pain, causing me to wake up in the night. I also haven’t been able to return to work as a result.”
Tees Law, who is supporting Niamh in her case against Kingston Hospital, recently undertook an investigation into the variances of practice and procedure across NHS Trusts in the UK after being concerned at the high number of medical negligence cases involving women denied a C-section.
It found that most women did not know that four per cent of them suffer third or fourth-degree tears during childbirth, which can lead to life-changing medical issues.
Janine Collier, head of medical negligence at Tees Law said: “We support more and more women who, despite requesting a caesarean section or expressing concern about a vaginal delivery, have been counselled in such a way that steers them towards a vaginal delivery.
“Unfortunately, they have then gone on to endure a traumatic birth, with significant and often permanent chronic mental health and or physical difficulties.
“In some cases, their babies may have suffered injury.”
A representative for Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust told The Sun: "We always strive to provide the best possible care to women using the maternity service at Kingston, and we are sorry to hear about this birth experience. Whilst we cannot comment on individual cases, decisions about care are always made in consultation with women around clinical need and patient choice."
