"Horrible Maternity Care at St Thomas Hospital"

This was my first pregnancy and I picked St Thomas due to the good reputation of the hospital. I really wish I didn't now.

Firstly my labour was 4 days, as a result of being sent home 3 times. I was constantly told first labour can be quite long, which I never disputed. But if the nurses would have done their job properly they would have investigated my prolonged labour and found that my babies head was not in the right position to give birth vaginally. There are so many bad points about my labour care at this hospital that I could spend hours writing about it's ridiculous.

My baby was then finally monitored at the day unit and they found that his heartbeat was dipping with every contraction, and that is the only reason they admitted me. God only knows what would have happened to him and me if this wasn't the case.

I was then given drugs to speed up my contractions, in which my babies heartbeat had stopped for a brief second or two whilst on the monitor. The midwife had to press the emergency button, when a handful of other midwives ran into the room. They then needed to scrape my baby's head inside the womb to check the blood from his head and see what level his oxygen was. This is around 10 hours after my waters had broken and my waters were filled with the babies poo, which was obvious signs of distress.

I felt like so many things could have been avoided and anyway as a result of the bad lack of judgement I had to have an emergency c-section whilst being completely exhausted. I'm surprised I made it through the surgery, seen as my blood platelet count was considerably low also. So after 4 days labour my son was born.

Thank God he was healthy. But he was very swollen around his face area, which has gone down now. I knew that it was from all the stress of the labour on him. But it doesn't end there, the after care was utterly disgusting! The room I was put in was pipping hot! Other mothers complained too, the midwives just said it's fine. Most of the midwives had no care in the world and took ages to get back to you for things you asked for, including baby milk. I had no help getting out bed after my c-section, not even help to pull my baby across the hall to see the doctor. My sheets weren't even changed! I even developed an infection which I was given antibiotics for but never told what the infection was. Then on my discharge day, I had to wait 8 hours in another room to be discharged, cause they were busy and needed my bed space.

Put it this way I would never ever return to have another baby at St Thomas. I'm highly disappointed and feel lucky to be alive and my baby too.