"Mostly positive experience of maternity care and birth at Shrewsbury"

In May 2014 I gave birth to my second child, a little boy, in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

I was considered higher risk due to sever Hyperemesis in pregnancy, low iron levels (even with an iron transfusion) and a history of having a heavy bleed after having my daughter.

I was extremely nervous going into the birth as I had not enjoyed the birth of my daughter and was worried about incurring another bleed. The staff on the consultant led ward were really supportive though and when I called to say my waters had gone, they got me to go in and saw me straight away. They were really reassuring and made me feel in control of the situation, but also calm. I returned the next morning when labour started and went on to have a normal delivery with no need for forceps or suction this time.

The staff were great at helping me to focus and remain calm. My only problem was that they needed to monitor babies heart rate for a little bit, which meant I had to lie on the bed, a position that was not natural or comfortable for me as I wanted to stay active. I understand that this was important for monitoring purposes, but once they had finished monitoring and were happy with babies heart, I was not allowed to move back off the bed and was not encouraged to keep active. This I feel lead me to start panicking more and also slowed down the progress of labour a little.

Apart from this though, the staff were fantastic and were so great at encouraging me. They were also great after the birth and listened to my wishes and supported me and baby so that I was able to immediately get the skin to skin contact and breast feed as I desperately wanted. Thank you for this as it was something I really felt I missed out on with the birth of my daughter.