"Induction..."

Anything else?

Pinderfields hospital -antenatal ward- June 2012

When being induced although it is a particularly painful and rapid process it is common hospital policy to not allow your partner to stay with you past 9pm. I was also on a ward with lots of other women who were screaming with other pains non induction related. Midwives were not available when you needed them and they would not listen to me when I was trying to tell them I was in severe pain. This resulted in me becoming 7 cm dilated on a ward with no offerings of a pain medication. I had to scream and shout for someone to check me and I am convinced that if I hadn’t I probably would have been ignored and had to give birth in an antenatal ward. This experience traumatised me, as I was being induced for two nights I didn’t get any sleep the first and I was alone and scared the second, finally I was taken to the labour ward at 7 cm dilated and my partner who had been thrown out about an hour and a half earlier had to rush back to hospital.

The midwives were very unprofessional, they wouldn’t listen to me when I said I was in pain, they threw my boyfriend and family out when I was beside myself, they were too busy chatting and drinking coffee when I needed them. I wasn’t able to get an epidural like I originally wanted because it was too late so because of this my baby never breastfed because of pethadine.

The procedure for inductions really needs to be thought through, for my labour I was alone and scared and sleep deprived. This reflected badly on my birth experience and my bond with my daughter. My aftercare was also patchy to say the least. I felt like an animal in the zoo as opposed to a patient.

Labour was better thanks to a fantastic pair of labour midwifes.