"26 years on, I still have psychological trauma"

A mother's experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 1999:

I was 42+ weeks gestation and throughout my pregnancy they just kept telling me it was a big baby.

I was admitted on the Saturday night for an induced labour when my waters broke on the Saturday evening. 17+ hours in labour, and failed epidurals, entonox by the cylinders and the pain was unbelievable.

I became too weak to push. They tried ventouse and forceps and the baby was now in utter distress. They tried to push my son back up the birth canal for an emergency Caesarean.

They finally agreed to call in the specialist consultant on a Sunday morning in panic as I was losing so much blood. They decided to cut me open, episiotomy. I found they were very reluctant to give strong pain relief, as I was in so much pain, they did not seem to take the situation seriously, my husband was watching all of this who was shocked and beyond distressed as he was medically trained as well.

I ended up in a high dependency unit with a blood transfusion and weakness down one side of my body, with a hospital stay of several days.

Now, 26 years on, I still have psychological trauma after this, and 3 miscarriages.

Before I never wanted to take it any further, as I was so happy to have a healthy boy, I thought I was never going to see him growing up.

I am horrified to see this is still going on all these years later.