"I laboured too long, with mistakes from midwives and got sepsis."

A mother’s experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2018:

I gave birth and lost a great deal of blood in labour. I laboured too long, with mistakes from midwives and got sepsis. I was left after blood loss alone with my baby with no midwives for hours despite calling the bell. I couldn’t stand or walk or feed my baby.

Due to my blood loss I had no milk. They got my notes mixed up with another mum’s and told me that the only way to feed my baby would be with another mum’s milk as they were anti formula. I desperately wanted to feed my baby but had no milk. I was ‘milked’ by a midwife who couldn’t get any out and sent home and told ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you could buy formula on the way home’ by a midwife.

I shouldn’t have been discharged but they made a mistake due to the notes and I ended up in Stoke Mandeville a few days later because my baby lost so much weight as a result of me having no milk.

They shattered my coaxix getting the baby out in labour and I was offered no pain medication either.

The trauma of thinking it’s my fault I couldn’t feed my baby and it being my fault has stayed with me ever since and I still have flashbacks to that and being alone after they couldn’t stop me bleeding.

I think this hospital should be shut down.