"I was eventually referred to a consultant who told me I was being hysterical and should just get on with it."

A mother’s experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2015 and 2017:

I experienced a problematic first pregnancy with what they described as “an irritable uterus” from 16 weeks which involved contractions whenever I or the baby moved. When it was investigated a junior doctor during a check up, he told me he didn’t know a lot about pregnancy but in all probability I had had a miscarriage and should go home and wait for the baby to pass. I was eventually referred to a consultant who told me I was being hysterical and should just get on with it.

Hygiene was also an issue, and during visits to the maternity unit the bathroom sinks would be crowded with other patient’s urine samples and blood soaked sanitary towels. My waters broke on the Sunday morning and we went to the hospital with contractions to be told “this is nothing, you’ll feel like you’ve been hit by a bus when the time labour really starts”, and was sent home, crawling down the corridor with the contractions.

On day 2 of being in labour we went back in to be mistaken for another patient and we were sent to the birthing room and I was given gas and air to then be told to go home again. By day 3 after no sleep for 3 days I went into shock and my partner rushed me to the hospital. It turned out the hospital knew it was a back-to-back birth so the contractions are likely to be inconsistent and very painful.

They didn’t once monitor the baby and at one point I was on my own on the floor of the hospital toilet thinking I was going to give birth there on my own. I asked for pain relief and received only 1 paracetamol and a hand massage, not even gas and air. When my daughter was delivered 6 hours later (78 hours after my waters broke) she was very unwell which the staff didn’t notice until 9 hours later when I eventually got hold of a member of staff because I couldn’t wake her.

She was rushed to ICU with multiple infections and I was told I had to go back up to the room because I also had an infection. I was told I would be called to feed her every couple of hours but they didn’t and at 5pm I dragged myself through the hospital to find her in an incubator, extremely unwell. The nurse in ICU criticised me saying my baby had been starving on sugar water because I’d insisted I breastfeed her. She then refused to tell me what was wrong and I had to sit next to my baby for over 2 hours thinking she was dying.

We were in the hospital for a week to treat her pneumonia, caused by the delay between waters breaking and giving birth. One night I could hear a woman screaming down the corridor and came out in the morning to something out of a horror film with staff mopping up blood all over the floor and up the walls.

My Dad also had to request that they run their 2 hourly checks of myself and my daughter at the same time because after 3 days of labour they were waking me every hour. I was traumatised by the whole experience and have anxiety still 11 years later caused by this experience.

When I got pregnant with my second child my anxiety went through the roof and I had to seek therapy. I requested a c section but was denied by the hospital. After many requests they eventually agreed I could speak to the head of the maternity unit to relay my experiences and concerns. She still refused the c section but said I could have a planned induction and epidural.

During a scan I was told the placenta was very low which was a concern. Although I raised this at each appointment it was dismissed by staff. They kept trying to push me to have a home birth which would have been catastrophic if I’d have agreed.

During the labour, the midwife kept leaving the room for long periods of time and it was my partner who noticed the baby’s head had birthed. The midwife panicked and then panicked again when my partner pointed out that I had haemorrhaged badly and blood was running off the bed and pooling on the floor.

She later told us she had overdosed me with medication in the panic which then made me horrendously sick for the next 8 hours causing me to throw up and pass out. I then had to spend a week in the hospital recovering due to losing a litre of blood due to the placenta being low.

I agree that understaffing was an issue but attitudes of staff towards pregnant women were also horrendous. I received a lot of dismissive and hostile behaviour from staff.