"I was forced to go two weeks overdue. That was just the beginning of the nightmare."

A mother's experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2019:

There were warning signs throughout my pregnancy that something was wrong.

The NT measurement was very high, there was a single artery umbilical cord, and an extra vein going into my baby’s heart. I was told there was a 50% chance my daughter had a chromosomal abnormality.

And yet, despite these red flags, I was still marked as a low-risk pregnancy. Even when I asked to be induced around my due date, my concerns were dismissed, and I was forced to go two weeks overdue. That was just the beginning of the nightmare.

On Monday, they induced me with a gel, triggering what they described as a fake labour—contractions with no real progress. I had to wait 24 hours for it to wear off before they tried again.

On Tuesday, they induced me with an IV drip, and this time, labour started in full force. A student midwife was assigned to me, and as the hours passed, I began feeling increasingly unwell – shivering uncontrollably, burning up, and my pulse racing. They dismissed it as a side effect of the gas and air.

When they broke my waters, the symptoms only worsened. I asked for an epidural, but it failed—only half of my body went numb.

By the early hours of Wednesday morning, I had nothing left in me. I started vomiting. My birth partner told the student midwife I was burning up, and finally, she fetched a doctor. That’s when they realized my cervix was swelling shut from the prolonged labour, and my baby’s heart rate was erratic. They decided on an emergency C-section—but we had to wait for an available operating theatre.

Down in the operating room, the anaesthetist became alarmed at my skyrocketing pulse. She mentioned "tachycardia," and I told her I felt awful. Thankfully, she put the pieces together and ordered a sepsis test. By the time they were prepping me for surgery, I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

I felt like I was dying. The sepsis test came back—I had severe sepsis, and I was dying. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about delivering my baby; they had to save both of our lives. They pumped us full of strong drugs and antibiotics, and by some miracle, we survived.

When they delivered my daughter, they discovered her head had been lodged sideways in my pelvis—I never would have been able to give birth naturally. In the operating room, a doctor gave my daughter a full examination and declared her perfect. I was taken back to the ward with the other mothers and babies.

When my friends in the medical field found out, they were horrified – I should have been in the ICU.

Exhausted, weak, and recovering from both surgery and sepsis, I was left alone to care for my baby. Every time I tried to feed her, she vomited. A doctor came to check her and once again said she was perfect. Then, in the early hours of Thursday morning, a student midwife helped me change her nappy for the first time—and finally, someone noticed. My daughter had no anus.

Within moments, she was rushed to the NICU. At just two days old, my daughter underwent major stomach surgery. Later on we discovered that she also had other issues with her heart and spine. By Friday, I was completely depleted. I begged a midwife for a place to rest away from the noisy ward full of babies, explaining that I hadn’t slept since Sunday night. She went pale, realizing the severity of my condition, and suddenly, they found a small room for me to sleep in.

The aftercare was appalling. I was eventually given my own room, but when I asked for a wheelchair to see my daughter in the NICU, a health visitor told me it would be better for me to walk. A doctor assured me I could stay in the hospital for a few days to be close to my baby and breastfeed – only for a nurse to ignore that promise and forcefully discharge me.

I could write an entire list of the ways I was mistreated, but I’ll stop here. I am grateful that my daughter and I survived.

But what was meant to be the most beautiful experience of my life became a week I try very hard not to think about.