"I was waiting two hours in the most unimaginable pain, my eyes were rolling to the back of my head"

A mother's experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2025:

1. When I arrived, I was given my first midwife who was very nice but I was asked if I wanted a student Midwife for the next midwife change over, to which I was very anxious about and made it clear it made me feel uncomfortable. I then did say, ‘can I have time to think about it and can she ask again later down the line/closer to the swap over’, which she agreed to.

She never did and just brought in the student midwife without checking again when it was time to have a midwife swap. But because of my mental health and suspected autism I felt too anxious to say anything and just got on with it, but I have very bad health anxiety and this made me really worry and anxious.

2. I was checked to see how dilated I was and how much progress I had made at the start which I was 1cm dilated, my contraction went from 1-2 every 10 mins, manageable with breathing techniques! To a contraction 4-5 times every 10 mins, on gas and air, struggling to cope within the 4 hours and I was in agony and thought I was going to die!

The new midwife with the student midwife done the check, couldn’t reach my cervix. She then said she couldn’t reach my cervix so she imagines I’m still just 1cm making no progress. Which upset me, firstly because she didn’t know for a fact I was 1cm, it was a guess, I was also upset because she said she would get someone who can reach, when she came back she said that I wasn’t allowed to be checked again, and would have to wait another 4 hours for another check - even though I was never properly checked and I was in so much agony I wanted to die.

I didn’t trust my body, I really thought I was way further ahead than that but being told I wasn’t, this resulted in me having an epidural which is something I didn’t want but I didn’t think I could cope another 9cm especially as I didn’t make any progress in the last 4 hours. They kept telling me it was going to get a lot worse than what it was and that I had a long way to go. She also said they hadn’t been consistent with upping the oxytocin drip which upset me as that’s their responsibility to do that so I can progress effectively and efficiently, with this 1cm diagnoses, it resulted in me getting the epidural.

3. I was then about to be given the epidural and they all left to go to an emergency, I was then left waiting for ages, from the moment I asked for the epidural to the point that it was actually given I was waiting two hours in the most unimaginable pain, my eyes were rolling to the back of my head and I remember thinking how have I not passed out from this pain.

I thought I was going to go mad from the pain. I then asked for my mental health midwife as I was concerned for my mental state (who said if I needed them they will come see me due to my mental health and autism) the people looking after me said that the mental health midwife was busy with an emergency and wasn’t able to come to me. A mental health midwife was then never mentioned or brought to me at all for the rest of the night or my labour after having asked a few times in a moment of distress, I then asked again the next day.

When I had given birth and I was on recovery ward when they came, I mentioned to them about how I needed someone during my labour. I was then told that they were never called last night and they had no emergencies at all and the mental health midwife was free and would have been there if they had actually called them.

4. When I was about to have the epidural after waiting 2 hours (during these two hours I was not offered any other pain relief) I was later told at my birth reflections appointment that the reason I waited two hours was because they put me down as 1 cm dilated, they thought I was being dramatic and that I could’ve waited. I was never checked for how dilated I was, bearing in mind it had been 6 hours since someone could actually tell me how dilated I was, so I was 1cm 6 hours prior.

When the person doing the epidural asked how far along I was they said 1cm, even though they didn’t actually know as they couldn’t reach my cervix, and it had been 2 hours since that check. I was having an epidural based on a guess of my cervix, so by the time the epidural worked, I was pushing it much shows to me I was a lot further along than 1cm at time of epidural as epidurals only take 30 mins to work and within that time frame my baby was ready to come out!

The person who ended up doing my epidural with someone from the other side of the hospital, she was trained to do epidurals but did not do them very often so it took her three attempts to give me an epidural which has long-term effects on my back now.

5. I was then told not to push and that I wasn’t dilated enough. I was told I was hurting my baby, his heart rate was dropping and I wasn’t allowed to push; even though it was my body that was pushing, I was made to feel awful; they then finally checked my cervix again and the same lady said i was only 7cm dilated so I can’t push, but my body wouldn’t stop.

She then got the head midwife/doctor who checked and said i was actually 10cm dilated and I can push. I was made to feel like I was hurting my baby when I wasn’t, no one listened or trusted my body yet again. The fact that this midwife couldn’t tell the difference between 7 and 10cm doesn’t give me a lot of hope that I was actually only 1cm before epidural.

6. I was then cut for baby to come out which was fine, had to be done, I was then stitched up off and on for 3 hours and resulted in surgery because local anaesthetic wasn’t working and had a spinal block. Which was all my decisions but affected my mental health a lot due to my anxieties, but again no mental health midwife was offered when I was showing clear signs of distress. But I was then given obviously another spinal injection which again has also had a long-term effect on my back recovery.

7. I wanted golden hour with my baby, but he was taken to be weighed after 40 mins and they lied saying it had been an hour (I know it had been 40 mins because of photos) so it was another thing that was stripped away from me).

8. I was then taken to recovery with my baby, where I was paralysed from waist down due to spinal block, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t pick up my baby, I couldn’t feed him, the room was boiling, I was feeling so unwell, my baby hadn’t fed since 3am when he was first born and by the time I did feed him it was close to 10am. No one came to show me how to feed him or help me as I couldn’t sit up myself, we had to ask people to change my catheter bag. l no one kept on top of it, I was bleeding lots and no one came to help me change my pads etc, we had to keep chasing people up. I was basically left in a bed with my baby next to me, unable to do a thing and not knowing what to do with no one checking in on me at all, I’m just grateful I had my partner with me.

The first 7 hours of my baby being here I wasn’t able to offer him proper bonding time and no one tried to help either.