"In the middle of my labour all the staff disappeared so I was left on my own for a few hours"

A mother’s experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2023:

I was forced to go to the JR after my blood pressure increased in the last week of pregnancy with my son.

I had previously raised concerns about birthing there because I'd had an ectopic pregnancy before my son and my diagnosis and emergency surgery was all in the same building as the maternity services and I felt traumatised from the experience of my ectopic pregnancy. Perinatal mental health worked with me to outline a birth plan that would help me deal with this which included basic fundamentals like communicating with me about what was going on.

During my labour with my son I had a new midwife every 2-4 hours as I was told there was a staff shortage, so they were all doing short shifts to cover. Not one of them read my birth plan. In the middle of my labour all the staff disappeared so I was left on my own for a few hours just me and my husband in the delivery suite.

The midwife broke my waters but did not explain any of the potential risks before getting my consent to do so. I was hooked up to monitors that kept alarming because they lost connection. They then decided to put a monitor on my son's head which only worked if I stayed on my back to birth and still lost connection at points.

All of this I believe is why my son then got stuck and I had to have a forceps delivery in theatre. The staff in the theatre were incredible for the actual birth but then immediately afterwards took my son away and intubated him without explaining what was going on. They asked my husband if he wanted to go with my son then decided that he couldn't.

I then got moved to the recovery ward and my husband had to keep running back and forth between myself and my son to bring colostrum to him. I was told as part of my birth plan that my husband would be allowed to stay but then he was kicked out after visiting hours despite me being in an individual room.

My son and I were discharged a day later but then had to wait 5 hours for medication to be issued before we could eventually leave at midnight.