"It felt cold. It felt careless. And I felt invisible"

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

I’ve gone back and forth about whether to share this. But I keep thinking… if I had read something like this before I gave birth, maybe I would’ve felt less alone. So here it is—my postnatal experience at John Radcliffe Hospital.

I went in excited, scared, and hopeful. I wanted to do everything I could to give my baby the best start—and for me, that meant exclusively breastfeeding. I’d prepared, I’d read, I was committed. But the moment I needed help, it felt like no one was really there.

There Was No Real Support

The only “support” I was offered was a group breastfeeding workshop that didn’t even scratch the surface of what I was going through. I was struggling. I asked for help. I cried. But I was met with silence—or worse, conflicting advice that left me feeling more confused than before.

Then my baby developed jaundice. And just like that, I was told to stop breastfeeding and move to formula. No real discussion. No proper explanation. Just a decision made for me, without me. I now know that the World Health Organization actually recommends continuing to breastfeed through jaundice. But no one told me that.

I left hospital fully formula feeding. Not by choice. But because I felt I had no other option. I can’t even begin to describe the guilt and grief that came with that. It broke me.

I Didn’t Feel Seen

Later, when I read my postnatal notes, I was stunned. They didn’t reflect how I felt or what I went through. It was like reading about someone else entirely—someone who was coping fine, someone who didn’t ask for help. That wasn’t me.

And no one—not once—asked how I was doing emotionally. I was vulnerable, I was overwhelmed, and I was silently falling apart. But I put on the brave face. Like so many of us do. I just needed someone to notice… but no one did.

Everything Felt Disconnected

Every time a shift changed, it was like starting over. New midwife, new advice, new energy. No one seemed to communicate. One person told me to do one thing, the next said the opposite. I was already drowning emotionally, and the lack of consistency only made things worse. It felt cold. It felt careless. And I felt invisible.

 Why I’m Sharing This

This experience has stayed with me. Not just because of what happened—but because of how alone it made me feel. I left that hospital thinking I had failed. That I wasn’t strong enough. That I hadn’t tried hard enough.

But now I see that I didn’t fail—the system did. If you’re reading this and you’ve felt that way too—please know it wasn’t your fault. You deserved better. We all do.

And if someone in a position to make change happens to read this—I hope you hear the pain behind these words. And I hope you realise that better support, real empathy, and honest communication could change someone’s entire journey.

It would’ve changed mine.