"no pain relief, no checks and no food"

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

I got to the MAU at about 1am. I sat in the waiting room until after 3am. I was having frequent contractions and in a lot of pain.

Finally, we were given a room and shut in there for a few hours. My partner had to leave the unit entirely to go to the toilet and then waited ages to get buzzed back in, leaving me alone in labour.

Someone finally came in and left me on a baby monitoring machine for (we think) about 2 hours before checking back in. I had had no pain relief, no checks and no food. I was in a lot of pain. Whenever I buzzed, it took ages for anyone to come.

Eventually, about 8am I think, someone gave me gas and air and checked how dilated I was. I was dilated enough to go to the Spires. Who knows how long I had been - no one had given me more than a minute of their time since I’d arrived. The midwives and support at the Spires were amazing. I couldn't fault them.

I had to stay in and my baby wasn’t latching/feeding. My partner was sent home - I had just had my first baby, I was exhausted, baby wasn't feeding, I had a catheter put in and was in a lot of pain. And my partner was sent home.

I needed help with my baby, he was born at 4pm and hadn’t eaten. I buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. No one helped me with feeding until 11pm. I’d been on the ward since 8pm. I was distraught. The nurse gave me some expressed milk, changed and dressed my baby, and put him in his cot. This was the first support I had had. I was so grateful, I sobbed. The nurse was lovely.

I was so incredibly vulnerable and sore, and I was all alone somewhere I should have been looked after. At the time I was scared, looking back I am furious.