"they were the reason why I got sepsis in the first place."

A mother's experience of Oxford University Hospitals Maternity Services in 2022:

I got to JR maternity and I asked for a water birth, so they took me to the birthing room. They were filling the pool up and left the room apart from one midwife. I started to bleed quite heavily. I got left with a student midwife at the time of the bleed (my first birth) I didn’t know at the time she was a student. I started to panic and asked if it was normal. She replied with “No, this isn’t normal” and went out the room.

I got rushed into a room and got onto the bed, my little girl was trying to come out but couldn’t. As one midwife left the room to get the clamps to pull her head out, she popped out. The umbilical cord was short so I couldn’t cuddle her properly, her father cut the cord. I was left on the bed while they wrapped her up etc.

I had second degree rips. It took them a while to get the equipment ready to stitch me up. After I had a shower, they said I could go home… On day 4, my partner rang 111 due to symptoms of Sepsis. I was getting worse every 30 minutes still no phone call back, rang again, no phone call. My partner rang 999 and they rushed to me on blue lights, as soon as one of the paramedics saw me, he knew I had sepsis. Got rushed to JR again but to Resus this time.

I managed to go home after 4 days of being in hospital. I found out that when I gave birth, they left some of the placenta and because I was left for a bit before I got stitched up, they were the reason why I got sepsis in the first place.