The day my eldest child arrived into this world was supposed to be the best day of my life. Instead, I almost died giving birth to him and almost 11 years on, the memories of that day still haunt me.
Whilst pregnancy and birth come with a great deal of uncertainty, you usually trust that both you and your baby will be in safe hands and everything will be OK. However, the reality is that for over 30,000 women in the UK every year, their birth experience is far from OK. In fact, it is the root cause of their severe trauma and subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), amongst other complications.
I have a unique perspective as I am both a doctor who looks after women on their perinatal and postnatal journeys, and a woman who had a very traumatic birth.
The training I had received as a medical student and junior doctor did not equip me with the knowledge or experience of managing women with birth trauma. I remember witnessing some really distressing births during my obstetric rotations, but I was never given any insight into what happened to those women afterwards. Were they followed up? Were they supported in their healing journey? Were they OK?
It felt like a conveyor belt system with overstretched staff, who were all trying their best, but sometimes it just wasn’t enough. It seems that things haven’t improved much since.
On the day I went into labour in 2013, I had no reason to believe........