"Lack of care and support"

I was treated so badly that I am still affected by the experience over a year later. It has put me off ever wanting another child, and I am still in therapy to help deal with the experience. I have complained informally following a labour debrief, and taken over a year to be able to write this as I couldn’t bring myself to put it into writing before now. I don’t want others to suffer how I did. 

There was no baby feeding support when needed. I was left to express milk into syringes, and when I asked for help I was left for hours and then just told by a midwife that the infant feeding team had gone home for the weekend.

I was then discharged with just breastfeeding written in my discharge notes, despite me saying repeatedly that I was only expressing very small amounts - not even a ml. I was not made aware of the risks of continuing trying to breastfeed with a poor latch, I was just told to continue trying and told about websites. My baby was later readmitted for hypoglycemia at a different hospital. I suffer every day thinking of how my baby was harmed. 

There was no support with pain relief when I asked repeatedly for help. I went over 8 hours without pain relief. When someone eventually visited me to help, they had my notes confused with someone who had a c-section and kept saying they'd already given me pain relief to be injected, which I know they hadn’t as I didn’t have a c-section.