"Not allowed to support my daughter during childbirth"

My daughter is 19 years old and has recently had her first baby. Her care started in the community from community midwifes and family nurse.

Her care was fantastic and Emma her family nurse was excellent. Very focused on her needs as a young mum, and how important a good support network was.

Given the fact my daughter has severe anxiety due the traumatic events in her life, a good support system was really important to her, not only with the pregnancy but the labour, birth and the early days as a new mummy.

My daughter was found to be engaged and progressing well around her due date. However she unfortunately went over her due date, was refused a sweep 3 days past her due date after an internal examination showed her cervix wasn’t ready.

On day 10 she was to be induced. She arrived at her appointed time with her partner for this to be started. And I arrived soon after her induction had started. My daughter was quickly told she wasn’t allowed visitors. Midwife was informed that I wasn’t a visitor I was in fact part of her request to be there for her support and her partners support. The staff told us no, that I can stay 10 minutes and would need to leave.

She had a horrific time with induction, and baby was breech, which took staff over 19 hours (approximately) to notice this. My daughter's partner called me in a state of panic. I quickly arrived back at the maternity ward to be yet again met by a midwife telling me my daughter had been taken to surgery and would be on the observation ward afterwards and wasn’t allowed visitors. I told her I wasn’t leaving until I had seen my daughter and knew she was ok.

I was allowed 1/2 hour with my daughter after she returned, despite the fact she had not only gone for an unplanned c-section but surgeons had cut through her bladder and had to be put under a general anaesthetic to have it repaired. My son in law was in a state of shock. And my daughter was distraught at everything that had just happened.

She remained on the observation ward with no visitors, no support from any of her family. Whilst on the observation ward, the day after her surgery, a student midwife came to help my daughter with the surgical stockings and gave her them and stood by and watched her struggle to put these on herself until she told the student midwife she was unable to do this herself.

There were failings from the moment my daughter entered the maternity unit and she was treated abhorrently. Her needs as a person, as a pregnant woman and as a scared mum-to-be were completely ignored. Her rights to have her birthing plan to be taken seriously and her wishes to be fulfilled were completely taken away from her from the moment she walked into the hospital.

While we all understand that a birthing plan does not always go to plan, the focus on her having no one with her except her partner is completely outdated and backward. These “rules” are not justified in the slightest. And we all know every single person is different with different needs and expectations so to band everyone with this rule is beyond belief.

She is 19 years old, still a young woman and she was stripped of her rights to have her support network there with her, due to a rule that states only 1 person in the induction suite. While my daughter is now recovering from this experience, she has been left mentally scarred with this, and further complaints are currently being made.

I felt it necessary to highlight the above, as we are now in 2025. A woman has every right to have a voice in what happens throughout their labour and birth, not stripped of them the minute they have walked through the door after spending weeks building the birth plan and having it highlighted to them how important it is to have a good support network. It was cruel and needless to do to this to them both.