"Great care during birth but concerns need to raise"

I had a great birth experience at St. George’s, midwife was kind & thoughtforward but clear and concise. Even the trainee midwife was lovely. I was lucky enough to be able to use the water birth room which contributed to an overall positive experience.

However I want to raise some concerns. I gave birth at 5pm not long before the staff handover. Unfortunately this meant that my 2nd degree tear was not stitched up until 9pm!! Unbelievably it took until 8pm for them to be able to safely say it wasn’t a 3rd degree tear - if it had been that wait would have been even worse. A wonderful Agency Nurse stitched me up and was appalled that I’d waited so long and apologised saying they’d never heard of a woman having to wait that long. The reasons given were 3 emergency C-Sections which is completely understandable - but why was there no-one else who could have checked to see if it was 2nd or 3rd degree for over 3 hours. I would have complained sooner but fortunately the Agency Nurse did a great job and I had no issues afterwards.

However I want to reiterate it was an overall positive experience. Although I would have liked some painkillers a bit sooner after giving birth, next time I will bring some paracetamol with me (I’d had zero pain relief).