"Unhappy postnatal experience at Queens Hospital, Burton"

My first baby was due in July 2008. Everything was progressing normally until checks at about 32 weeks into my pregnancy. I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and spent the next 4 weeks in and out of the hospital for monitoring.

The majority of care given was acceptable, but I became very stressed when midwives failed to carryout checks on me at regular intervals and administer medication at the correct times. Sometimes I would have to wait 2 plus hours to be given blood pressure medication.

In late June it was decided by the doctor that my baby should be induced as my condition was becoming dangerous. This process was fine, unpleasant but fine. My baby son was eventually delivered by c-section at 1.02pm.

After that felt like a nightmare. I was unable to get out of bed for the first 24 hours and had to wait long periods for midwives to come and help me get my baby out of his cot for feeding throughout the night - if my husband knew this he would have never left us.

I struggled to breast feed due to being in pain and baby not latching on - the midwifes response was 'keep trying'. After 3 days of trying my son was given a bottle by the midwife - this seemed to me like this was the easy option for them and to shut me up, I desperately wanted to breast feed but did not get the support I needed. Furthermore once I had settled on the bottle feeling I got the constant feeling that the midwives judged me in a negative manner because I had given up breast feeding so soon.

Once i had my son i was taken off all medication i'd been taking to regulate blood pressure - i had been on very high doses. My blood pressure was not taken until a few days after the birth where it was found to be very high - one midwife commented on how i should not have been taken off the meds straight away.

So i was put back on the BP drugs which were administered in tablet form every 4 hours. Many times i had to wait up to 2 hours after the alotted time for my medication. I even had to set an alarm in the night so i could remind the midwives that it was time for my bp meds. As a result many bp readings that were taken were very high as the drugs were not administered at the correct intervals.

As you can imagine i was in a very fragile state and felt very vulnerable. This experience caused me and my family great stress. I was kept in hospital 8 days after the birth and when released the bp had still not come down.

A midwife came to my house the day after i was released to check on baby and me. She checked my bp and it was back to normal - just goes to show the stress i was under in the care of the hospital.

Some midwives were absolutley brilliant, i could not fault some - but others really shouldn't have been in the job. Childbirth is a very natural process and people should feel relaxed and supported - not vulnerable and stressed.