How Did Medical Birth Trauma in the UK Become So 'Normal'?
Women share their stories of birth trauma in a new U.K. report. When did shockingly bad maternity care become the norm?
“It was a planned c-section, but when she came out, she wasn’t breathing.”
“No-one had thought to turn on the oxygen in the operating room.”
“He wasn’t crying.”
“I was losing too much blood.”
“They took her away.”
“They said I was just being anxious.”
This is how birth trauma stories come out. Often in a whisper, over a coffee, on the benches at the playground, on the sidelines at baby group. That is, if the stories come out at all.
But the truth is, stories like these are staggeringly common.
I live in East Kent, about 50 miles outside London, an area where maternity services are in crisis; where at least 45 babies died in 11 years, 17 others were left with life-changing complications such as brain damage and cerebral palsy and countless women were left injured, including at least one who needed a hysterectomy.
Definitions of birth trauma vary, but at its heart, it pertains to the significant negative effects on a woman's health and well-being. We're not talking about an unexpected c-section or a deferral from a birth plan: This is long-term damage—physical or mental—to a woman or her baby. And yet it affects thousands of women each year, in particular, women of color.
Now the first inquiry into birth trauma by U.K. lawmakers, a response to failings in several areas (including East Kent), has revealed that the rest of the U.K. isn't doing much better.
