Parliamentary group urges new mums to share maternity experiences

Theo Clarke said she was left "traumatised" after surgery without general anaesthetic following a labour of nearly 40 hours

Women are being urged by an MP to share their experiences of maternity care after she was left "traumatised" following her daughter's birth.

Theo Clarke launched an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Wednesday to focus on the issue of birth trauma.

After a 40-hour labour, she suffered a serious tear and spent two hours in surgery at the Royal Stoke University Hospital.

The hospital trust has apologised to Ms Clarke.

The MP for Stafford, who set up the APPG with Labour MP Rosie Duffield, met with 11 other mothers from across the country who have suffered negative experiences during the delivery of their own babies.

While praising the midwives involved in the delivery and the surgeon as being "fantastic", Ms Clarke said the experience had been the "most distressing" of her life and added she had been shocked by some of the attitudes she encountered in hospital afterwards.

Last summer, the 37-year-old gave birth to her daughter and started bleeding "very heavily" from the third-degree tear, she said.

Bosses at the Royal Stoke University Hospital have apologised to Ms Clarke and said they were trying to improve women's experiences

She was rushed into surgery and was awake throughout as she was not given a general anaesthetic - due to having a recent epidural.

"It was the most distressing experience of my life, I really thought I was going to die," she told BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour.

"Being separated from my daughter having had such a huge labour was very distressing."

Following the procedure, she was discharged into a side room and said she was told by a worker "not my baby, not my problem" when she rang a buzzer for help.

"I was in a huge amount of pain and feeling extremely vulnerable and was feeling very shocked at the attitude," Ms Clarke said.

Identify failures

She said the response opened her eyes to the quality of aftercare for new mothers and "the culture that we have in hospitals".

In a bid to improve maternity services, the APPG plans to use women's experiences from across the UK to identify failures in hospitals.

"I'm really hoping that our group can draw attention to this issue, but also lobby the government to make sure there are increased resources to tackle this," Ms Clarke said.

The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM), which runs the Royal Stoke, said it was working to improve women's experiences.

Ann-Marie Riley, UHNM Chief Nurse, said: "We would like to apologise if Theo's experience was not up to our expected standards and disappointed to hear she has not been able to raise her concerns with us until now.

"Delivering safe, high-quality care to women and their families is always our priority and we work closely with our teams and our Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership to ensure we continually improve experiences for those who use our services."