How have we allowed the safety of women to be compromised during childbirth again? - Jayne Dowle

I’ve pre-warned Lizzie of the scene. She finds this shocking. What I find even more shocking is that we’re turning back the clock, to a time when to get pregnant and give birth was to take your life – and your child’s life – into your hands.

To return to the days of fear and terror during childbirth would have been almost unimaginable only a few decades ago in our civilised, educated and democratic society.

Yet a major new parliamentary inquiry – the Birth Trauma Inquiry, the first of its kind – took evidence from more than 1,300 women and uncovered horrific reports of women being left alone in agony without pain relief, babies dying at birth or being left with devastating life-changing conditions as a result of medical negligence and patient being mocked, ignored or shouted at if they raised a complaint or concern.

Women told of how they had lain on blood-soaked sheets for hours, or been berated by midwives because they had soiled themselves.

Parents gave the inquiry accounts of stillbirth, premature babies and babies with cerebral palsy caused by oxygen deprivation - in many cases trauma as a result of mistakes and failures, often covered up, before and during labour.

Almost half, 41 per cent, of the £2.6bn bill for clinical negligence payments in 2022/23 related to maternity, according to NHS Resolution, which deals with compensation claims on behalf of the NHS in England.

This would equate to around £1.1bn. That’s more than a third of the £3bn a year that the NHS spends on providing maternity and neonatal services. On the maths alone, surely serious questions must be asked?

One woman shared the awful experience of a woman who started to give birth to her twins prematurely at 19 weeks. After she lost the first baby, she was told by a consultant to stop getting upset. Tragically, the second baby also died.

Other devastating accounts came from women who experienced birth injuries, causing chronic pain and/or bowel incontinence, stopping many of them working and “destroying their sense of self-worth”.

How did we get to this? Years of under-funding maternity care, a blind refusal by the government to accept that there simply isn’t enough money being made available to cover staffing needs, resulting in departments stretched to breaking point, clearly need addressing and reversing.

I know personally some amazing people who work in maternity care, who would never put a woman or child in danger. However, women can be treated as second-class citizens for having the temerity to get pregnant and require attention.

It’s almost two decades since I gave birth, but especially when I had my son – now 21 – in a London hospital, this dismissive attitude was already setting seed.

Too often women who were anxious and tried to share their concerns with medical and nursing professionals were being dismissed as hysterical. I saw one woman, an older mother in her late thirties, develop the potentially life-threatening condition of pre-eclampsia as a result of her headaches being ignored. I’ll never forget her husband crying on the hospital steps as he faced the prospect of losing his wife and unborn child.

NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the experiences outlined in the report "are simply not good enough".

In answer to the gruesome litany of stories uncovered, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was determined to improve the quality and consistency of care for women.

A new maternity commissioner who would report directly to the prime minister is a key recommendation, along with ensuring safe levels of staffing.

This would be a start at least. Far more difficult to tackle however, is the nasty and negative mindset that has taken root in too many maternity units.