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I lost my second son three years ago at full term, and had already complained about my midwife during my first pregnancy, unluckily I ended up with the same woman the second time...I feel that the loss of Baby Andre was overall her fault, although no one has listened to me and when the autopsy report was available, I was NOT allowed to see it, nor have I been since. Since then, I have found it so hard to come to terms with and feel a lot of covering up is done. Thank you for covering this issue tonight on Panorama, hopefully it will help others not to have to suffer as I and too many others already have.

If there are so limted places why are closing the local mat unit at the queen Elizabeth Second Hospital in Welwyn Garden City Hertfordshire. We will now have to go up the motorway to the Leister Hospital in Stevenage. It only a 10 minute ride up the A1M motorway thats funny it takes me 35 if there is no traffic if rush hour 45 50 minutes if your lucky. Cross your legs girls and don't push.

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This programme highlighted the chronic shortage of midwives in the UK and the direct effect this has on Maternity Care. Whilst the programme seemed to suggest that the situation in Scotland is better, it is certainly far from ideal. Many hospitals in Scotland, due to their geographical area, are unable to 'close their doors'. This means that care must be given to women even when there is severe staff shortages. I am a midwife who feels I can no longer continue to practice. Staff shortages in my area often means that one to one care in labour is impossible; staff are diverted from ward areas to labour ward, which results in those areas being left short staffed. Quality of care is therefore diminished and staff are under huge amounts of pressure. The relentless stress and pressure had a detrimental effect on my health, which meant I had to give up a job I trained hard for. Midwives often work 12 hours with little orno breaks. Quality of care is a priority for midwives and I often felt unable to give high quality of care because of staff shortages; I was physically unable to give anymore. We need more midwives throughout the UK in order to ensure all women receive a high quality of care and midwives feel they are able to do the job they were trained for.

I was around 34 weeks pregnant and I went to see my Dr for a check up at the hospital. As this was my 6th child I told the Dr that I thought that I was very large for the babies gestation. The Dr's response was that well you have had 5 other children so its just the muscles that are stretched giving you the large appearance.

So I took the Drs word "more fool me" after going over my due date by 5 days I was given a sweep of my womb.
Shortly after that I went into labour and stayed that way for over 11 hours! My 1st midwife was lovely and then she changed over to another who wasnt so friendly.
She was very impianetent with me and reminded me time and time again that I had 5 other children so get pushing.
I told her that I was trying my best and I did all that was asked of me to deliver the baby.
It took another 2 hours of fruitness pain and pushing for her and another Dr to discover that my baby was STUCK his shoulders were too wide. Its called shoulder dystocia. The Dr got the ball rolling immediately and I my legs were forced into a painful position to help free my sons shoulders.

When my son was delivered he was nearly TWICE the size of the other children and he wasnt moving at all and this went on for 10 mins I was begging GOD to save my son. Thankful he started to cry! and I praised god that he had made it.

When they weighed him he was 11lb 4 oz how on earth did they expect me to deliver a baby that size without major issues. I am only 5.2 height!
The midwife came over and said that she was really sorry for the way she treated me she had no idea that he was this big.

After a few hours I was left alone as my husband had to go home to the other children.
I called for help time and time again for someone to help me get washed. No one came so I rolled off the bed and staggered into the showers as I was a in real mess.

Eventually the midwife returned and was astonished that I had sorted my self out.
What choice did I have lay there in all the mess or sort my self out.
This was at the City Hospital in Nottingham. Never again!

The programme was very insightful and raised many issues with which I can concur as a new mother. However, one glaring omission was the reasons behind the increased birth rate which has placed so much strain on the NHS.

I am a senior midwife and currently practice in the UK. I think you have raised some pertinent points regarding staffing and the rising birth rates. I do think you have missed one equally valid issue regarding staffing levels; many units continue to base their current staffing requirement on historical birth rates of up to 10 years ago, so even if the vacancies were filled it is unlikely that one to one care would be achieved should the current rate of births continue. Midwives are also hampered by an ever increasing amount of often repetitive paperwork, impacting upon the time available to provide direct care, a review into record keeping tools is long overdue in my opinion.

As an experienced anaesthetist who has worked on many labour wards I am frequently astonished at how naive modern women are about dangers of childbirth. It can be fraught with difficulty and the only reason the death rate is not far higher is because of the skill and dedication of staff. There is an oft held false idea that because it is 'natural' it should be straightforward and nothing could be further from the truth. Labour ward work is a constant challenge with balancing of risks and can be technically very tricky. I object to the identification of the individual midwife and the use of the term 'killed'. Yes they should have sectioned that lady sooner but they did not 'kill' that child. Staffing levels are often suboptimal I agree but even a perfectly staffed ward will have fatalities albeit these are very rare. That is the nature of the process. Childbirth has risks.

After watching this programme it has helped me put a lot of persepctive into a very bad situation I have found myself in for most of this year. I currently work as a midwife in the north of England and completely agree with the opinions voiced by different professionals as well as women and their families. I am suffering from severe depression and anxiety and, after months of time out, medication and threrapy, have come to realise it is because of a much wider issue that is completely out of my control....that is the state of maternity services! I adore my job and have worked in midwifery for 7 years. However I have only now realised I cannot continue to provide such poor standards of care....it is this that has been having a slow but definite effect on my mental health. The midwives I work with are absolutely amazing, and I also have a lot of very positive feedback from women in my care, but we need to be able to provide optimum care standards to EVERY woman and baby regardless of their level of 'risk'...not just on a shift to shift basis depending on staffing, midwife to woman ratio and availability of beds. It is looking fairly likely that I will be leaving the profession I have always wanted to be part of as I now have no choice but to put my health first. I cant speak for every midwife but I know the dedication it takes to do this job and as the RCM general secretary said it is the 'system not supporting' us to do the job we passionately want to do.

I feel the programme missed a critical point, namely, the overuse of induction drugs. Oxytocin and other intravenous drugs used to kick-start labour carry great risks. Whilst their use may be indicated on occasion, they are all to often prescribed unnecessarily. An arbitrary cut-off point of 40 weeks gestation is often determined rather than staff considering the health of the particular mother and baby in question. Furthermore, women are rarely advised of the risks involved in opting for the artificial induction of labour such as foetal distress, caeserean section, uterine rupture and death. The mortality cases highlighted in the programme all followed use of induction drugs and I would argue were caused as a result of induction. As the independent inquiry concluded, had the women been provided with better care many deaths could have been avoided. But why were these women induced and thereby put at such great risk? Were there sound clinical reasons for induction in each individual case? Was there no alternative? Just as women do not all menstruate at the same time, they may not all give birth at the same time either. It may require some resources to monitor women whose pregnancy continues beyond 38 or 40 weeks but it is likely to save lives and may be more cost-effective than the use of high-tech intervention which often follows induction.

I agree re the dangers of induction drugs. My daughter's recent birth was 'accelerated' due to me suffering from a medical condition, despite me not being happy with the consultant's advice. (She pushed hard and as she is the 'expert' we conceded.) I consider that as the labour ward was full they were simply trying to speed things up and free up the midwife who needed to give me one-on-one supervision. My contractions lasted up to 5 minutes causing fetal distress and my daughter's heart-rate halved twice. This resulted in an emergency c-section after the consultant first insisting that ventuouse was the best course of action. I was not sufficiently dilated and the baby was too high in the birth canal. This was something I discovered afterwards. The reason for the c-section was stated as 'failed ventuouse' and recorded on my discharge form. I cannot help but cynically wonder if this was to mask the high-level of oxytocin administered. I would advise any woman to discuss all the risks involved and what alternatives are available.

I am sure there is a shortage of midwives, but I find it hard to understand why if this is the case newly qualified midwives find it hard to find a job? I know of people in this situation and yet they thought getting a job would be no problem when there is a shortage. How can the shortage ever be filled if newly qualified midwives have to consider alternative careers because they can't find a job?