Mothers left in blood covered sheets, told to ‘stop stressing’ over their dead babies and dismissed as ‘over-anxious’: The harrowing reality of giving birth in NHS hospitals is revealed in damning report that shows huge ‘postcode lottery of care’

Good care for pregnant women ‘is the exception rather than the rule’, as hospitals cover up endemic failures in Britain’s maternity system, a damning report has ruled.

The country’s first parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma has found there was ‘shockingly poor quality’ in maternity services, resulting in care lacking compassion and a system where ‘poor care is all too frequently tolerated as normal’. 

The Birth Trauma Inquiry heard ‘harrowing’ evidence from more than 1,300 women, including how new mothers had been left in blood covered sheets for hours and bereated by midwives.  

One woman carrying twins who went into premature labour at 19 weeks was told by a consultant to ‘stop stressing’ after she lost her first baby. 

Another, who was dismissed as an ‘anxious mother’, later lost her baby from complications she warned about. 

The all-party inquiry, led by Conservative MP Theo Clarke and Labour MP Rosie Duffield, is due to publish its findings this morning. 

According to The Times, the report found ‘poor care is all frequently tolerated as normal, and women are treated as an inconvenience’.

Among the recommendations included in the report is the creation of a maternity commissioner reporting to the Prime Minister.

Ms Clarke, who pushed for the inquiry after revealing in Parliament that she felt she was going to die after giving birth in 2022, told The Times: ‘We have listened to mums carefully and applaud their bravery in coming forward, sometimes with horrific testimony of how the system failed them and the mental, physical and economic cost of that failure.

‘The raft of recommendations we make, especially the appointment of a maternity commissioner, are all designed to end the postcode lottery on maternity services.’

The report detailed how one woman who suffered bowel problems after a traumatic birth and took her hospital to a tribunal for neglect after problems during labour was told by a doctor ‘why don’t I just a stick an anal plug in and get on with my day’.

Another described how her severe physical symptoms from birth trauma, including fatigue and tremors, were wrongly diagnosed as psychological, leading her to receive eight sessions of electroconvulsive therapy, which involves sending an electrical current through the brain.

One woman carrying twins went into premature labour at 19 weeks and lost her first baby.

‘I was told by one of the consultants to stop my crying, calm down and try to save the other baby,’ she told the report. 

His words were: ‘This baby was dead a long time anyway so you should stop stressing over it and let’s try to save the other one’,’ she said. The second baby also died.

NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the experiences of the 1000-plus women who gave evidence to the inquiry were ‘simply not good enough’.

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she was ‘determined to improve the quality and consistency of care for women throughout pregnancy, birth and the critical months that follow’.

In January, she shared her personal experience of the ‘darker corners’ of the NHS after giving birth as a patient with type one diabetes.

‘I want to reform our NHS and care system to make it faster, simpler and fairer for all of us and that includes women,’ she said.

It follows a litany of maternity failures including Shrewsbury and Telford and East Kent NHS Trusts, with a record number of services now failing to meet safety standards.

The Care Quality Commission found some 65 per cent are now rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘require improvement’ for safety.