Amid recent maternity scandals, women are speaking out about not being listened to when having a baby – in some cases with terrible consequences
Sofia Shafaq, a 33-year-old accountant from Leeds, says she had been in labour for three days in July 2021, when she called her midwife and begged for a caesarean section. She had already been to the hospital three times, and, each time she had been sent home. She says the labour hadn’t progressed and she was only 2cm dilated. “It felt like I was going to die. Like someone had put a knife in me and was twisting it.” The midwife made her feel silly for asking for a casearean section. “She said: ‘That’s not something we offer.’”
Shafaq says that, when she was finally allowed into the labour ward, she hadn’t slept or eaten and was too exhausted to push the baby out. Staff had to use forceps and she tore, and had to have an episiotomy. Now, she has a prolapse, which she believes is due to the forceps. “I am angry,” she says. “There’s a lot of trauma there. I’m always in tears.” She believes that all of this would have been avoidable if staff at the hospital had listened. “I am suffering today, because I did not get what I wanted,” she says.
