"Clinical incident during birth"

I elected to be part of the Midwife Group Program (MGP) at Broome Hospital and allocated a midwife for the duration of my pregnancy. I went into labour early last month and as part of my birth plan chose to have a natural birth and had intended to deliver the placenta via physiological rather than active means.

After the birth of my baby, my allocated MGP midwife whom I believed was in charge of my care asked if I would like the syntocinon injection to birth the placenta to which I advised I would like to wait and try to birth it naturally. I then heard a voice behind me from a nurse who stated they had already given me the injection. I was shocked as I had not given consent for this intervention and did not even realise this had happened to my body as I didn’t notice this person administer it.

Unfortunately, the active management was unsuccessful and I incurred a bleed, losing approximately 2 litres of blood and required a manual removal in theatre. The result of the nurse giving me the injection meant the active third stage needs to happen quickly and the result was I was rushed to theatre and missed valuable bonding time and skin on skin with my baby.

I was devastated by this outcome and felt disappointed and confused that such a thing could happen. I advised my MGP midwife that I would be making a formal complaint and the midwife informed me that they would complete an internal incident report as they agreed this was not best practice. I wish to draw your attention to this so that it does not happen to other women.