GIVING birth is meant to be one of the most magical and natural experiences you can choose to have in life.
For Celebs Go Dating agent Anna Williamson it was the opposite – and her nightmare 40 hour labour almost destroyed her.
Not only did it dangerously impact her health, but her other half was placed in the “horrendous” position of deciding whether doctors should operate if it eventually came to that.
The relationship expert gave birth to her ‘honeymoon baby’ Vincenzo in 2017 after tying the knot with fitness guru Alex Di Pasquale.
Anna was pregnant for 42 weeks. When she finally went into labour it was “back-to-back” and Vincenzo was lying on her spine.
The pain was so bad she started having panic attacks.
Anna was told the next step would be an emergency C-section, but her baby boy was eventurally delivered with the aid of forceps.
Anna suffered a very large haemorrhage straight afterwards.
She told us: “I was terrified, I don’t think I’ve even been so scared in my entire life as in those moments of not knowing what was going to happen to me.
“I was terrified as to what they were going to do and you could feel the forceps. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life as to what was happening to my body.
“In that moment I genuinely thought I was going to die.
“I did see it (blood). I passed out towards the moment that my son arrived and that has always been one of my triggering parts of my birth with him, was because when he did come out, I didn’t know I was having a boy.”
Reflecting on Vincenzo’s delivery, Anna described feeling “overwhelming sadness” when he arrived.
She said: “I remember Alex saying, ‘Anna, it’s a boy,’ and I remember feeling nothing. Just this overwhelming sadness, of ‘oh that’s nice, oh sad I’m never going to see him’.”
“I really did feel like I was in this weird space between life and death. It was like I was floating in this black space. I certainly wasn’t present physically or mentally.
“I do remember coming too and looking to the side and it can only be described as a war zone taking place.
“In that moment I thought ‘s**t I’m dying’ because of what was coming out of me.”
The author and podcaster added: “It really was a scary moment for me, my husband, and my mother.
“He was then whisked off to sign more forms for something.”
Anna is campaigning alongside the Birth Trauma Association, which has found two in five women in labour have procedures performed without their consent.
Two in five women in labour have procedures performed without their consent. The Birth Trauma Association is campaigning for better peri-natal and post natal care, and consent for procedures.
An online survey of 1,584 people was launched to mark Birth Trauma Awareness Week, which runs from 15-21 July.
Of those who said that they’d had a procedure performed without consent, the survey found that the most common procedure was vaginal examination, carried out on 209 women (17.9%).
Other procedures commonly performed without consent included episiotomy (16.6%), cervical sweep (12.5%) and rupture of the membranes (9.8%).
One woman said: “I was given a cervical sweep that I was not informed about beforehand and did not consent to. I was only told about it after I questioned why my contractions had increased. ‘Oh, I gave you a sweep’ the midwife said breezily – like I should be grateful.
“The only thing I felt was violated and completely left out of my own birth experience.”
Some women described incidents in which other people appeared without permission in the birthing room.
One wrote: “A 10-person obstetric review team WANDERED into the room less than five minutes before my son was born, I was not told they would be entering the room.
“My feet were in stirrups so I was physically vulnerable and there was no respect for my dignity, one member of staff who walked in was stood playing on their phone.
“No one even addressed me to say hello. I would have understood if there was a medical emergency, in which case, by all means act first and ask questions later. But the casual nature and lack of respect for my dignity when there was no need was extremely dehumanising and has left me more traumatised than a previous experience of sexual assault did.”
A number described feeling too ill or exhausted to consent fully to a caesarean.
One wrote: “I didn’t feel like I had the option to say no but also was barely conscious.
“I was naked, covered in sick and blood and had no idea what was happening, what my options were or what I needed.
“I had a piece of paper waved in my face and ‘We need your consent, please sign here’ as I was already on the move to theatre. I was drifting in and out of consciousness but somehow managed to sign.”
Commenting on the findings, Donna Ockenden, chair of the independent review into maternity Services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, and of the ongoing review into maternity Services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said:
“It is extremely disappointing to hear from the recent Birth Trauma Association survey, that so many women described having intrusive procedures performed without consent. Women must be informed about the care they are receiving, every step of the way. Without open communication, women cannot make the right decisions for them, nor have full autonomy over their bodies.”
She said: “Later on he felt very traumatised … as he said in that moment he wasn’t informed. He couldn’t give ‘informed consent’ and they do ask the birth partners.
“He said, ‘how could I make a decision about you and your body?’ The pressure on him, to suddenly go, ‘erm you’re telling me she might have a cesarean and there’s a risk of death with cesarean, what are her family going to think?’
“I think we underestimate these big life decisions. This is where (we need) ‘informed consent’, this is what we’re banging the drum for. Birth partners, mothers, we need to know more about the decisions we may need to make.
“We hope to god we never have to, but if we have to, we know exactly why and we’ve all agreed and we’re all on the same page when it comes to it.
“So when and if that moment comes they say, ‘we have to do this, here’s a form’, we go, ‘got it, understand, I’ve been informed.’
“To date, that isn’t happening for a lot of women.”
