‘I wasn’t believed and gave birth in a toilet’

Women have been calling BBC Radio 5Live with their experiences too, like Seema, from north London.

She told Nicky Campbell she had been left with severe incontinence because of the lack of care when giving birth: “I was there for several hours with my new-born in my arms, wasn’t sewn up or anything after birth. Nothing was done.

“I’m bleeding, getting weaker, and they just left me there for several hours until someone else came in to clean the room.

“She said: ‘Oh, you’re still in here?’

“I said, ‘Yes, I’ve been waiting.’

“And they couldn’t believe it that they had just left me there, still bleeding.”

Amanda in Northampton said she told staff she was in pain and wanted to push, but they didn’t believe her.

She ended up giving birth in a toilet, catching her son’s head as he fell out of her, covered in blood.

“It was the most awful experience I’ve ever had. I remember looking at my son thinking, ‘Who’s that? Whose baby is that?’

“I had to walk back with the umbilical cord, swinging between my legs. They managed to get a scissor and all that, but I had to walk back to the bed.

“When I sat back on the bed, the midwife came in and you could see she was embarrassed that she had not believed me.

“The doctor came and she apologised – ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t believe you’.”