A MUM has spoken of her ‘nightmare’ experience giving birth at West Middlesex Hospital.
Michelle Behzad-Khanghah claims staff struggled to perform basic procedures, ignored her calls for help and criticised her when she had difficulties breastfeeding her newborn son.
The customer service advisor had been filmed during the run-up to the birth for an ITV documentary, due to air this autumn, in which presenter Amanda Holden trained to be a midwife at the hospital.
Her story was dropped weeks before her due date, but she wanted to make her experience public for fear the show would paint the hospital’s new birthing unit in an ‘unrealistically positive’ light.
The Isleworth mum says her ordeal began when she went into labour with her second child Dexter on June 7.
“I’d told them I wanted a natural birth but they persuaded me to have an epidural,” explained the 31-year-old, who also has an 11-year-old daughter, Courtney Brown. “The first time the nurse tried to insert the needle, blood spurted everywhere and when he tried again he hit a nerve and my whole body felt like it was on fire. The third time the tube started leaking.”
Michelle eventually gave birth to a healthy boy, weighing 10lb 2oz, by Caesarean section more than 12 hours later, but her troubles were just beginning.
She says one of the midwives advised her to take a shower, only for a consultant to tell her afterwards she should never have left her bed.
Later, when she was struggling to breastfeed Dexter, a midwife gave her a breast pump and left her on a chair with the pump in one arm and her baby in the other.
“Dexter was crying and kicking me in the stomach and I was in great pain but I couldn’t move to press the button for help,” she said. “Eventually the lady in the bed next to me pressed her button but when the midwife came she asked me what all the fuss was about and said ‘where I come from women have to breastfeed or their babies die’.
“She made me feel like an unfit mum. The midwives are meant to be there to guide you but I was too scared to ask for help after that.”
Michelle claims staff later ignored her calls for 45 minutes after a needle came loose, covering her and her sheets in blood, and says she was glad to get home. She added that she had complained to the head of midwifery at the time and was preparing a formal written complaint.
A hospital spokesman said: “We’re sorry Mrs Behzad-Khanghah feels she had a bad experience and we will investigate any complaint thoroughly.”
