Women having ‘harrowing’ births as hospitals hide failures, says MPs’ report

One in three women who have a child in England endure a traumatic birth, the report said. Photograph: MartinPrescott/Getty Images

Women in labour have been mocked, ignored, fobbed off with paracetamol and left with permanent damage by midwives and doctors, and hospitals have covered up their staff’s failures, a damning report by MPs has found.

Mothers have been left with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unable to bond with their baby and too incapacitated to go back to work because of horrendous experiences while having a child, the UK’s first inquiry into birth trauma found.