I keep a record – more of a running total really, just the headlines and maybe a brief note appended here and there – of birth stories that make the news. Or “failures in maternity care” as they can also, almost without exception, be called.

Well, you’ve got to have a hobby, haven’t you? It’s been a bumper few months recently, let me tell you! Really, ever since Lady Amos, the chair of the review of maternity care set up by the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, commented, as the reports began to come in that there were “much worse” than she had anticipated.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty terrible out there.

I don’t know what prompted my little hobby. The labour and delivery of my own son 14 years ago was a walk in the park. Apart from:

1. The failed epidural. As someone who essentially wanted her pregnancy sponsored by ICI (“All the drugs!” I cried as soon as the test resolved into two blue lines. “Give me all the drugs! Old, new, untested but promising! My veins are yours to do with as you wish!”) this was disappointing.

2. Not as disappointing, however, as the anaesthesiologist who performed it returning to say it hadn’t failed, and that I was just making a fuss. “It’s only supposed to take away 80-90 per cent of the pain,” she said, looking down at me as I continued convulse at 100 per cent. “I would love that,” I gasped. She tried twice more then gave up and left. From the hips down I was numb. The crucial part – call it the sort of “womb area” – was unaffected. Thus was I left........

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