MP Helen Morgan's childbirth speech in full as she recalls experiences of her and her friends

Mrs Morgan spoke in the same debate as Stafford MP Theo Clarke, who received a round of applause from the public gallery after describing the “terrifying” moment she believed she was going to die in childbirth.

Below is the speech made by Mrs Morgan, who talked about her experience from 15 years ago and how it made her feel, as well as how friends of hers suffered flashbacks and injuries in their own experiences with consultants who "didn't like C-sections".

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I’ll be restricting my comments to one specific area which is about my experience of having a baby, which was nearly 15 years ago. I'm pleased to report that my baby is now a healthy young man who is already significantly bigger than me. But my experience of his birth and specifically about the attitude to the use of a caesarean section, both generally in society and in the medical profession, caused me concern.

I was induced at 12 days overdue at around 9am on Friday morning and he was delivered by emergency caesarean just before 10pm on Saturday night, which I think we can all appreciate is quite a long time later. Various professionals looked after me during that time. They were invariably caring, humorous, competent, they had a good laugh at my birth plan and chucked it away. And when they'd given up all hope of what they described as a natural delivery, I was wheeled across the corridor to a theatre and had the necessary procedure.

This all went very well. I was very tired but happy. My baby luckily was making his views on the situation known at an enormously loud volume. I was sent home after a few days stay in hospital. But it was after I got home really, that things started to feel different for me. People kept expressing sympathy. The final straw was when a health visitor asked if I felt like a failure for having had a C-section. The answer really was ‘not until somebody suggested that maybe I should’.

The medical evidence is clear that if a vaginal delivery is possible, it is usually a superior option. I'm not here to deny that. But I do think that we should take a look at attitudes to women who have had, or needed, a C-section because that was medically the best option for them.

I have a degree in history and I chose to specialise where possible in medieval and early modern social and economic issues. I hope to god my in-depth knowledge of the societal impact of the bubonic plague is never useful to me, but after my baby was born I found myself reflecting on historians' best estimates of maternal and baby death in that era. It's possible that one in ten pregnancies ended in the death of the mother and the portion of babies that died in those early days was obviously far higher.

At the time I found the reflection that neither me nor my son would probably have survived even 200 years ago was extremely sobering and shocking. But surely, given the amazing advances in modern medicine, we should celebrate that that is a statistic firmly consigned to history. Surely the objective when you arrive at hospital in excited anticipation of the arrival of your baby, the only important objective is that both you and your baby leave that hospital in a healthy state.

I'm afraid the expectations of pregnant women are far greater than this - that 'real women' are expected not to rely on medical advances that have saved millions of lives over the last couple of hundred years, but to have their baby without pain relief, without intervention if possible, without making too much noise and definitely enjoying an empowering moment.

Obviously, this is total garbage. You're at your most vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. And then, after what is potentially a traumatic and painful experience, you start the endurance test of caring for your newborn baby on zero hours sleep for probably the next four or five months.

Personally, having failed at being an earth mother, I found the first year of motherhood very difficult. Sleep deprived, attempting to feed the world's hungriest baby. This was not the fairytale I had imagined at all, but I was doing better than some of my friends. One friend had had what was described as a natural delivery. Her baby arrived six weeks before mine, but the consultant apparently didn't like C-sections. Her baby was delivered in distress with forceps. She suffered terrible tearing, and in the end, despite my having undergone major abdominal surgery, I was discharged before her. I am not an expert, but at the time it seemed to me that maybe a C-section would have been a better outcome for her.

Another friend suffered a long and uneventful labour, similar to mine. But again, the consultant didn't like C-sections, and she ended up delivering her daughter with a last-minute smash and grab with a pair of forceps. Her baby was resuscitated on arrival and removed to the special care unit. My friends suffered flashbacks for years afterwards.

Compared to my own outcome, I couldn't drive for four weeks, but overall, I felt okay. I felt that my own experience was superior.

So I was particularly horrified when the Ockenden report was issued last year to see that a reluctance to perform C-sections was one of the factors in the failings of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust. In fact, it was generally considered on a nationwide basis to be a huge success not to use this lifesaving option wherever possible. There are undoubtedly women who've experienced unnecessary trauma or worse because of a reluctance to use a C-section. And I fear what lies behind this reluctance is a failure to listen to women when they are having their babies and when they know what options would be best for them at that time.

We celebrate advances in modern medicine, we celebrate advances that save lives. And I'm not entirely sure why we don't fully celebrate the advance of a C-section. As I said before, the objective when a woman is having her baby is to ensure that they both leave the hospital and arrive home in as good a state as possible. We really must urge everyone, both in society and in the medical profession, to make sure that's their top priority.

Thank you.