Ethnicity pain gap: the epidural failed and no one believed me – I could feel everything

Women from minority backgrounds are less likely to receive adequate pain relief during childbirth

• Women from minority backgrounds in UK less likely to get epidurals, study finds

• How the ethnicity pain gap follows people from birth to death

Julie Hammond, a 35-year-old mother of three from Kent, believes that the “excruciating” pain she experienced during the birth of her second child was not well managed by the medical professionals caring for her.

“It’s difficult to put into words just how traumatic it was,” Hammond says. “I could just feel myself panicking throughout the whole procedure, while also trying to tell myself to calm down.”