“Was Something Done Wrong?” Getting an Independent Review of Your C-Section

After a traumatic caesarean · Part 6 · 15 min read · Published 1 November 2026 · Reviewed 1 November 2026 · Next review May 2027

By Dr Rosemary Listing, PhD (Law) · Medical negligence lawyer since 2013 · Of Counsel, Peter Evans & Associates

If you're where she is, reading notes you can't decode at an hour when no one can answer, please be gentle with yourself. You shouldn't have to work this out alone, and you can't, not reliably. That isn't a reflection on you. Judging whether medical care met the standard takes an independent doctor in the right field. This is Part 6 of a series; the series guide to c-section trauma covers the wider picture.

Why I can write this

I have been a medical negligence lawyer since 2013 and have worked on many hundreds of claims, many of them involving birth. Arranging independent reviews, and explaining their results to families, is a large part of what I do. My doctorate looked at patterns of failure in medical negligence. I'm not medically qualified, which is exactly why every question of clinical standard goes to an independent doctor. The information here is checked against the sources listed at the end.

Start with your question

• “How do I know if my c-section was negligent?” → Signs worth a closer look and what experts ask
• “Isn't the hospital already reviewing it?” → Hospital reviews, complaints and independent reviews
• “What records do I need?” → Your records
• “What if they say nothing was wrong?” → An honest answer
• “Is it too late to ask?” → Time limits across Australia
• “What would it cost?” → How a claim is paid for

Signs worth a closer look

Most caesareans that are frightening, painful or end in complications are not negligent. A caesarean is major surgery, and Pregnancy, Birth and Baby lists its risks, including blood loss, wound infection, blood clots and damage to nearby organs such as the bladder. A complication on that list can happen even with excellent care.

What usually matters is not the complication itself, but what happened around it. These are the kinds of situations where an independent look is often worthwhile:

• A delay. Warning signs on the heart rate tracing, or slow progress, that weren't acted on, so a planned or calm caesarean became a crash one. “Why didn't they do a caesarean sooner?” explains this for babies who were injured.
• Pain during the operation that wasn't believed or treated. See “I Felt My C-Section”.
• An injury that was missed. A bladder or bowel injury, or heavy bleeding, that wasn't recognised or acted on promptly, even if the injury itself was a known risk.
• Something left behind. A swab, clamp or other object retained after surgery. Unintended retention of a foreign object after surgery is on the Australian Sentinel Events List, a national list of serious events that should never happen.
• Infection or wound breakdown where symptoms were reported and not acted on.
• Consent where you weren't told about a material risk, or felt you had no real choice. See “I Felt Pushed Into It”.
• Records that don't match what you remember, or that have gaps at the important moments.

The caesarean injuries no one warns you about covers the physical complications in more detail.

Hospital reviews, complaints and independent reviews

There are several ways to get answers, and they do different jobs.

You can do more than one. Many families start with a debrief, and then want someone independent to read the file. The Health Care Complaints Commission in NSW, the Health Complaints Commissioner in Victoria and the Office of the Health Ombudsman in Queensland are examples of state complaints bodies; every state and territory has one.

Step 1: Your questions

Before anything else, write down your own account. It doesn't need to be tidy. Include:

• the timeline as you remember it, with rough times;
• what you said, and to whom, especially anything you reported that worried you;
• what you were told, and by whom;
• what happened after you went home: symptoms, GP visits, readmissions;
• the questions that keep you awake.

Memories fade and change. Your account, written now, is evidence, and it tells a reviewer where to look.

Step 2: Your records

Ask for the complete file, not a discharge summary. My guide to getting and reading your birth records explains how, and getting your medical records in Australia covers the rules in each state. If a lawyer is helping you, they will usually request the records for you.

Step 3: A first look

An experienced medical negligence lawyer will usually read the records and your account first, to see whether there is a question worth sending to an independent doctor, and which kind. This first look also checks the practical things: your time limits, which state's law applies, and whether anyone else, such as your baby or partner, may have been affected. At Peter Evans & Associates, the first conversation and an early view are free; our costs page explains how reviews and claims are funded after that.

Step 4: Independent doctors

The most important part of a review is choosing the right expert for each question. A caesarean can raise questions for an obstetrician, an anaesthetist, a midwife, a urologist or colorectal surgeon, an infectious diseases doctor, or a psychiatrist. The expert should be in the same field as the person whose care is being looked at, independent of the hospital, and often from another hospital network or state.

Each expert is asked the same core questions, which mirror what the law requires:

It's common to need more than one expert. One may say the injury itself was a known risk that can happen with good care. Another may look at whether it should have been recognised sooner. They're different questions, and both matter.

Step 5: An honest answer

An independent review can come back in different ways:

• The care was reasonable. Many reviews find this. It can be hard to hear, but many women tell me it brings peace: it wasn't their fault, and it wasn't anyone's.
• The care fell short, but it didn't change the outcome. This may still be worth raising as a complaint, so it doesn't happen to someone else.
• The care fell short, and it caused harm. Then there may be a claim, and the next step is to understand what that would involve. How a claim works sets out the stages.
• It's unclear. Sometimes more information or another expert is needed.

Whatever the answer, you should get it explained in plain language, with time to ask questions. And whatever the answer, it doesn't change what you went through, or your right to support.

How the law looks at it

Peer opinion sets the standard. In NSW, section 5O of the Civil Liability Act 2002 says a professional isn't negligent if they acted in a way that was widely accepted in Australia by peer professional opinion as competent practice, unless that opinion is irrational. Most other states have a similar rule. That's why an independent expert in the same field is essential, and why one expert's opinion is not always the end of the matter.

Causation must be more likely than not. It must be probable, not just possible, that better care would have avoided the harm. In Tabet v Gett [2010] HCA 12, the High Court held that losing a chance of a better outcome isn't enough on its own.

Hindsight isn't the test. Care is judged on what the team knew, or should have known, at the time.

The duty to warn is different. In NSW, the peer opinion defence doesn't apply to warnings about risks. See “I Felt Pushed Into It”.

Time keeps running. A review takes months, so ask early. See time limits across Australia.

In my practice

The most common thing I see in a caesarean file is not one big error. It's a signal that was noticed and not escalated: a note like “will mention to team”, a temperature recorded and not acted on, a woman who said something was wrong and was told it was normal. Those notes are easy to miss at 2 a.m. and easy to dismiss in a busy ward. An independent expert's job is to tell us whether they mattered. Mine is to make sure the right expert is asked the right question, and that the family hears the answer honestly, whichever way it falls.

Both things can be true

The complication may have been nobody's fault, and what happened afterwards may still have fallen short. The team may have worked hard and cared about you, and still missed something. Asking for an independent review isn't an accusation. It's how you separate what was unavoidable from what wasn't.

The bigger picture

Hospitals review serious incidents to learn from them, and open disclosure is meant to make sure families are told what happened. But many families say they never heard the outcome of a review, or only received a summary. The NSW Parliament's inquiry into birth trauma heard repeatedly from women who struggled to get information about their own births. An independent review is one way families get an answer that isn't the hospital's own.

Support

• PANDA National Perinatal Mental Health Helpline: 1300 726 306, for mothers and partners.
• Gidget Foundation Australia: 1300 851 758, free psychological support for expectant and new parents.
• Birth Trauma Australia: peer support and information after a caesarean.
• Pregnancy, Birth and Baby: 1800 882 436, to speak with a maternal child health nurse.
• Lifeline: 13 11 14, 24 hours, if you are in crisis. In an emergency, call 000.
• Our guide to free and low-cost support after birth trauma.

The woman in the stories deleted the PDF from her phone. The records are with her lawyer now, and so is page 112. She still has questions, but she isn't the one who has to answer them anymore, and at 2 a.m. she sleeps when the baby sleeps.

With care,
Rosemary