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www.foughture to claim this offer now. Terms apply. Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud, where each week we ask some of the writers from the magazine to read their pieces out loud.

Coming up, Lisa Heseldine on the maternity crisis in Britain.

Roya Nickers' diary this week.

And Lionel Shriver on America's voting system.

First up, Lisa Hazeldine.

Chelsea and her partner had been trying for a baby for two years.

Following several miscarriages, she became pregnant again last spring.

We were everjoyed, the 26-year-old says, we thought this time everything would finally be different.

Joy rapidly turned to worry when Chelsea began to suffer headaches and visual disturbances

and made several trips to Worthing Hospital, part of University Hospital's Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. Eventually, fetal

distress was picked up during a scan. After a transfer to another hospital and an emergency

cesarean, Bonnie was born in September at just over 26 weeks gestation. She had suffered a brain

bleed and had chronic lung disease. I knew something wasn't right, Chelsea says,

but when I tried to raise it, I often felt dismissed. I was made to feel I was overreacting

because of my history of miscarriages. Bonnie was transferred back to Worthing Hospital after

weeks in intensive care. There, Chelsea says, staff failed to keep her and her partner

informed of their daughter's health or treatment. We weren't told when she developed sepsis, she says. We didn't know about

...