A mother was rushed into surgery two days after her C-section after a complication left her in intense pain.

Kasthuri Dhamodharan, 29, and her husband Dhamodharan Kasiviswanathan, 32, plan to lodge a Health and Disability Commission compliant against Hawke's Bay Hospital.

Dhamodharan and newborn son Mithun have been recovering at their Napier home for the last three weeks.

He was delivered by caesarean on August 25. Medical records show the incision to deliver him was made "lower than planned" and the wall of the vagina had been unknowingly sutured close to the cervix, trapping blood inside the uterus.

Dhamodharan told the Herald on Sunday she suffered intense pain days after the birth, while in hospital.

"I felt like I had another baby inside of me.

"My tummy was really sore, pain relief wasn't doing anything."

Her stomach started growing bigger and a CT scan showed a large amount of fluid within the uterus and there was concern about potential internal bleeding, medical records show.

Dhamodharan was then sent back to the operating theatre to check for bleeding.

Kasiviswanathan claims he was told the operation would take 45 minutes but after a few hours passed he started fearing his wife was not coming back.

"I was preparing myself for the worst.

"I was all alone, it was really scary."

Six hours later, Kasiviswanathan was told his wife was stable and he was allowed to see her.

Hawke's Bay District Health Board's chief medical and dental officer Robin Whyman said the complication in Dhamodharan's C-section was a known risk associated with the procedure. He said her life was not in danger and she was never in a critical condition.

"There are risks to every surgery, including C-sections, particularly in the late stages of labour, and while we do our utmost to make sure complications don't happen, occasionally, despite the best intentions of everyone, they do.

"There was no delay in treatment once the issue was discovered and we have explained this to Mrs Dhamodharan and her family - sometimes it takes time to pinpoint what has occurred and then correct."

Kasiviswanathan now plans to lodge a Health and Disability Commission compliant saying he believes an error occurred which could have been prevented, and the DHB needed to take responsibility.

Through the whole ordeal, Dhamodharan had been unable to feed or even hold her baby.

She said she was upset, had missed out on precious bonding time and still had moments where she was fearing for her life.

"Even now, when I get pain from my stitches, I think, 'What if they have stitched me up wrong?'.

"I even started to think, 'I don't know how long I'm going to live'."