Mum accidentally injected with cleaning chemical

A Swedish mother was still in excruciating pain a week after giving birth after being mistakenly injected with a neurotoxic disinfectant instead of an epidural.

The procedure normally gives mothers in labour a painkiller injection directly into the nerve canal along the spine, but this woman was accidentally given the cleaning chemical.

"She has extreme pain in her back, and feels something like electric jolts all the way down through her feet," her husband told local paper Sydsvenskan.

The chemical, usually used to clean catheters, left the woman writhing in pain and unable to leave hospital for two weeks after the July 26 accident.

The unnamed woman is now home and doctors believe she will not suffer lasting damage from the injection.

"We consider this extremely serious," hospital director Anders Rehn said.

The disinfectant is no longer being kept in the birthing clinic.