Can I choose which hospital to give birth?

Clairebear789b

Hi

I live fairly close to you (in Harrow) and when i found out that I was pregnant my doctor asked me to choose which hospital i wanted to go to, i chose Northwick Park Hospital as it was the closest.

I cannot recommend highly enough the care I received from this hospital. I was admitted at 29 weeks when my waters broke, I also had a blood clotting problem and my baby wasn't growing at the rate it should have been. I stayed in for 6 weeks and my son was delivered when he had stopped growing, they monitored me excellently.

I know different people have different stories, all hospitals will have good and bad experiences, but I would go back to NPH with no hesitation.

Hopefully you will get the outcome you would like.

Congratulations by the way!

Good luck, Claire

SammyD_2

Lillibet wrote:

Whe I was pregnant I wanted to select a local hospital (Kingston) but because my GP's surgery don't deal with it I didn't have a choice, only the one they dealt with (St Peters) which was further away. If I had wanted to get my choice I would have had to switch GP's to one that dealt with my choice of hospital. Most GP's lists were full & it seems they can refuse to accept you to their lists on these grounds, in the end I didn't try & just accepted it. I now understand that there is actually no such thing as "patient choice" , which implies you have a right to chose, only in fact "patient preferance" which means you don't have an automatic right to your choice unless it can be accomodated. "Patient choice" is a media term & has resulted in the public being deceived into thinking they have rights which they actually don't have!
You can, of course, chose a home birth, all being well.

For what it's worth, I found the labour care at the hospital I ended up at fantastic, although the post labour care left a lot to be desired but that wasn't as important to me, this was in the face of at least half a dozen friends & family who all reported poor experiences there.

HTH & good luck;)

Same situation as me...theoretically I had the right to choose - I also wanted Kingston, which is one of three hospitals near me...they were booked up (with who??? I saw the GP when I was five weeks pregnant!!!!!) but I did have a "choice" between St Georges and St Helier. Opted for St Georges as that was where I had my first child.

Having said that St Georges was operating a scheme for women who had had very bad experiences first time round or who had other "high needs" (not sure what that means) so I got one to one care right through which was great.

The reality is that once you are actually having the baby you won't care where you are, and you can have good and bad experiences anywhere. St Georges undoubtedly saved my life and that of my son's (my first baby), and I will always be pleased with that, but even with that, both births have been pretty crap experiences, mainly due to bad staff particularly on the post natal ward (eg refusing to change the sheets on my bed in the night when my baby had vomited everywhere, refusing to ask the 16 year old in the bed opposite me to turn off the tv program she had switched up loud at 4am and telling me I was "making a fuss" when I asked for them to check the amount of bleeding I had, when in fact I was haemorraging badly and needed a transfusion!)

The best I can say is focus on having a healthy baby and staying healthy yourself, don't expect anything else and you won't be disappointed!

LOL

rev229

The best way to get an appointment with the community midwife is to ring the surgery and ask to speak to her. They will tell you what days she is at the surgery or will leave a message for her to contact you. She will give you all the help and advice you need. Has your gp done the referral to the hospital yet? Did he give you a FW8 this is for free prescriptions and free dental care? YOu really need a booking appointment with the midwife either at the surgery or hospital this just goes through medical history, check weight and urine and blood pressure this should be done around eight weeks. The midwife will also dicuss the blood samples which will need to be done and possilby take some blood. She will also discuss screening tests and what you would prefer if any. You wil then have a dating scan at 12 weeks followed by a detailed scan between 18 and 20 weeks. You will see you community midwife once a month from 20 to 36 weeks then evey other week until due date. If you go beyond due date you will see her weekly until you go into labour or induction at 42 weeks. I would'nt wory too much about you asthma as it tends to be mush better during pregnancy. As for loose joints it really should'nt have anything to do with your waters breaking. hope this information is helpful. By the way most hospitals don't allow partners to stay on the ward because of the security risk. Most maternity units are locked. This is for the saftey of yourself and your baby. It is also a fire issue as well as the midwives would have to be accountable for everyone in there care including partners. Partners are allowed to stay while on labour ward when you go into labour.

jellyhead

what happens here is you get an antenatal pack from the GP reception, that contains a green booklet that gets filled in throughout the pregnancy with all the info about tests, scans etc, the FW8 form you need for free health care etc. (but it needs signing by the midwife) and they take down the date of your LMP (last menstrual period) to arrange a scan at 12 weeks (but not all hospitals do a 12 week scan, it might just be one scan in the middle of pregnancy). you are given a number for the midwife unit, you can only call between 9 and 9.30 am, and can't call before you're 8 weeks pregnant. getting that initial appointment with the midwife can take months and most women will have been up to hospital for the 12 week scan before they even see the midwife.

i suppose there just aren't enough midwives for everyone to be seen early on in their pregnancy, which is a shame because not everyone knows the health information they need and things happen such as bleeding etc. and you don't know who to speak to because nobody really acknowledges that you're pregnant.

oh, and lillibet i'm not surprised that you're not joining me in pregnancy so soon lol! i like large age gaps between children, this one was a surprise and will be lovely, but i wouldn't have planned it so soon lol! but i'll be telling everyone it was planned, i don't want to look scatty or careless

black-saturn

jellyhead wrote:

my baby will only be 15 months old when i have this baby, so i can't imagine leaving him overnight, and i'm quite fond of my husband too, i was upset that he had to leave straight away last time. he'd cuddled the baby for an hour or so first though while i screamed for a bit (still had the drip in), had a bath, drank tea etc.

You have about the same age gap as I've got between my children (they are 11 and 9 now). It was really hard work when the second one was born as the first one was still really a baby and still needed to be babied. The workload doesnt double it seems to quadruple.

jellyhead

that's reassuring to hear :rotfl:i don't think i'll be online much from november lol!

black-saturn

Well it was hard work until the youngest one reached about 6 months, then it all started getting easier.

jellyhead

that's what i was hoping, also it might be a bit easier if they're the same sex, are yours? they'll have to share a bedroom for 7 years at least, so i hope mine will be another boy lol! i'm already sick of everyone assuming i'm desperate for a girl this time.

sorry to go off topic by the way (but thanks for replies directed at me lol!). i think i'll just trundle up to the hospital again, it's at the end of my road. there's nowhere at home i could give birth, house is tiny. hopefully i can leave it until the very last minute then go into hospital, i think spending a long time in there puts you in 'patient' mode to some extent, so you do as you're told rather than questioning and asking for things. that way you can end up feeling like you're on a production line. the mums who just turned up when labour was well established seemed more able to stick up for themselves lol!

gixxerchick_2

I'm dreading going back to the hospital where i had our son.
The antenatal care was excellent and couldn't fault the community midwives.
My bugbear was the care while in labour and the postnatal care. While in labour i was cared for by 3 midwives, the last one was hardly in the room and i had to rely on my oh and his mum to tell me when to push ( i had an epidural ), in the end a doctor delivered my son.
The midwife never phoned the maternity ward to check if there was a bed available for me and just took me up there- to which a member of staff on the ward said ' who is she?, we weren't told she was coming up ' which made me feel like i shouldn't have been there.
There were only 2 members of staff on the postnatal ward that were actually helpful and nice, the rest seemed to have attitudes, bad ones.

It's not only me that has had problems with the care in the maternity dept at our local hospital, a few work colleagues have said it's the worst care they've had and did recommend a hospital about 5 or 6 miles away from us.


If you're not happy with anything including your ante/postnatal care, shout out and voice your problems, remember it's supposed to be a joyful event so do things the way you want, good luck.





Oh and congratulations, it's the best thing you'll ever do!!

rovinia

eh, I think you do have a choice - I had second at home, indeed there was an active home birth group in my area, although my GP surgery did not 'support' home births,the midwives were delighted to be involved. you are/were entitled to have a midwife wherever you choose, even in a middle of a field (unless the law has changed) talk to your midwife and go and visit some hospitals. There are increasingly midwife led units, low intervention, and more like home that hospital. It really is worth researching, and contacting the NCT National Childbirth Trust for information. Enjoy your preganacy.