Birth options in the Barbican?

[acnebride]

My sister's pregnant! Really, really excited and happy esp as she is 41 and was worried about fertility. She is booked in at UCH. Does anyone have any experiences or advice to offer about birth there? Are there any other NHS options that anyone would recommend - she lives in the Barbican?

[hester]

Huge congrats to your sister - I LOVE hearing older mum success stories, as I'm in her position, so thanks for boosting my rapidly dwindling reserves of hope!
I've never given birth at UCH but close friends have, with mixed reports. I think her other local choice is Barts and the London, which has a worse reputation (for maternity care). Given the choice, I'd go for UCH - but I'm sure other Mumsnetters will give you much better advice based on personal experience very soon.

[frogs]

UCH is very good (I've had three there, spread over nine years).

The actual building is a bit (!) rundown, as they're in the process of building a shiny new hospital on a next-door site, but the actual care is very good IME, and that of all my friends. Unlike Hester, I don't know anyone who's had a bad word to say about it.

They have a new low-tech birthing unit in addition to the labour ward which is well worth checking out, as it seems to be run slightly separately to the main delivery unit and offers midwife-led natural births. Overall their stats for interventions are probably above average as they take all the complicated cases from elsewhere, including the Portland. The consultant that I had is Mr. Silverstone, who is really lovely.

The Foetal medicine dept. is very brilliant (Mr Jauniaux) as is the neonatal unit (each of my three was there for observation).

Yes, the building is grotty, and yes, they suffer from the usual inner-London midwife shortage, but overall, very happy.

CAT doesn't work for me, but if you want more details post here and I'll send you my email address.

[acnebride]

Many thanks Hester and Frogs, this is v reassuring as I was a volunteer at UCH years ago and thought it looked awful, although the people were nice. Clearly that was about right! I really, really want my sister to have a good experience - feel very protective of her even though she's older. Don't know why. I guess because my ds is only 7m old so it's all still too vivid....

I would love any more details that you have - is there a breastfeeding clinic and what is it like? can you get any form of single room there after the birth? So if you were willing to send me your email address that would be great. Not sure how this works - do I need to do anything else?

[frogs]

I've sent you a CAT with my email address, acnebride. It sometimes takes a little while to arrive, though.

With dd1 I went to a (fairly) good bfeeding workshop in late pregnancy. I think they now run midwife bfeeding drop-ins in the antenatal clinic dept, but haven't personally used this.

You can book single rooms (they call them amenity rooms) for after the birth, but it's dependent on availability -- I think women whose babies are in SCBU get priority. I don't think they have private bathrooms, either. When is your sister due? It might be worth checking out when the new building opens as I'm sure everything will change then.

[prettycandles]

I've had both of mine at UCH. The staff are wonderful, the care is excellent, the building grotty but fairly clean ocmpared to other hospitals, and the food absolutely awful.

The midwife who IMO is god's gift to womankind works at UCH and delivered both my babies. Her name is Sister Chris Mutakrishna - ask for her if you have a chance!

I've been looked after by the Fetal Medicine Unit, and although fortunately my babies turned out to be absolutely fine, I was given as much care and attention as any other mother, I was never made to feel that I was wasting their time because my baby turned out not to be ill (I've heard stories of quite the opposite sort of behaviour at other centres).

I had use of an amenity room after dd was born, I got it as soon as it was free so I did spend one night on the ward - which was fine as wards go.

If you want to CAT me, acnebride, feel free. Many many congrats and lots of joy for your sister.

[frogs]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the food. My BIL who used to work at UCH/Middlesex had a theory that the quality of hospital food was inversely related to the number of snack bars and restaurants in the immediate vicinity.

On this basis, one would predict UCH to be pretty bad, and it is indeed spectacularly dreadful.

[TurnAgainCat]

I had a wonderful experience of drug free water birth at UCL, however, afterwards got moved to 3 different beds within 6 hours of childbirth and ended up having to share room with methadone addict who let her baby cry all night without getting up once. I also was not given the opportunity to have a wash until I went home the next day! I also feel that as a teaching hospital they tend to do too many investigations for their own research which panics the mother. However, the actual midwives were great and I also have a very high opinion of Mr Jauniaux; at one point I was offered an amnio because of something or other ambiguous on an unnecessary scan, and I refused (was 25) but asked to see him, and he agreed with my choice and discussed various pieces of research with me in a very learned and non-patronizing way. If I ever have another, I would be interested in home birth, but if it is your sister's first birth at 41, I should guess that UCL would be a safer option. There is something new called the Bloomsbury Birthing Centre which I read about in a surestart leaflet, which she might want to look into, although I think it may just be part of UCL. UCL used to do a good breastfeeding workshop for pregnant women, and there was also a free postnatal exercise class once a week with excellent physiotherapists.

[prettycandles]

TurnAgainCat, how very strange - what extraodinarily different experiences we have had!

After ds was born one of the midwives ran a bath with Infacare bubblebath for me, and I was encouraged to have a shower or bath after dd was born. After ds was born I found the ward too noisy and went to sit in a comfy chair on the stairway for a while with ds, fell asleep and was woken by a midwife who had been notified by a security guard who had seen me on the cctv. The midwife then came and literally tucked me into bed with ds in bed with me. And after dd was born I remember being checked up on (without being disturbed) every 2-3h throughout the day and night, even though I had had a perfectly normal birth.

I was booked into the Bloomsbury Birthing Centre for a waterbirth, but the birthing pool was in use and there were no free labour rooms in the Centre, so I was put in a labour room in the 'high-tech' ward, but treated as if I was in the Centre: no fussing, no monitoring (beyond less than a minute at at ime to hear the baby's hearbeat once or twice), no examinations and so on. They intended to transfer me to the Centre as soon as a room or the pool was free, but dd came too quickly for that.

[acnebride]

Wow! thanks again. Sorry I didn't see these immediately. May well CAT prettycandles but I'm going to leave it a little while until we know all is well - will ask again nearer the time.

[TurnAgainCat]

In fairness, I should say that ds was born in late December, and a nurse told me that the reason I was moved around so much and they were too short staffed to spend time with such a "normal" delivery on things like breastfeeding or washing me was because all the women who were having planned and elective caesarians had asked for that week so that they could be home for Xmas! They get extra referrals I think of more complicated cases so there was an overflow off the caesarian ward.

[prettycandles]

TAC, so was dd! Weirder and weirder...they offered to discharge me after 6h, but I asked to stay in longer than usual because I had had PND with ds, and they were quite happy for me to do so. Dd was born on 21 Dec, and on 23 Dec they told me that they were going to close the ward for Xmas, so if I wanted to stay after Xmas Eve I would have to move to another ward, together with 3 or 4 other mothers who were staying. By then I was ready to go home!