Bit worried about getting to labour ward and finding it full

[lucysnowe]

Hi all

Visited hospital last week (Royal Berks in Reading) and the maternity wards seemed v. nice and relaxed (and empty!). However someone mentioned that last September they were having to transfer people because it's a busy month (lots of shagging at Xmas) and they had some overflow from another hosp(due to unregistered mums coming in unexpectedly).

This has worried me slightly because my due date is end of March which I know is another busy month (summer holiday shagging ).

So I wanted to ask - has anyone ever had to transfer to a different hospital? If so how was it? And are maternity wards in general loads busier in March/April/May?

Thanks!

[MrsTittleMouse]

Please forgive me, as I am a spod. I found this table on the government website. It gives births per month for the last 70 years, and there really doesn't seem to be much difference month-to-month. Can you talk to the midwife about what will happen? Does the hospital have stats about how likely it will be?

[cosima]

i sympathise, my hospital says the same thing. it closes regularly, most hospitals do. but rest assured if you are about to give birth they can't send you somewhere else. When you go into labour keep the midwifes well informed as then they will be expecting you and less likely to accept others too early. Plan your routes to other hospitals too tho just in case.

[MrsTittleMouse]

I should have mentioned that it happened to a friend of ours - she was transferred to a different city, and it was her second child. Everything was still fine.

[lucysnowe]

Huh, Mrs TM, that chart is very interesting (and not just because of the monthly thing). I remember DH telling me he?d read somewhere that a third of all babies were born in March/April/May. Is it an urban myth maybe?

February does seem like quite a quiet month though!

[MrsTittleMouse]

I noticed that too! I would make a mental note to conceive in May, if I wasn't so rubbish at getting pregnant.
I was told by the midwives at the unit where I delivered that a full moon tends to coincide with a full ward, but I don't know of any evidence. As it was, I was the only woman in labour in the whole unit, and so I got a lot of attention! There was no concealing who was mooing like a cow when the antenatal class came round though.

[lucysnowe]

I am a bit rubbish too, but when I saw I was due in March I felt like puh, cliché! It seems as if everyone I know was born around March but if the stats don't show that, that's definitely a relief. Thanks for the kind words too cosima.

[Bilbomum]

I had an August baby and when I phoned the labour ward they told me they were "closed" because they were full (this was a big teaching hospital in Leeds not a small little local hosp). I nearly fell through the floor when they told me, my husband thought it was a joke!

We went to a different hospital (which had also been closed earlier in the evening!) and they had to transfer my notes. It's always useful to check where the 'plan b' hospital is, just in case, hopefully you won't need it.

Obviously there were lots of good pre-Xmas parties in Leeds that year!