Which Hospital?? Farnborough or East Surrey

[MrsEngland]

PLEASE HELP

Hi,

I'm pregnant with my first child and have moved from my local area very recently so am trying to catch up on where I should be with my antenatal classes etc... When talking to my new mid wife she told me I need to make a decision ASAP as to where I wish to give birth. I am currently signed up for Farnborough hospital (also known as PRU), this has recently had a make over and I've heard good feedback. My new area hospital is East Surrey (also known as Redhill hospital).

Since this is my first pregnancy I really do not know much about either, if anyone has any feedback good or bad for either hospital I would very much appreciate it.

The midwife suggested that East Surrey hospital has been overpacked and recently had a shortage of mid wives, but they have recently overcome this problem. I have also been told by a neighbour that East Surrey hospital does not allow visitors (accept the father). But obviously my family will be banging down the doors desperate to see their first grandchild!!

Look forward to any advice people could give.

Many thanks!!!

MrsEngland

[weasle]

No idea about Redhill, but have worked at the PRUH (although not in obstetrics). Nice new hospital, would be delighted to go there myself if lived nearer. I'm never convinced there is a big difference between different units as lots of the staff rotate between them.

[WaitingForGodKnows]

I don't have any experience of East Surrey, but I can tell you a bit about the Pruh.

Newish hospital, pretty clean and reasonably well-equipped. Delivery suite is relatively small, with about 9 delivery rooms including one room with a birth pool. All delivery rooms have small bathrooms with shower, loo etc. Postnatal ward is quite cramped if you're in a bay, but they do have private rooms (again with shower/loo etc) you can pay for at approx £120 per night.

Staff-wise, well, they have the same problems with understaffing as anywhere else, really. Postnatal ward is often understaffed as far as midwives go, but they do often have nursery nurses, HCAs, student mws and even general nurses on duty. Sadly the mws are usually too busy to give enough time and attention to mothers struggling with breastfeeding, for example, but the breastfeeding advisors should be on the ward every day.

Re: visitors - delivery suite allows two birth partners who obviously can stay with you throughout. Postnatal ward has strict visiting times but does allow limited family in the afternoons/evenings.

It is a consultant-led unit, fairly 'medicalised' and the section/induction/intervention rate is higher than it should be. If you have any specific concerns/requests then writing a birth plan and making sure the mws read it is always a good idea! It is possible to labour and/or give birth in the pool but it's a first come, first served thing and sadly not all of the mws are confident in waterbirth. At the other end of the scale, it has a 24-hour epidural service. I'll leave you to guess which one gets used most often

As weasle said, it is a nice unit, beset by most of the same problems as anywhere else. As a rule, the mws are completely lovely and work damn hard. I think that the vast majority of women who give birth there would say it's a positive experience.

Have a lovely birth! HTH

[pooka]

I had dd and ds at the revamped PRUH.
DD involved overnight stay. Had an amenity room (but never got billed). Was my first, so ended up having epidural and so on. Was rather let down because was under group practice, where understanding was that would know my midwife when push came to shove, but on arrival noone told the group practice I was in. So had midwives I didn't know, but did not have adverse experience because of that.
Found it rather scary, but then would have wherever I was!

With ds, was supposed to have home birth with the (same) group practice. But in the end, none of them were on call on the friday evening I went into labour (not best pleased, but with the group practice rather than the hospital). Went in and had ds less than an hour after arriving and left within 2 hours (as soon as was stitched). Midwives fine (though the first I saw said I was only 3cm, but was actually 10cm with waters intact). No harm done though, stitching was good and so on. But hospitals not my cup of tea, so got out sharpish (after a fair amount of insistence on my part).

Think facilities fine. En-suite to the delivery rooms. Was clean. Level of care OK. Didn't use the pool either time (first time because the pool hadn't been opened then - dd born just after the new facilities finished).

[pooka]

I didn't see a consultant either time, but then was under midwife led care by choice as saw no need to have a consultant.