Bloomsbury Birth Centre

[DontCallMeYummy]

I'm booked in at UCH and am keen to learn more about the attached Bloomsbury Birth Centre. In an ideal world I'd go for a home water birth with dimmed lights and dinner in the oven but I live in a rented house with 3 other people so that's out of the question! The birth centre sounded like the next best option only when I went to visit it still seemed a bit 'hospitally' and the stark rooms didn't exactly fill me with funky earthmama vibes - though I daresay I won't notice the decor when I'm surfing the waves of contractions... Are there any BBC veterans out there who can tell me how they found it? Ta!

[twelveyeargap]

Bump!

I'd love to know too. Am thinking about hosp choices, and UCH would be one. Hoping to move soon, to an area where St Thomas's is a choice and I've heard loads of good stuff about there. Would love to know more about UCH.

[littlefrog]

Am wondering about BBC too, though like you I'd rather have a home birth - we'll see. A friend had her daughter in the birthing centre at the Royal Free and really liked it, so might that be an option for you?

[DontCallMeYummy]

Maybe I'll go check it out.
The Royal Free could be a safer option - what if labour makes me all confused and after instructing the taxi driver to 'take me to the BBC' I wind up giving birth under the weather map on the 9 o clock news?

[holidaysoon]

Hi 12yrgap Just to put another side to things St Thomas' post natal is pretty close to Dante's inferno!(although seems to be recurring theme on these threads why are the postnatal wards so c**p?).Delivery very understaffed at night apparently too.

[MarsLady]

One of my clients gave birth there. It was lovely. The midwives were lovely. I have another potential birth there as well.

What can I tell you? It was lovely lol!

[MarsLady]

Ooh and reading further... one of my clients gave birth at the Royal Free on Tuesday this week. In the Heath centre. Lovely. Fab midwives.

[frogs]

I nearly had dd2 there (dd1 and ds both predate the BBC, but were born at UCH labour ward -- or rather ds was nearly born on the main staircase of the EGA, but that's another story).

I thought it was great, and the midwives fantastic. In the end my waters broke and when I still hadn't gone into labour 3 days later, I was reluctantly induced in the Labour Ward proper.

I have absolutely no intention of having another baby, but if I did, I'd go for BBC for sure.

hth