Bath RUH

[fen77]

Can people tell me anything good about giving birth at RUH as I have to have my baby there in February and all I keep hearing is bad things, especially about the after care!

[kiwi5]

am due to have mine there or at paulton midwife unit. i have heard some good things about it. a friend popped her little boy out 6 weeks ago and she said they were brilliant.
if i do have mine there, will try to remember to come back and post my experiences!
all my scans there have been fine and everyone really helpful. all the best xx

[1percentawake]

I had my DS at Bath RUH. They were very good at the birth - I had a horrible time but they were efficient and the doctors were excellent. Agree that aftercare was crap though - quite a few of the Mums I spoke to when we were there try to get transferred to Paulton after the birth.

[kellestar]

I am due @ RUH Bath at any point now really. I've been seeing a specialist up there all the way through my PG so got to know about the care and some of the people I may meet along the way. We only had our official tour last week and got to see the rooms and find out about care. It really depends on what type of birth you have.

Average discharge is around 6 hours
Epidural minimum of 24 hours.
CS can be up to 5 days.

A friend of mine had her little girl by ELCS this morning and has opted to stay in the full 5 days for recovery. She seems happy and the team are very supportive and had her breastfeeding a little after delivery. As it's her first I think she's glad to stay in to get the support.

You can choose to be referred to a CMW led centre like Paulton, but they tend to be on a first come first serve basis.

Most of the horror stories I've heard have come from people who didn't labour at Bath and chose somewhere else. I thought the standard of care sounded about average for a large hospital. We had the choice of Bath or Yeovil. Bath being a little easier for us both to get to and that was the deciding factor for us.

If I could I would have chosen Paulton as I can see the Unit from my backgarden and would only have a 2 minute waddle, but I'm classed as Medium Risk and they only take Low Risk. I've been seeing the CMW for my normal appointments at Paulton and found the advice and support varies between the MW @ Bath and @ Paulton and that's been the most frustrating thing so far.

[rudbekia]

my best friend recently gave birth there - after a few issues ended up with an emcs but she seemed very positive about the whole experience. think she stayed in for three days after then went home. am due to have mine at frome mw led centre but would be transferred to bath if any problems arose. hope this helps.

[blueberryboybait]

I had my DD2 there 6 months ago and it was a fantastic experience. I was fortunate enough to give birth on a relatively quiet night, I had a midwife and student, when I requested an epidural they did everything possible to keep me comfortable until they could get me one. I took a short 6 bullet point birth plan which they thanked me for as they often don't have time to read through pages and pages and are then often made to feel bad when things do not go according to birth plan. They are currently aiming for a 3 hour discharge to mw led units or home.

Postnatal care was great too - food is pretty poor but DH brought in m&s meals :) I was fortunate to not have any problems feeding but there was a woman in my bay who had trouble and rang everytime she needed to feed and someone (MW/HCA) come and spent time with her to get baby latched and feeding well. Unfortunately some of the windows on the side of the unit are blocked off atm due to the new NICU being built. IF you go in not expecting the Ritz you will be fine - it was clean (cleaner than 2 years ago) and the food was basic but I got clean sheets daily, support for the staff and came home feeling good about my whole experience.