Any recent experiences of postnatal care at King's College Hospital, London?

[2to3]

Hi - I'm due to have my third child at King's in Camberwell early next year and would like to hear from people who have recently given birth there.

It would be useful to know how you found the overall experience of staying in the postnatal ward, and if you had a CS, how long you had to stay for before being discharged?

And does anyone know if it's possible to pay for a private room there or if it's still allocated for free on the basis of need?

Many thanks!

[MrsZuko]

I'm not sure if this is recent enough but I had my ds there last August. I had to stay overnight and the postnatal care was pretty crap to be honest although it does have excellent antenatal care. I enquired into private rooms at the time - you could still hire them but they're in a completely different part of the hospital. They do have free private rooms in the maternity section but these are usually allocated to those in need (women with babies in the special care unit etc).

[2to3]

Thanks - what was crap about it? Were the staff unfriendly, the wards dirty, other patients/visitors a pain, etc? I do remember the food was atrocious, but that's only to be expected (why serve healthy food when your objective is to improve the nation's health?).

I had twins at King's last time so was allocated a free private room and my husband could stay 24/7, probably because it gave the midwives a break and saved everyone double screams - they hardly saw us. It was a really good experience overall and I think I might be in for a shock this time..

If anyone happens to know where the private rooms are and how much they cost I'd love to know, just to be prepared if I get desperate.

[zgaze]

Just wanted to add to this as I am currently stuck on the antenatal ward at Kings after a very bad reaction to some blood pressure drugs. Because it was a busy night (full moon!) when I arrived I actually ended up on the postnatal ward to begin with.

I have been planning a home birth as when I came for my tour of the labour ward I just thought it was horrible - hot, claustrophobic, busy. However, actually being here I've changed my mind completely - the nurses & midwives are all lovely, its spotlessly clean all the time including all the bathroom facilities etc, even on the postnatal ward with all the crying babies its a really calm atmosphere (and the new mothers needing help or breastfeeding support seem to be really well looked after too - from what I could hear through the curtains). Even the food isn't as bad as I thought it might be.

Incidentally and slightly off topic - my home birth is now off because of my BP problems, but I am not disappointed by this. My experience on Friday of having to wait an extremely long time for an ambulance in a horrible and very worrying emergency situation has put me right off - I'd never want to have to go through that if there was an urgent problem with the baby.

[KnickersandVests]

Ask for the ethnic menu(if they still offer it) sooo much nicer than the other crap they serve up.

I had my DD at Kings, not recently at all, she's 7 now, the Jubilee wing hadn't even been built back then so I can't give you any advice/experience about the labour ward now but thought I'd offer that bit of advice

[MarthaFarquhar]

I was at King's 2 years ago. The post natal care seemed ok - not as great as in the labour suite, but that's the case everywhere.

It was clean, and the midwives turned up when I buzzed. It did take them ages to sort out discharge paperwork, due to being very busy, but in the end a very pragmatic midwife packed us off home without it, and send it on afterwards, as I was itching to get home.

Also, the african-carribean menu is very good for hospital food.