Can I refuse Midwife home visit?

[MummytoBee12]

I am due in just over 1 week and I haven't seen my Midwife in 6 weeks so I haven't been able to discuss anything with her.
I want to stay with my Mum when I come out of hospital with baby, which is the other side of the city, so I am assuming my Midwife wont travel that far?
So as I wont be staying at home can I request to go to her for appointments instead?

[bonzo77]

I think you just tell the delivery ward when they discharge you. Might be worth ringing the MW and explaining.

[Gruntfuttocks]

Why not contact your Mum's GP surgery - they can probably arrange for their midwife to visit you at her house. You are entitled to this care! I remember reading that the Duchess of Cambridge was going to be offered midwife home visits while staying with her parents...

[MummytoBee12]

The problem with GPs here, you have to be registered as they are all part of different groups (which is quite annoying) so they wouldn't be able to offer me a temp midwife and as my hospital is also on the other side of the city they will want me to make all my appointments and visits with their midwives. I do plan on speaking to my midwife tomorrow so I will speak to her then but I also wanted a water birth and as I have had no appointments or contact with them non of it has been arranged which I am now finding really frustrating.

[5madthings]

you will have to provide them with an adress where they can contact/visit you. they just want to check you and your baby are well.

i expect the hospital will pass your notes to someone who can visit you, they should make sure you are seen.


its nice of you to say you will go to them.but you may not feel up to it.


just explain to your midwife/hospital where you will be after discharge and they should sort out visiting you.

[mumratheevertired]

I had my baby at a hospital an hour away from where I was going to to be staying. I just gave the hospital that address when I was discharged and they contacted the hospital local to where i was staying to send a midwife out to me.

[MummytoBee12]

Okay, this is one stress off my mind. Thanks guys. As this is my first baby I have no idea what happens or what to expect.

[Twinklestarstwinklestars]

I didn't go somewhere else but I did go to appointments at the children's centre as I didn't want to wait in all day for them to turn up when I had school runs etc to do. Surely they'll just send a local midwife if you explain.

[CrispyFB]

Yep, I was high risk with DC2 and delivered at a more specialist hospital on the other side of the city. Midwives from my more local hospital showed up almost right away on the doorstep, much to my surprise as we were out for the day as I had no idea anyone was going to sort out anything, let alone that quickly.. a shocking level of efficiency from two hospitals who refused to talk to each other at all before that point regarding my care.

It may not be relevant for you, but depending on how long you are staying with your mum, you can also register the birth at a more local registry office (if the birth hospital is in a different district to where you're staying when you need to register) and they can forward stuff on and you get the birth certificate in the post. There's no need to physically trek back to the registry office nearest the birth hospital.

[AnotherStitchInTime]

I had local midwives from a different hospital visit me too with my first.

I found the visits useful for both dd's as the midwife identified jaundice in dd2 and they took my stitches out post c-section both times..

After the first 3 visits I went to the local clinic for baby checks.

[MrsGSR]

You can register temporarily with a different GP.

DH and I stayed with our families for 3 weeks over Christmas and I became ill. I was able to register with the local GP whilst we were there.

Might be worth looking into registering at your mums GP whilst your staying there?