To not give birth through the NHS?

[HereOrThereAndAnywhere]

With all the news stories of poor NHS maternity care and not good outcomes, I'm wondering if it would be worth it to give birth in another country. Is that a bad idea? Was your birth experience (if you had one in the last couple years) ok?

For voting purposes

YABU = Maternity care is perfect and there's nothing to worry about
YANBU = Maternity care has really gone downhill so I would try to figure out another way to give birth either privately or abroad

It's not perfect but it's much better than most countries and the emergency care In NICU's is second to none, we are a small country so even if there's not a bed in your nearest unit it's only a few hours drive maximum (Scottish islands aside). Even very expensive systems like the US are very dependent on where you live, give birth in New York, LA or Seattle, world class, give birth in Idaho and you may find yourself needing to be airlifted to Seattle and you footing the bill if there's complications!

Nomorepies

Thank you for that info, it's really helpful.

Why do you assume private care in general is cheaper in the EU than the UK. I can't quote you facts and figures for maternity care but past life working in medical insurance, tells me this is not the case for surgery. And if it is cheaper - is the care as good as the NHS, let alone better.
However it's not just the actual maternity care you would also have to factor in. I believe airlines will not let you fly after 35 weeks (could be wrong) so you would need to fly out to Greece for example at 34 weeks, so 6 weeks of accommodation costs and trust me you'll go crazy living in a hotel knowing no one. We all go a bit stir crazy in the last few weeks - trust me on that. Even if you deliver on your due date, you will have to stay in Greece - that's at least another 2 weeks until the baby has a passport. That's a lot of additional expense and unless you ship out partner / mother / doula - you're on your own.

It's also worth remembering that there are very few fully private Obstetricians, even fewer private neonatologists. Any you see outside of London will have an NHS practise, so they will be treating you in their spare time.

Are you unemployed?

How can you just up and move to another country for a few months?

and then move back, presumably?

00100001

We work from home.

For everyone saying, just go private, I wanted to go private, but I live in Scotland and it's just not possible, and nor was paying for a private room :-( Although I suppose in OP's case she's willing to travel anyway, I wasn't.

Medical care on the NHS is fine, they did a decent job, but the postnatal care and the whole ward system was dreadful. I wouldn't have paid to go private for better medical staff, as the NHS staff were great, more just for creature comforts such as edible food and a private room. There's no way I would have considered going abroad though!

Private just ships you to nhs if you have problems. If no problems and can afford why not but prepared to be bunged in an ambulance to nhs if something goes wrong

Ireland’s maternity services are awful but from anecdotal evidence they are similar to the nhs. I paid privately in Ireland or both of mine but my health insurance (which most Irish people have) covered a huge portion of the bill.

If you are interested in the costs you can get them on the National Maternity Hospital Website but to summarise. Hospital room 1000e per night, consultants fees around 4K, fees for bloods etc around 200e, costs for procedures in hospital around 2k so a fairly normal birth costs around 10k.

I'm not trying to say anything bad about the NHS, I'm just trying to gage people's personal experiences because of how stretched staff have reported to been

But you are, aren't you?

I've had a baby on the NHS and won't be repeating that experience.

I'm moving to the Netherlands next year so that's where I'll have my second one.

Antenatal care was very disorganised, I have had many different midwives when they were meant to be caseloading.

The birth... They didn't let me come into hospital despite me having extremely painful contractions and puking my gut out all day. Got to the hospital and I was dehydrated and baby had pooped while still inside and I was already 7cm. Ambulanced into second hospital. Too late for pain relief. Because it was late my husband was allowed to stay for 10 minutes after the birth and was then turfed out.

Postnatal care was sufficient, but nothing more than that.

It's time that people in the UK start recognising that the NHS is no longer a world class service and to start fighting for it.

DPotter

I was thinking of getting a flat through Airbnb. I'll have to look more in to costs though especially if we were to need neonatal care or anything like that.

The rate of stillbirth and complications etc is worse in the UK than other European countries

I found them under resourced and aftercare pretty poor but the actual staff were wonderful

Practically speaking I'm not sure how you would arrange to give birth in another country. Assuming they operate similarly to the uk, you really want to be in the public system not private if things go wrong and I'm not sure how youd access that.

If I had the money I'd do NHS again but recover in a private ward if that was possible. Being kept awake by other people after a 4 day labour and no sleep was absolute torture

Then have a private midwife in the U.K. I'm sure some practice outside of London. If there's complications the nhs will then come to the rescue

I had a really horrible time on the nhs, directly to do with overstretched staff with compassion fatigue. Got postpartum psychosis and it was definitely triggered in part by what they did to me. If I do have another, we couldn't afford to go private so I'd hire an independent midwife - hopefully for a home birth but if not she can come to the hospital as an advocate. She then stays on for the first month postnatal. The continuity of care from someone I really trust would make a huge difference I think, rather than being passed from pillar to post with staff missing very important things because they haven't handed over properly. I would recommend taking a look at independent midwife services in your area as many will let you pay in installments which is the only way we'll manage it - might be a good 3rd option as it would likely work out cheaper and mean you could stay at home and build a relationship with a midwife...

I gave birth on the NHS even though I had the money to go private in the bank. It is my biggest regret ever. I was left with injuries which meant I could only have my single child who has also been left with lasting damage. No, I haven’t sued the NHS and have no intention of doing so. I gave birth in a London teaching hospital and was left labouring for 52 hours with a back to back baby that ended up weighing over 9 pounds. There just wasn’t the capacity at the hospital to help me and we both nearly didn’t make it. Would I rather the babies in the queue in front of us had died? No, I don’t. All the woman on the post natal ward were not born in the UK (me included although I had been a higher rate tax payer for over 10 years). We moved abroad when my child was a toddler and the paediatrician was appalled but not surprised at my story. If you can afford it, go private within an NHS hospital. We believed all the scare stories about the Portland and it had put us off. I believe those who can pay for any healthcare should do so (not just through taxes).

You have no idea how lucky we are, of course it’s not perfect but it’s a lot better than some countries.

Mmm hmmm. So your baby is born abroad. Before you can do anything or go anywhere, you have to sort out their citizenship by descent, and THEN you have to get them a passport. Only THEN can you travel anywhere. Good luck finding someone abroad to sign their passport application, who has known you for two years, and who is a holder a current British, Irish or other EU, US or Commonwealth passport.

Yeah, good plan....

NICU won’t be “cheap” anywhere in the world. While you are looking at the cost, also look at the mortality and morbidity outcomes.

Queenunikitty

Thank you for your post I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Have you thought how you ll get your baby's passport? You ll need to declare the birth in Greece. Get birth certificate translated officially (this takes time). Send off your request as well as a load of other documents (possibly including your parents' birth certificates). Then wait and hope your application is accepted. Its also more expensive than getting a passport in the UK. And, unless your Grandchildren are born in the UK, they wont be British....

To be honest I am sure it is just as bloody painful whether NHS or Private. Obviously this is not taking account of the things that can go wrong.

My sister recently gave birth in an NHS hospital in London and it was fantastic. - people get different experiences and a lot of what you experience depends on whether you are lucky enough to have a trouble free pregnancy.

I wouldn't go to the trouble of going to another EU country for three months to be eligible to give birth there - unless it is your home country of course.

@bloodycats can I ask where you find that information? I've been trying to research hospitals but struggling to find detailed stats

HypatiaCade

I'm a duel citizen so I thought we could fly back in to the UK on the other passport until the British citizenship was sorted?

You are being very unreasonable. Unless your local hospital has a particular bad reputation I really don't understand why you are worried. Do you have medical issues? Is your birth particularly high risk? 1000s of women give birth safely using the NHS every year. Things can go wrong anywhere and in any hospital but it is rare