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

Yup id forgotten the counter signatory joy

2-3 months accommodation in Air BNB presumably what say £50 a night to be low ish takes you to £3000 to £4500 (an extra month for the newborn to adjust and any postnatal issues)

The birth itself (which might need to be a C section at the last minute increasing costs): Unkown Mysterious Amount

Flights

Unknown people country language uncertainty.

Really? Better option than private care in London because London too far?

And the vote options are typical Daily mail material

I couldn't imagine anything worse than having a baby in a different country. From my personal experience antenatal and birth was an excellent service and post natal was satisfactory. Maybe hire a doula or see if you can get a private midwife

Are you a dual national with Greece? Cos that changes things slightly if you speak the language and know the country. Still think its bonkers

I don't blame you at all.... Despite the propoganda the NHS is not great at the moment. Probably because the government want it to. Get so. Shit that Noone cares when it is sold to private companies. Anyway. That's a tale for another day.

Meanwhile, a UNICEF study from 2018 lists the following countries as safer places to give birth than UK.
Lithuania
The Netherlands
Germany
France
Spain
Greece
Latvia
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Ireland
Portugal
Israel
Italy
Czechia
Italy
Sweden
Luxembourg
Norway
Republic of Korea
Iceland
Cyprus
Estonia
Slovenia
Singapore
Finland.

The safest place to give birth is Japan.

So yes. The NHS isn't great. It's extraordinary to me that women are sent home hours after giving birth unless they have complications (here you can leave if you want but the standard is 2 days resting in hospital). That partners are subjected to visiting hours (here they are given a reclining chair and blankets..and encouraged to stay to support.... .. Or you can pay approx 50 pounds and have a private room. With 2 beds and a full. En suite bathroom including shower)... This is all on the public system. I had a lovely entirely midwife led birth the second time (first Time I was very overdue and so had to have an induction). Oh...
And that Bounty bullshit? Not a thing here.

So no.... YANBU at all. How you would go about it I don't know. Because every thing I listed is in the public system..... Which of course is for residents here.

Worth looking into though.

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?

Do you mean both you and your baby fly on your non-UK passport? Don’t think children fly on parents’ passports anymore. Even if they did you’d still have to get the baby added to your passport. That could take weeks.

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

It's a VBAC. I would love to give birth at home but I understand that probably wouldn't be allowed. What made me wonder is because I saw a NHS VBAC YouTube video where the baby had the cord wrapped around his neck twice and was back to back. An epidural could not be given because the anesthetist was in theatre and so an episiotomy, ventous, and forceps were given with gas and air. I can't imagine how painful that would be and it's not like the woman would have a choice?

You're a duel citizen for Greece, Poland and Britain? Or are you just talking about being EU?

I think your emotions are talking. I can't imagine anything worse that being in a rented place where I knew no one for the 2 months before and around a month after. Are you going to buy all the baby stuff you need out there before and ship it, or buy it there and leave it behind?
When my first was born I would not have wanted to have all that to sort in the first month when all you want to do is curl up and enjoy them.

Going abroad for this would be ridiculous.

If you want private care and can’t get it closer or find a midwife then just make arrangements with one of the London nhs hospitals that does private maternity. If you want to cut down uncertainty then arranging a planned c section would give you a date although of course doesn’t mean child would come before.

In your shoes I would find a private midwife locally.

If you give birth privately in the UK and it all goes wrong, guess where you end up...

...The NHS.

Well Im not british but Ive lived in the UK for a number of years now and when I was pregnant I had an actual choice of whether I would want to give birth here in the the UK or go back to my home country (North Europe). I had some antenatal appointments there and here but chose to do it here in the UK. I cannot express how satisfied I was with the overall experience; how professional and caring the midwifes were! This was in one of the biggest hospitals in Bradford, West Yorkshire. I would 1000% choose NHS again. I think I would even choose to come to the UK if I lived abroad rather than going abroad to give birth! Emergencies and bad things can happen regardless to where you decide to give birth. Think about how some people decide to give birth at home!

I certainly would not recommend Poland, unless you are fluent in
Polish. Lots of Polish people speak very little English and being unable to adequately communicate with your midwives or doctors would be a huge disadvantage, much more so than if you're 'just' there for surgery. The midwives you have during labour/birth work hard to build rapport, and this relationship is an important part of the care, I think. As I mentioned earlier too, some of the views held around birth and labour are a little archaic, e.g. enemas, birthing on back, not being 'allowed' to eat during labour, very restricted access to pain relief.

As others have said, postnatal is where the NHS does less well, paying for a private midwife/doula for the birth and postnatal period could be a very good option. I had a doula with my first and it was a very positive experience.

I had one horrific NHS hospital birth with incompetence, misdiagnosis, patronising staff ... the works. And one fabulous NHS home birth with the most amazing home
Birth team, everything they did was fabulous.

The concept of the NHS might be amazing, but the NHS itself is absolutely nothing of the sort.

NHS maternity and neonatal care, including the scans and the drugs and the actual care, comes as a package and is equivalent to most European countries’ private healthcare systems. Research carefully before you make a move.

So I just googled and private Greek birth is €7000 plus €1000 if you want an epidural and tests for a couple of things.

Uk birth at top London is £5900.

So definitely explore uk private options

OP you sound like you’ve been terrifying yourself watching birth disaster videos on YouTube and reading news articles which - let’s face it - only ever report the cases where things go wrong and don’t mention the thousands of women who give birth in the NHS everyday.

It all seems a bit melodramatic - I would do some proper research of your local hospitals and see if they have options for private rooms, etc. See if you can go for a tour and as others have suggested, think about hire a private midwife.

Also would you want to be so far away from your support network of family/friends after having a baby?

Oh and @Changednamesorry - I had every one of those lovely things you listed at my local NHS hospital and the bounty lady left my freebie pack by my while I was out and didn’t bother me again.

If its a. Vbac you need to make sure the hospital you plan to go to will offer them I someone I was close to had her childeen on Europe and they would not let her try for a Vbac. Also they didn't offer gas and air as the default is straight to an epidural. That wasn't in Greece though so that might be different.
Some NHS Hospitals do allow women to try for a homebirth for a Vbac.
Also remember if you give birth abroad your baby will need a passport to travel back so you need to factor in the time that will take to arrange.
I hope things turn out well for you whatever you decide.

Plan a homebirth. Wonderful experience and the two midwives are there just for you. Your in total control.

I cannot fault the care I had under the NHS and those who gave birth in the same hospital all say the same. Rather than try and push me out the door, I was allowed to stay as long as needed to help with things like breast feedings. The nurses were all superb.

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 might want to look at how the Home Office is dealing with cases like this atm. If the baby is born post 31st Oct and there is no deal, then the baby travelling on a EU passport could be a problem even if you have the right to live in the UK as a British citizen.

I’ve given birth on the NHS and subsequently privately. We stretched to pay for private care, but it was worth it. Our overstretched very very busy London teaching hospital fucked up our care on the first pregnancy in a myriad of ways. We didn’t get to come home with a baby in part because of their multitude of errors. And even prior to the loss the antenatal care was horrendous with no continuity, several serious errors in notes and providing care, missed opportunities to ascertain issues, and general shoddy care.
Obviously my experience is extreme, but the UK has one of the highest rates of stillbirth for a developed country. Surely it’s not that British women are somehow different to other women in the US and elsewhere? More likely the care here is poorer with serious gaps.

Having given this a lot of thought my view is that the NHS is great if you have an identified high risk pregnancy, or a genuinely low risk pregnancy. If like me you’re hoping for midwives and sonographers to identify potential issues there’s a much higher chance of things getting fucked up. Midwives are much more likely to assume you’re an idiot who doesn’t know how to manage pain than that your sudden uptick in pain is symptomatic of a problem. I live daily with the knowledge that a few decisions going the other way - good communication with the consultant, a midwife taking me seriously when I went back for the third time with reduced movements - would have potentially saved my baby.

So if you are young and have a low risk pregnancy and can top up with private scans if needed etc then NHS. If you can afford it then private for sure!

I gave birth the U.S both times and the care was really nice, especially with the second baby. It was like staying in a very posh hotel. I was born in the UK and my mother had to give birth at home as she wasn't allowed a hospital birth - both times. It was early 50's. The NHS midwife, ambulance crew and doctors saved my mum's like when she began to bleed out. God bless the NHS and all those who sail in her.

The only problem I see with the NHS, by reading MN, is having to tolerate other people's visitors on the 'ward' and the other thing that bothers me is that you have to see a GP for gyno things such as birth control and pap smears. Here we just make an appointment with a gynecologist for routine woman stuff. I can't imagine having to take off my giant bloomers in my old GP's office (surgery).

@Changednamesorry - safer for whom, the mother or the baby? Take a look at maternal death figures and the UK is considered safer than Lithuana for example. Japan has a higher rate of deaths before 24 weeks than a lot of other countries because women often can’t afford to access hospital care even with the government vouchers, and it’s still very common for women to miscarry in toilets there.

Always take statistics with a pinch of salt: every country has it’s good and horrific points.

A good friend of mine had a peaceful, hands off VBAC at home with private midwives - worth looking into perhaps if you have money.