The Birth Centre, Tooting - has anyone been there?

[MrsFogi]

I'm considering going to the Birth Centre, Tooting (in the gardens of St George's Hospital) - has anyone had any experience of this place?

I think Hatstand did.

I'm thinking of going there too. In fact I'm going to see it on saturday. It seems expensive but not as bad as a private hospital. I am also considering hiring a private midwife or doula and just going to St George's where I am booked in.

And I think lummox did and liked v much. i am pondering it myself although am not very near to tooting and am not suire how late you can book...

Thanks for the replies, hopefully someone on mn has used the centre and will see this thread....
Tongey - what is the price (roughly) for a birth there as I'm waiting for the brochure to arrive?

I got the brochure. It's about £4 and a bit k if you start fairly late on - more expensive the more antenatl stuff you have. How far along are you?

I was thinking of starting late-ish (I'm already 19weeks) so I think about £4.5k. Can I ask why you're considering it? I had an emergency cs last time and assumed I'd have another. But I'm hearing so much about VBACs I'm starting to think I'm lazy/a coward for not wanting to try. But if I'm going to try I want to be sure I've got one lovely midwife the whole time which isn't sure on NHS even if you're high risk which I am (for delivery apparently).

MI was right. I used it 3 years ago for dd2. I'm not sure I can say anything that they won't tell you themselves - what I mean is that - for me - the benefits were largely in the system it used. When I went (it may have changed) you got your own mw and a second one. You had a pager number and could call them whenever you wanted. They did your ante natal checks at home. The best thing was that they give you the choice of basically not making any decisions until the time comes. I was fairly sure I'd want to have the baby at the birth centre, but wanted to keep the option of a home birth open. They were fine with that. The idea was that we would have everything we needed at home and the mw would come to the house and we (mainly me, obviously) would decide whether I wanted to stay put or go to the centre. I think that level of flexibility is superb. (As it turned out dd came a bit too quick and she was born before the mw got there!)

Both mws made a real effort to get to know me and to learn about what happened with dd1 and what my concerns were - again a major benefit but one which you'd get with an independent mw. I think a lot of their clients are people who had a bit of a bad time first time round and so they are very sensitive to that.

For me the distance was a bit of a downside - I'm in SW London (turned out to be irrelevant!) and the other thing to watch out for and ask them to explain is what system they have in place if you end up in hospital - the relationship between hospitals and independent mws is quite complex and some hospitals don't let them actually practice (tho they couldn't really stop them from being your birth partner). 3 years ago St George's was (iirc) one of those where they couldn't actually practice, Kingston they had to write to and get specific permission, Morden was the only one where they had a long-standing agreement. I'm sure that may all be different but worth asking about.

The Birth Centre itself is just a house really - but what's great is that you have a double bed and no rules about when your dh/dp and other kids can come and go. And they have a little kitchen so you can take a bit of food in with you.

On a personal level it was great for me, I was petrified about going to hospital again and booking the birth centre at about 32 weeks made me able to relax. They do really look after you. You're extremely unlikely to get the surly mws that you sometimes get elsewhere ( no offence to anyone lots of nhs mws are lovely I know) and you'll know the mw who attends the birth. If the money's there I'd recommend it. If it seems expensive you might find you would get the things you need from an independent mw at much less.

Cannot recommend it highly enough. Will certainly go there again if we have another. CAT me if you would like to ask anything specific.