Giving birth at UCH London

[Chi2011]

I am due to give birth at UCH next month. I have been with the midwives at the hospital throughout my ante-natal period and I have to say I am not impressed with them so far. Due to this I am now unsure whether to pick the midwife lead birthing centre or play it safe in the delivery suite where there are doctors on the ward in case of an emergency. Has anyone given birth at UCH recently?

I didn't give birth there all that recently,4 and 6 years ago,but I would go for the birth centre.If there is a problem they can't deal with they will ship you over to the main maternity unit anyway,and if there isn't any reason to do that,then you would be better off there. I think the team might still have many of the people who dealt with me and I thought they were lovely in the birth centre (I was shipped out as I needed a c-section).UCH is a busy hospital that has got busier still recently,but they have excellent care if something out of the ordinary happens. (I needed extra scans for a possible problem in utero and I saw a European expert in the field within a couple of days). Who is your consultant?

Hi Chi, I'm with UCH too can and due in 6 days. Why haven't you been impressed with the midwives? I have had loads and found them all lovely.

My mate gave birth there 3 months ago. she was happy with everything apart from the aftercare.

I gave birth there 2 years ago and over all it was not a good experience.
The nurses at the reception were awful. Ignoring me and not being very empathetic. I think the hospital gets really very busy but what happened to good manners? I had contractions at home for 5 hours every 1-2 minutes so I thought it might be time to go to hospital but upon my arrival they were treating me as if I was annoying them. If only I could have checked myself at home how many cm I was open,and not go through their examinations to just be told afterwards to go home.I was in a lot of pain, but no one cared. At the end (after 2 days) I had to have CS due to failure to progress (got stuck at 5 cm) and DS's head didn't engage (too big). I cannot fault doctors and the CS was great. Very professional. I think the problem is that hospitals have their procedures and are not very flexible. The official line is that if you are not 4 cm open, you are not in labour and they will send you home. Maybe it is fine with sone women but in my case there were some problems and I was left in a lot of pain for a long time... The consultant told me afterward I should have CS next time. The post natal ward is terrible. There were four of us in the room,one had TV on very loud and also 10 very loud relatives, another one was on the phone all the time and very negative. I was wheeled in after CS at 9.30 pm and was really longing for a bit of peace and quiet. Sorr

Thanks ladies for your information. It seems as though you have all had good and bad experiences in the hospital but at least there is a general consensus that the Drs are efficient.Sorry to here about your awful experience Hope88 To answer violetv's question I am not impressed with the midwives as non of them followed hospital procedures of measuring my symphylis fundal height until I was 31 weeks and it was only because I was concerned that my baby was small that I had to ask a midwife to measure her. It turns out that I was right and my baby is small and I needed to have growth scans. It turns out my baby is small and growing on the 7th centile but everything is OK. It annoyed me that they did not do there job properly and that I had to tell them what to do. I expected better of them. I hope my birthing experience will be better! Good luck with the birth violetv!

Oh yes they did not measure me either. I had the other problem as my bump was quite big. It usually predicts a difficult labour. Some of them just made the measurement up. It really annoyed me. At 39 weeks my GP measured my bump and it was too big so she told me to go to UCH for a scan. But when I arrived at the hospital a midwife had a go at me what I am doing there. I told her I was ordered to have a scan by my GP but she was still quite rude. I got upset and started crying outside the hospital so my husband went back and had a chat with her. She then called me home at 8 pm and offered me another scan! Very bizarre.
But doctors were great. All of them!

Oh sorry to hear that Chi. No wonder you're not impressed. Can't believe they didn't follow it up. Best of luck to you too :) x