Kingston maternity unit reviews

[C6469]

Hi all,

Has anyone had any recent experiences of giving birth at Kingston maternity unit, positive or negative? Due to give birth soon to my first and getting nervous...

I'm new to the site so sorry if this isn't the right place to ask on the forum - feel free to direct me somewhere else if need be!

Thanks all x

Had my baby there in May 2010. Sorry to sound so blunt, but it was utter crap and I've vowed to never go back there again. Of the 8 or so women I know who gave birth there only one had a good experience and hers was elective c section. Hope you have a more positive time of it

Hi First1, sorry to hear you had a horrible time there. I've heard some very mixed things, people tend to have extreme experiences there one way or the other, either great or terrible. Hope you and baby are doing well.

Hopefully it will all be fine, that's about all I can do at the moment - stay hopeful!! And try not to have any high expectations I guess.

I had my son there in 2010 it was complex - induction, and he was back to back and big. Had five midwife shiftt changes. Overall I'd say the care was of a good standard especially when things got a bit hairy towards the end. I'm having #2 there in few months.

Had my baby there in April this year, care was great. Midwives really cared (although having a doula also helped), and really looked after me during my time there. It was a VB with epi and forceps, but epi healed very well and I didn't need epidural, just gas. 7 of the 8 mums in my NCT group gave birth there and most of them came back saying that the care has been great.

Great experience first time round; care was astonishingly good, always felt well looked after and I liked the very open, light birthing suite. Second time the labour didn't go well (back to back, 2.5 hours short!, 3rd degree tear requiring surgery) but that isn't necessarily anyone's fault. The medical team were awesome each time, the midwives were also super supportive regarding establishing bf to me as a flapping novice.

Things that were a bit rubbish were the admin ie losing test results, taking ages to get discharged, forgetting to give me my drugs in the nights following the birth etc.

I would def go back there. My dd was born 6/09 and ds 12/11. I know many people who have given birth there and have never heard of a bad experience there before reading this thread.

Thank you so much everyone for sharing - this is all really helpful x

Hi, I had a terrible experience at Kingston. The birth was fine, but after care was awful.(I've just copied and pasted what happened as I really can't write it out again. - I have been exclusively expressing my milk for my daughter from the start (5months). I ended up in this boat, because as I see it, straight after birth the midwives continuously forced my daughter onto the breast, squeezing my breast and forcing my daughters head onto it. (This went on for a number of hours) Even when they transferred me to a room on my own with my daughter, they insisted on coming in every 40 minutes to wake her up and hassle her some more. When I said I wanted to let her sleep and try again when she's ready and when i've recovered a little from the birth they said "if you don't wake her, we're going to have to supplement with formula". This for me was a big No, No, and so I went along and woke her up.This pressure the midwives put on me, created a wave of fear (that I wouldn't be able to breastfeed and would have to give my child formula) , anxiety, stress, lots of tears. It was horrible. I couldn't relax, it ended up becoming a mission forcing her onto the breast. AS A RESULT OF THIS: My daughter never wanted to latch on, screams when put to the breast, screams when she sees me lift my top up to try, she has a complete and utter aversion to the breast. I feel this is a result of the way the midwives handled the situation. The next day (the midwives continuously said they would come and help me and talk to me about support available), they never entered the room once and was great lack of support- due to this all I wanted to leave the hospital asap and so was discharged very quickly 16hours after birth. A health visitor was meant to come to my home the next day to check up on things (they did't turn up until 3 days later) In the meantime I had been to and from the hospital not knowing what to do with a crying baby who was becoming very hungry. (She'd latch on and fall asleep) If I have another child in the future, this will all be done differently. Going to opt for a home birth where I feel safer and secure and more supported.

There are two different postnatal wards there, plus the private unit. I had experience of all three. I found the Worcester Ward where I was for the first night excellent. The midwives were very happy to help and came as soon as I rang the buzzer for them, but otherwise basically left me alone. Very encouraging about what a beautiful baby, what great feeding, etc etc. All clean etc. My birth was a csection covered by BUPA so I then went up to the private ward where the midwife decided there was a problem with my baby - which there wasn't. So I had to go to the Thameside ward overnight which was a living hell. Totally undermined. Told that I had to give my baby formula. Got the paed in on the pretext that my baby had an eye infection when I "refused" to formula feed. Kept me up all night with this shit and then no-one to discharge me in the morning. It was absolutely awful - although not quite as bad as my first time round at Tooting. Luckily this was my third DC so I felt very strong and sure of myself, but it was touch and go. Eventually having spent a ropey night on the private ward I was discharged. I couldn't walk and had a high temperature but I couldn't bear to be there any longer and no-one was concerned about my temperature.

Needless to say I was very ill afterwards - uterus infection due to placenta left in at the csection. Mastitis from the terrible breastfeeding advice (they were obsessed with making me hold my breast away from my child's nose - WTF). I also had paralytic illeus.

If you could be guaranteed to stay on the Worcester Ward then it would be great, but probably not worth the risk.