Kingston Hospital experiences of birth, pre&post-natal care

[McCavity]

Hello there,

Has anyone any experience of Kingston hospital recently?

The view of my GP on local hospitals seems to be based on 3 caricatures, Kingston is small and friendly, St Georges is a disorganised mess, Chelsea is for posh locals.

However this hasn't been my experience. Kingston has been very disorganised, the few ante-natal appointments I've had were rushed and incomplete, there was a wall of hospital policy around certain things that could not be made to accomodate individual circumstances, I've been passed off at a meeting with a consultant, who'll let the anaesthetist decide. My impression is that the care is fragmented and incomplete and I've really lost all confidence about getting adequate care before-hand, to ensure my medical problems are under control, as well as losing confidence there will be any really support for delivery on the day - the midwives I've met, either didn't speak English well enough to communicate about non-pregnancy related medical issues, or were cheerily dismissive about my concerns.

I've discovered there is a very high number of births per available midwife, in face there were 5700 births, compared to 5000 at St Georges last year, so perhaps they are simply no longer cute and friendly but desperately over-worked.

Has anyone any experience to compare, or a good consultant to reccommend?

Many thanks!

Terrible mw made me feel like a problem, she failed to notice I did nt know how to push as had an epidural, labelled my girl a boy and worst of all made me beg and beg for assistance which I got once mv shift changed and when they did ventouse it was found that mt baby was in a really difficult position to push out in fact she just has not turned. 14 internal stitches needed. Scared me so much had to go to a different hospital for dd2

Kingston - shit. A conclusion I came to after a catalogue of disasters.

I'll be the voice of dissent. I had great care throughout but a relatively uncomplicated experience. The River Team midwives were uniformly fabulous, the birth, though not at all what I planned, was calm, respectful and supportive; and post-natal was good inpatient (my son was on two-hourly obs) and outpatient (fabulous community midwife who diagnosed our feeding/supply problems and got us back on track without pushing formula.

My boy is two months old and if I have another I'd go back to Kingston, no question.

i think they're understaffed tbh. i've ad 3 babies there. i'm afraid i can't recommend my consultant either.

Ghastly, ghastly - I'm sorry. I ended up giving birth at Queen Charlotte's instead - they were wonderful. I had my initial appts at Kingston before swapping over to QC, but then had to have my post natal appts at Kingston (they don't have enough community midwives to come out to you, so you have to go into the hospital for appointments) and that really was awful. I just presumed that QC would do the post natal care, but that wasn't the case, & KC are seriously understaffed at the moment.

Had 2 births at Kingston. Lovey people attending both births, although I was the only one there the night DD was born so had lots of attention!

I did find aftercare a little disorganised. In fact after I had DD they said they couldn't send a midwife for a home visit and could we come to them? She was 3 days old and it was the middle of December but it was our first and we did what we were told. Should have told them where to stick it!

I don't think we saw the same person twice either time but it seemed to me they were doing the best they could under those circumstances.

I'm due to give birth there Friday

However, I'm privately consultant led so am not worried about my care in labour. I have been in 3 times recently though and though the midwives were very nice and chatty, even if they did heavily downplay my concerns.

We saw them postnatally with our first and we had about 3 different ones come to the house, and I have no complaints, they were all very nice. Shame I can't say the same for the shit health visitors that followed them

Forgot to add that all three times I've been in they've been dead!

Have had three babies there.
First lovely midwife,shown straight to my room & stayed till I had the baby.
Only complaint was waiting so long for epidural (they recommended) that I was 10cm when I had it & it didn't really work.

Second- waters had broken contractions started but still got shown to am antenatal room, not examined & told where to find tea & coffee. Trying to be quiet as it was early hours of the morning & al other women were trying to sleep. Had to get Dh to go get mw back & take me to the non tea having room!
I was 6cm..
Retained placenta followed by pph which was badly managed & left to bleed for ages on the bed while they were too busy to fit me in in theatre.
Eventually had to go to theatre - stopping someones c section and resulting in them delivering naturally- on my own, signing consent though I was off my head having lost so much blood.
Missed dd2s first feed, change etc.
Barely remember anything of her first few weeks.
Had blood transfusion.

Third- very good experience, wonderful midwife very supportive. Did it all with gas & air.
Encouraged to stay active felt very involved.
Doctor managed to get placenta out in last ditch pre theatre attempt.
Baby born 11am home by 6pm.

Baby four due in around 4 weeks I will be going to Kingston again it's our closest hospital takes 5/10 min.

No two births are the same and no two midwives are the same either.
My sister has also had three there are had two positive and one negative experience.

The ante natal care is over booked & stretched but the day assessment unit & maternity triage are great.

Good luck

AbyCat, have to disagree with you on the 'no home visits from midwives' thing -- I had all my midwife/HV care after the birth in my own home, no one suggested any different.

Perhaps it depends what part of the catchment area you're in as I think the community midwives operate in teams just like the hospital ones -- the care I (and friends) had in Surbiton was great, none of us was asked to go into the hospital for routine postnatal care.

I didn't mention that I had to go into triage a couple of times before I went into labour -- once at 28 weeks and once at 39 weeks. Both times I called them on a 'better safe than sorry' basis, expecting to be told to hang out at home, self-monitor, not worry etc. But both times they asked me to come in, 'just to be on the safe side', was seen really quickly and the care was supportive and excellent.

I know they are very popular but one midwife did say to me that they have actually started to get a handle on the number of births they do each year -- sounds like it was really chaotic for a while.

But yes, OP, good luck, hope you have a good experience wherever you choose.