Scared of giving birth in the UK

[ToPushOrNotToPush]

I live in a European country and have DS aged 15 months. Heathcare here is excellent - it is based on a social insurance scheme. I outline my birth experience below to ask you how this compares to the UK. We are considering having a second DC and also moving back to the UK. However after reading some of the threads on here I am really worried and I am now considering getting pregnant asap in order to give birth here before we move.

When I had DS I had excellent antenatal care (consultant led as is the norm here). I saw the same female gynacologist each time and knew she would be the one who would deliver the baby. I got to chose the dates/times of my appointments. Scans as and when needed. GP appointment every month for blood test (for toxoplasmosis, thyroid etc - this means a lot to me as I have a friend who very sadly had a stillbirth as her baby's problem wasn't picked up in UK whilst the monthly blood tests would have picked it up here). Midwife appointments for fetal monitoring every 3 days in the fortnight prior to birth.

When I went into labour, I arrived at hosptial at 5cm dilated. In private room with DH and fetal monitoring. At 8cm I asked for epidural. Got one within 10 minutes. Gynacologist arrived when I was 10cm. I pushed a bit but heart rate dropped so had episiotomy and ventuouse (hospital has a 'no forceps' policy). DS born. Stitches done by gynacologist. I spent 4 nights in private room with midwife on call and DH sleeping on the camp bed. Midwife checks (BP and cleaned stitches) every few hours during daytime. Midwife on hand to help with each breastfeeding session if needed. En-suite bathroom.

All of the above cost us about 900 euros and social insurance covered all the rest. This was OK for us as we had 9 months to save up the money!

Now my fear is that this level of care is not the norm in the UK and we can't afford to go private. I had a back-to-back labour and simply could not have coped with a home birth with no pain relief. I am scared of being refused an epidural because the anaethestist is busy, I am scared on going on a postnatal ward after the birth (it took me a good hour of sitting on my toilet to do the first poo, how would I do this in shared toilets?) I am scared of the horror stories of botched stitches.

We are considering moving to south west UK - are there any hospitals to avoid? Do I have a choice? Do I just need to stop reading mumsnet and the horror stories on here?

Can you not go back to your home country to give birth?

I wonder why you are moving here with a young family if you find the NHS so scarey ????
Shared toilets?? they do have a door on them and when I had my 4 the toilets were single anyway

I am British and had 22 year's experience of the NHS before leaving. However I have heard lots of bad stories since I left that, combined with seeing how well other European countries manage their health systems, have made me question the provision of care in the UK.

Disclaimer - I am not NHS-bashing...just have close friends and family who, very recently, have had terrible care which I guess is perhaps clouding my judgement.

I think that, sadly, births can go wrong - in any country. It has nothing to do with the NHS or the UK. And also that it's sad that you'd be worried about giving birth in the UK because of some things you've read on here.

You only hear the horror stories. Most births aren't like that. And many people would find that level of monitoring during a normal pregnancy intrusive and unnecessary, and not want a gynaecologist doing routine care or delivering the baby. And I'm sure things go wrong on occasion anywhere.

I was very lucky and not high risk for DS. I know things can go wrong anywhere and where I live now is by no means perfect.

I guess I need to think positive and stop reading horror stories and pray I don't have another back to back labour

"I was very lucky and not high risk for DS"

You weren't very lucky, you know. You would have been very unlucky if you had been high risk!

One of the problems with a highly medicalized birthing culture is that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of pregnancies and births are quite simple and straightforward.

I had very similar care up to delivery and recovery room (when I asked for epidural the anaesthetist was there within 20 min, then long consultation; ventouse delivery in the end).
Postnatal care, as ds needed to stay in for 3 days after unexpected problem, was not great, I admit - but many hospitals have private rooms you can pay for which would resolve that (worth investigating!). All the toilets were in individual rooms, clean, and plenty of them.

Given this is your second birth it's most likely you'll be free to go home shortly after birth and not have to deal with postnatal wards at all. (I'm expecting dc2 too)

What can I say?

I've had 3 babies in the UK (south west actually) and I have had no problems at all. No private rooms admittedly but that wasn't a problem for me.

I think that there are more good stories than bad. Even here

i don't really know as all mine were homebirths but i was very happy with every aspect of my care during pregnancy and after. i had a lovely midwife who supported all my ideas and wishes and i got exactly what i wanted. when i had health concerns i got extra blood tests.

my only observation would be if you have a choice to be in a quieter/smaller hospital. i know someone who pretty much had the ward to herself in a quiet town and could stay in as long as she wanted. my local hospital is also in a smallish town and all my friends are more than happy with the care they received - no horror stories here!

Not very helpful, but I totally understand where you are coming from. I had my dc's in another European country and the thought of having to go into hospital here scares the living daylights out of me!
This is partly due to only ever hearing the worst stories, I think.
Are you ever over here to visit? I don't know if you can do pre-birth hospital tours here?

yes you can continental.

My care was fine (Bristol hospital) but you won't get anything like the level of care you had with your first birth on the NHS.

I had:
antenatal appointments with about 3/4 different community midwives - one of whom would probably attend my planned homebirth
one blood test
some limited choice over antenatal appointment times
scans at 12 and 20 weeks (no choice over times)

transferred into hospital for an epidural - got one within 25 minutes of arriving
forceps birth - ds had some nerve damage from this but recovered fairly quickly
no problems with stitches
DP had to go home about 3-4 hours after the birth when I was transferred to the postnatal ward
3 days on a postnatal ward, no sleep, horrible bathroom, but not to bad.

I had my daughter in an nhs hospital and quite liked being on a ward. It's useful to talk to other mums and kept me a little more sane when I was awake and baby was asleep!

Had a c-section (emergency in the end, was booked but my breech bubs came early) and slight anemia so was in for a few days but it was fine. Nurses available whenever I needed one.

With the bathroom situation, yes it would be nice to have a plush en-suite to myself but there was a bathroom and it did the job. Bath, shower, toilet. It was clean.

Please don't worry too much about it all. Women every day give birth under the nhs and many have fabulous stories to tell.

Well... where I'm from (Holland) everything is arranged very very well. You even have someone coming at your home for at least a week, during the day to help you with everything. I was shocked to see the state of the hospitals in the UK. For me it meant going back in time 20 years.

But... I live in the UK and here it's the way it is. And it's not all that bad I think. As long as you make sure things happen the way you want it (which means: expressing your wishes) it will be just fine.

In the end there are far more woman in the world who have to give birth in much worse situations.

I'm in the Netherlands. If I had to return to the UK I would go private.

I have never given birth in the UK but had a British mother of 3 visit me here who was astounded by the high standards here (she'd had babies in England, Scotland and NI).

I had a baby in the UK and one overseas. The NHS is such a sacred cow here, and any questioning of it usually generates responses which are dominated by (a) it's just fine medically and only looks a bit shabby; or (b) it's better than America.

My experience is that it is very shabby - I had to bring in pillows from home to prop my baby on for bfing; toilets were dirty and had bloodstains; after c-section I had no help to manage things physically, so when I wanted to bf I had to climb out of hospital bed, bend over and crank up the head of it by hand, climb back into bed, and then somehow lean over and pick up my baby from his crib next to the bed - within hours of having abdominal surgery. I had quite an unusual labour, and no-one was available to tell me why I had ended up with a c-s and the midwife admitted she couldn't understand from the notes why certain things had happened. I really wanted to know but couldn't get access to the consultant to ask - never saw her again after the actual delivery. BUT... I had a quick, efficient c-s with a baby's heartbeat crashing and we are all fine and healthy a decade on. In terms of acute emergencies the care was fine. In terms of the sorts of after-care which can make a real difference to recovery, it was poor, but my baby and I were very healthy so it didn't matter to us. In terms of just general comfort etc it was really poor.

Ideally, I would suggest that you have your baby in your home country. But if you can't do that, I would prepare for some discomfort and I would say that you will be fine. I don't think the NHS lives up to most other first-world healthcare systems, but it is still very good, and will cope with most problems just as well as others.

I had similar first birth on nhs with dd. had private room afterwards. No episiotomy/ventouse and no gynae - no need for a gynae, had midwife led birth. Only stayed 1 night because I do not like hospitals full stop and wanted to be at home in own bed. Midwife visited every day for the first 7 days and a couple more times until 14 days. Had stitches and she checked them. I was quite she'll shocked by parenthood and I think she visited this often because I was pretty tearful and obviously needed reassurance. Breastfeeding was brill.

Ds1 was very quick labour so no epidural - arrived at hospital 10cm dilated. midwife visited the day after he was born (I was home within 3 hours of his evening delivery). Stitches checked. All fine. She then visited maybe another 3 times to see how we were settling. Didn't get moved from delivery to maternity ward because we went straight home.

Ds2 was at home, with no pain relief. But that's what I wanted. Gp visited next day for post natal baby check. Midwife visited about 3 times in total. More stitches but only v slight tear so no Issues there. Was obvious we were doing well so she came less frequently and discharged me when she arrived 11 days post natal and I was mowing the lawn!

I'm gathering from your post that you are not pregnant at the moment. Is it a possibility to take out international medical insurance that would cover you for a private birth (and antenatal care) in the UK? I haven't researched this so am not sure of costs, but if it cost less than 900 euros, you could have the kind of birth you experienced previously but in the UK for about the same cost as it would be to have a repeat experience in your current country.

The level of care here is generally shit. Overstretched wards Drs/nurses/midwives, no money for nice facilities and over worked junior Drs who are left to deal with the late night, weekend and midnight patients (IME) We went private as having watched my dad being 'cared' for (and I use that term lightly) with heart disease and then dying at the grand old age of 54 there was no way i was putting myself in any situation where by a trainee/freshly qualified and or even a down right bitch of a midwife was touching me!

squiby - I guess that makes me, and people who say they also had reasonable treatment, liars I guess?

I didnt say that but my father spent 4 years in and out of hospital with heart disease. He was a type 1 diabetic and to give you some examples:

1. left with no food so had hypo reaction which caused a heart attack!
2. left with no enough O2 so had prolonged breathing difficulties
3. given the wrong insulin so had a hypo which gave him a severe angina attack which required O2 and medication to get back under control
4. Discharged as fit to go home when he couldnt walk the ward without his angina spray as they had got his medication wrong!

not to mention the huge thread about birth injuries on this forum and the countless posts from distressed women who have been poorly treated by their 'health care' professionals! its too much of a lottery to take chances when our bodies and the health of our unborn children are concerned to say its ok to give birth here just becuase YOU had a good experience so generally it must be ok!

The lady who brought round the meals was more caring and spent more time with me than any of the midwives during my entire 4 night stay. I'd have the next child wherever you had the first one if I were you...

I'm 33 weeks and shit scared that this experience will be the same as the last one.