hospitals / birth centres at CHRISTMAS?!

[beccabubbless]

clearly it was a cold cold march, but my baby is due on dec 29th 2012. im starting to get very worried that everyone will be off nursing their christmas / boxing / pre new years hangovers whilst im alone in a hospital trying to give birth!
i know its very early to be thinking about it, but this is my first pregnancy, and im worried about everything at the mo!
this is before i get started on the possible snowing in, and i read stellamels posts about mountain rangers and all sorts.. petrified
anyone given birth over xmas please?!
x

actually there's usually MORE staff on at christmas than other times because on a lot of wards annual leave is banned for the whole christmas rota

so it can be harder for bank/agency staff to get shifts at that time, Im bank staff and took a christmas contract in a supermarket last christmas because I was worried that the annual leave ban would mean less work

ahh, now this is good news for me (not so much for you!)
thank you so much! aha
i will be surrounded by healthcare professionals.. one less thing to panic about!
x

I had DD on 19 dec (she was due 22 dec) and it was fantastic. All my friends and family were off work so easy to catch up with people and show her off when we liked, the house was cosy and all decorated for Xmas and we lit the fire every day, we had loads of nice food in to eat, we didn't mind staying in all day with her as it was crappy weather. For us it worked well as DS (who was 3.8 at the time) was never jealous or sad as he was enjoying all the festivities, presents, parties and attention.

I'm sure she won't thank us in the future when she has a birthday so close to Christmas, but i can highly recommend giving birth at that time of year!

oh silver that's good to hear! didn't think about the distraction benefits! I'm due 9th Jan and you've made it sound ideal since DS1 will have all his new crimbo pressies to play with. Might hold some back and ration them as bribary for when I'm too massive to play with him towards the end

Fab time to have a baby. DH has two weeks annual leave over Christmas (my 'maternity leave'), you don't have to go to any parties or entertain if you can't be arsed aren't feeling up to it. DC4 was born at home in front of a roaring fire and lit by fairy lights

I gave birth on Christmas day! And had the same worries as you! There were definitely midwives there and even Santa who left me a little present

I am already looking forward to saying a guilt free no to every invite that involves travel

Another who gave birth on Christmas day - to be honest I forgot what day it was, staffing seemed pretty normal, although they were pretty busy as everyone wanted to get home. Food was shit though

this is sounding better and better! getting to eat what i like.. when i like.. surrounded by presents.. and fairly lights.. and getting to point blank decline invites because i dont like spending time with these people im soso pregnant..
amazing! roll on decemeber!
anyone else have the snow concern though? :S x

Yes me (I live in Scotland) but we managed to get there no problem

My first was born on 22 Dec, I have very fond memories of driving to hospital in the middle of the night, singing along to the carols on Classic FM! The only downside is all the staff on the post natal ward accessorising their uniforms with tinsel and flashing earrings - fortunately the MWs on the labour ward didn't, can you imagine being examined by someone in a Santa hat

I had an elective CS on 23rd December and was home on Christmas Eve. Staff in the hospital were good but wanted to get as many of us out as possible before Christmas day so the paperwork seemed to be a bit rushed. As a result, we didn't have DD's newborn check in hospital and i had to kick up a fuss to get a midwife to come to the house to do it once we were home.

Still, it was great to be out quickly and to introduce DS to his sister properly.

I also ended up cooking Christmas lunch for both sets of grandparents when all i wanted to do was be in bed recovering and getting to know my new baby. but that's another story

My DD2 was due 21 Dec and had same concerns as you. It was winter before last when the weather was terrible and I was in a real state worrying how would get to hospital ( we live in v rural area with no hope of gritted roads). Can't say I enjoyed Christmas what with the snow and getting more overdue, midwifes cancelled checkups due to weather as well , not great. I went in to be induced at 14 days over which was Bank Hol wkend and they were v shortstaffed. Ended up labouring on maternity ward with no pain relief available til 7cm dilated when then realised would have to find a midwife from somewhere to deliver baby. Advice would be to make sure you do all Christmas shopping v early as I was trailing round shops at 8 months pregnant with a 2 yr old in tow, v silly. Also, use as excuse not to do any Christmas entertaining you don't want to do.

Was due 23/12 and had similar concerns re staffing esp as I had a home birth booked and worried that with less staff, I'd have to go into the hospital as there wouldn't be a spare mw to come out to me.

Wrong.

My mw, as we were filling in the paperwork for the home birth, said (and same as monkeymoma) there are usually more mw on at that time of year. Although she said it's because they all like to be at the christmas births, see all the tiny babies, and have a reason to stay away from seeing family

I got my homebirth. On Christmas Eve/Day. DD2 was the first Christmas day baby, I was "racing" another mum who was in the hospital. The mw who delivered her had my sister on the phone to the delivery suite to let them know "she'd won" before I'd even delivered the placenta . We had to go into the hospital on Boxing Day to get DD2 checked by a paed, as it was going to be ages before our surgery was open. The atmosphere was lovely in there, lots of decorations and chocolates and very calm and laid back.

I was admitted on dec23rd for monitoring and delivered dec29th and it was grim. There was noone around over 24/25th and then the wards filled up with people who wanted an induction after Christmas. It was rammed, nowhere near enough staff, loads off sick, inductions started and then stopped, it was ghastly. Awful. Awful. And dinner on Christmas night was a sausage butty.

I had dd xmas day 09. On xmas eve the labourvward was rammed full with mums and there were staff everywhere. Also Santa came with presents for the New born. It was fine. And as pp said, friends were off work o could visit more easily.

Sorry for typos, was on my phone.

I had sandwiches for dinner most nights but they served a hot meal at lunch time.

I had DS on Xmas Eve 11 and I had a great experience, I had him within two hours of arriving at the hospital so I wasn't left on my own at any point during labour and there were plenty of staff popping in with tea and toast afterwards!

They wanted us to stay in overnight to keep an eye on DS's breathing and I was in the midwife led unit with 8 rooms but there was no-one else there, so I stayed in my room rather than getting transferred to the post natal ward which normally would have happened and they let DH stay overnight in the room with me too!

We got home on Xmas Day and we didn't really have time for Xmas dinner, so we just had it on Boxing Day instead. My mum cooked and had to stop/start the dinner three times as we got interrupted by the midwifes home visit and I can't remember what else! It was all good fun though and felt very special having a new baby at that time of year.

I would definitely do your Xmas shopping and wrapping presents as early as possible, I think the second trimester is the best time to go shopping for Xmas and baby stuff, you'll feel too big to go around the shops in the cold and wet in the third trimester ;-)

Good luck!

I had DD on December 20th during the really bad winter '09. I was really worried in the whole run up but it was very special in the end! Lots of HCPs around as they were all snowed in at the hospital.

I was in for the whole of December 2010 as I had multiple pulmonary embolisms (emboli???) DC3 wasn't due until mid-Jan but I was well enough and DD2 was mature enough to be evicted on Dec 28th. So I spent Christmas and my own birthday in hospital. I was discharged on New Year's Eve as otherwise I wouldn't have got out until the 4th of Jan due to the availability of haematology consultants over the New Year period!

Back to the topic. Anyone who was well enough was sent home for actual Christmas day even if it was for a few hours during the day. Sadly I wasn't well enough but DCs 1 and 2 (then aged 4 and 2) were made very welcome and usual visiting restrictions didn't apply. They opened Santa presents at home with DH and brought family presents into the hospital to open with me. There were no other patients on my ward during the day and so we had the place to ourselves really.

Santa visited in the night to the Antenatal ward and brought me a little photo frame for the new baby and a little gift set with moisturiser and lipbalm. (Very useful on a hot dry ward) so it was lovely.

The food as always was school dinner-y (but I like school dinners) and we got turkey etc and a slice of christmas cake which was nice.

All the staff were lovely and it is certainly a Christmas I'll never forget.

There are pros and cons to the Christmas baby experience but lack of staff wasn't one of them (though some of the staff on were quite miserable but I think that was their permanent state of being...)

DS was due 24/12 and arrived 23/12 but due to him not being that well,we ended up in hospital for a week post delivery. The staff were very focused on getting those who could go home,discharge which was nice as their normal discharge speed was exceptionally slow but that meant those of us staying got a bit neglected. By lunchtime I was the only patient in my bay and they were very relaxed about visitors,so I had a little Christmas lunch with DH and lovely friends who brought me a proper roast diner

It was 2009,the year of all the snow.I did have to explain nicely to the cab driver why I couldn't walk down the hill to high street to meet the cab (water broke on 22/12 when DH was at work)

"extra" staff are often on leave esp those who work office hours like the breast feeding consultants. And even though we were there a week DS never got his hearing test done,which I presume was a result of the festive season.

What was really nice was that DH gets time off work from 24/12 - 02/01,so only started Pat leave thereafter,so was off with me for 3 1/2 weeks

Ffnorm - Our DDs are only 3 days apart!
The snow was hideous. I do needed to get out with the pram to walk her to sleep and couldn't. Got a nice pair of hunter wellies though

My second DC is due in december this year, although a little earlier, I think around 17th and it will be an ELCS so a bit different - BUT the good thing is that DH will be able to take about 6 weeks' leave with paternity leave, christmas and new year hols and saved up holiday. Yippee!

My ds was born on boxing day by emergency c section. I was admitted a few ways before following a car crash ds was born at 26 weeks so it was a emergency situation the care we had was amazing the only thing unnoticed was the absence of other people really as everyone who could go home was at home meaning Christmas day was spent just me and another very I'll woman -that bit was grim. But there were loads of staff and not many patients and definitely no lack of care/surgeons etc once i haemorrhaged my ds was born within 5 minutes. So basically I found it no effort at all and the fact hat everyone else at home was off work meant that I apparently (I was
Pretty Ill) had loads of visitors who otherwise could only have come at the weekend so that is a positive. Best of luck

Sorry for typos on phone,