St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey - opinion needed

[Maggsas]

Hi All

I've read lots of quite old and not so great reviews about St Peters Hospital maternity unit. Has anyone given birth there in the recent years? This is my local hospital and I'm quite anxious that its not the best choice however they have told me they are "High Risk' unit - which means they are able to deal with complications if baby is unwell and they get patients from all over South.

Any thoughts?

M,

We had DD1 there in 2010 and will have DD2 there in October. We had a very good experience with the staff and care there, everyone we dealt with (and there were a few!) was great. A couple of my NCT class didn't have quite such a good experience but mostly because there were so many people giving birth there that month that the staff were rushed and short on rooms. My sister in law had her first there in 2009 and second at the beginning of this year, no problems or complaints either time. I think they have had more staff start in the maternity ward recently too, which can only be a good thing.

Best of luck with everything.

Thank you that makes me feel better!

Happy to help! There have been a couple of other positive posts about St Peters over the last month or so, including from a grandmother whose two daughters gave birth there about a week apart. Try searching for those too.

I had my son there in 2010 and my experience was quite mixed. Most women ask how will they know if they are in labour - I had to convince the midwives! I came in and refused to leave and was repeatedly told I wasn't in labour. I was sent home after eight hours of agony and an hour and a half later my waters broke and we came back in and the midwife who examined me had to get a second opinion because I was 9cm dilated (not in labour my arse).But from there I realised I was in the best place.

Baby got stuck, two failed ventouse, forceps and then meconium aspiration. DS had terrible Agpar score and I was greatful that Chertsey have an excellent NICU. I had a huge PPH and had to have a transfusion. So a bit of a crash delivery. What was excellent was that if your baby was in NICU, you were put on a specialist transitional ward which was staffed by specialist midwives who helped you get to grips with having a new baby. The first night I had my DS I was so exhausted that I couldn't easily wake up to feed and change him. The midwife did this for me (she had checked the night before) and it was amazing to be able to sleep through after an exhausting labour and having someone show me how to feed and change the baby.

So on balance it was a good experience for me because I would not swap my healthy baby and my survival for being taken seriously in the early labour.

It does get very busy there because so many high risk births are directed to the area and often it is almost impossible to speak to the on-call community midwife. But my post-natal appointments were very good as well.

I'm due to have my baby there in a few weeks so can't comment on labour/post natal care, but certainly everything to date had been fine. We did the antenatal class there a couple of weeks ago and got a tour (they don't always do them as part of the course...depends how busy they are)
I also had to go up today to check I wasn't going into pre term labour and they were excellent and very reassuring (and I wasn't in labour thankfully as DH in the states still the weekend!)