Referral to which hospital? UCLH or Royal Free Hospital

[Gorgeousmum14]

Hi, I have just recently found out I am pregnant and very excited. However I am slightly confused which hospital to choose. I was thinking either Royal Free Hospital or UCLH. Has anyone given birth in any of these hospitals and can advise please? ANY advise on which maternity service is best between the 2 hospitals?
Thanks,

Hello Gorgeous. Congratulations on your preganancy! I had both my children at UCLH. It was recommended to me because it's a large teaching hospital and my first pg was risky for various reasons. But I was well looked after and had a strong sense of feeling safe. I also had a mobile epidural which was brilliant as I could walk up and down but still feel numb around the uterus. Also when it comes time to push they can lessen the epidural so you actually can push. Anyway . . .

Second baby ten years later and I had to have amniocentesis. I remember a lovely doctor who must have done this a million times but she was so kind and calm. Again I felt safe and the second time round my DD arrived too fast for me to have any kind of pain relief. I had the same Nigerian midwife who kept saying: 'Push down like you're having a big poo!' So they respected my birthing plan, I didn't feel belittled and I knew if something did go wrong, they had all the equipment and experience to deal with it.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for advise and sharing your experience :-))

UCH all the way.

UCLH! I had DD2 there nearly a year ago & it was brilliant!

I've never been to UCLH but if people are saying it's good I'd choose that! I went to the royal free last april. Have to say all the midwives I met were lovely but the first problem is that sentence the midwife I was given at my booking in appointment left a couple of months into my pregnancy and after that I saw a new mw every appointment which led to a mix up with blood tests and having to repeat them which was not good as I have a big needle phobia!
I was given an emergency induction because my platelets had dropped very low, I arrived when they told me to but then sat around waiting for 4 hours before anyone actually saw me. When contrations started it was at night and there was two mw for the whole ante-natal ward so I was told they couldn't examine me till the next morning as the pessary had been in less then 12 hours, I spent all night crying in pain trying not to disturb the other women on the ward by the time they examined me at 11am the next day I was 7cm!! The mw who delivered the baby was lovely but as soon as the baby was born she had to go sort out other things leaving DH to look after dd and me to sort myself out when I was feeling very faint and dizzy. I had to stay in overnight but was told I could go home the next day if my blood levels were okay, I was woken up at 6 in the morning for them to do a blood test but then it took all day and a lot of nagging to finally be discharged at 10pm!!!! I wasn't shown how to change nappies, bath the baby etc just one mw asked if I was okay with feeding and took dd for me to have a couple of hours sleep after I'd spent half the night trying to settle her....

Sorry that's really long to read through but I just want to give you a clear picture, they are really lovely midwives, the hospital facilities are not too bad (although not brand new and modern) but they are seriously understaffed and that makes the care not great. I wouldn't say I had a bad birth experience just not a great one and it definately hasn't put me off having more children in the future just I'll be choosing a different hospital next time...

congratulations though even if you don't have an amazing experience it all doesn't matter once your lo is here

don't forget to take into account distance and access to the hospital doing a 30 min tube journey for a check up at the end of pregnancy when I was overdue was not fun! Not sure why I didn't go to barnet hospital instead which is a 10 min bus from me

I had Dd at UCLH there 2 years ago. But I would go there again. The facilities are really good. Althoughy they were incredibly busy, seemed over stretched. But I guess all London hospitals are the same.

I had had contractions over night. I phoned twice at 1.30 & 3.30 to let them know that I was planning to go in. Then they assured me that I couldn't possibly be ready. I was told to have a bath it was most likely braxton hicks. By 4 am I couldn't deal with the pain any longer. I called them to say I was leaving shortly. Got to UCLH the birthing center was full so I had to go to the labour ward. When I got there in a wheel chair, I was made to wait 30 minutes in the reception area with about 10 other people whilst the nurses were discussing where to put me etc. There was quite a lot of swearing at this point. By the time I was put in a suite and examined I was already 8 cm dilated. I ended up having an assisted birth because I wasn't progressing, turned out Dd was stuck and getting distressed. My experiance was pretty traumatic, failed ventouse then three attempts of failed forceps. I was taken to theatre, prepped for a Csection. Another more experienced doctor made a last bid attempt with the forceps before succeeding. I found my first midwife pretty rude and ineffectual. But that maybe because I arrived close to the end of her shift, the following one was lovely.

I had dd at The Royal Free. Ds ante natel care at The Royal Free but gave birth at Edgware Birth Centre.

I've since had dealings with UCLH & never had a problem with the care I've received. Personally i prefer UCLH to the Royal Free.

Lamu

I never understand how when it's happening to YOU, in YOUR body that midwives and doctors can be so dismissive! The number of times I've read about a woman saying: 'I've had two babies and the contractions are a minute apart!' and be greeted with: 'Oh no you're not due for HOURS.'

I had DS at the Royal Free just over a year ago (November 2012). It is literally at the end of our street and I'd had a complicated pregnancy and been in and out of hospital there so it made sense to stick with them.

The actual birth experience was fine from my perspective but DH had some complaints (e.g. left alone quite a lot, one room not very clean - I don't really remember any of this!) It was mostly fine to be honest because it was a pretty straightforward natural birth and relatively quick for a first labour. Individual staff were almost all good, but they are really understaffed - labour ward itself OK but the ante-natal/post-natal ward (it's the same thing) is grimmity grim. Only two midwives for the whole ward at night. DS hadn't read the manual and instead of being sleepy after the birth he was wide awake and starving and screamed himself silly for hours and hours because my milk hadn't come in yet. I had no sleep at all for 48 hours and went on to develop severe PND. I do think a bit more help and rest in those very first few days would have made a big difference.

Not sure what we would do a second time as I am likely to have a complicated pregnancy again. But I would really like to avoid the post-natal ward if at all possible!

I had dd at royal free in 2008. Wouldn't recommend it. Midwives were very pushy and insensitive. I understand this May be outdated but just wanted to let you know.

I'm much closer to the Royal Free but chose UCLH as had quite a few recommendations whereas more problematic feedback about the RF. Only been to a few appts so far as am quite early on but have felt in v safe hands and no regrets about my decision. Also UCLH have the best neonatal unit in the country (though hopefully you'd never need it).

Fizz Obviously with your first you're a little unsure as to what to expect. I wish that I had gone in earlier in hindsight. With my second I'll be definitely trusting my instincts.

Just to balance things out. A friend had a horrendous experience at UCLH five months prior to my experience. i don't want to scare you op. She delivered whilst semi squatting, midwives weren't ready to catch baby, baby was thankfully fine even though the cord detached. They sued months later.

There are so many factors involved when going into labour you can only go for the best choice of hospital and hope that when the day comes everything else slots into place.

I had a home birth with UCLH community midwives and can't recommend it highly enough. Had my antenatal appointments locally, so that was really convenient (and always with same mw, unless she was ill or on holiday). Scans, etc, very thorough and always ran on time. The do the extra 3rd trimester scan too, which was very reassuring. All test results, etc, came through quickly and I found them incredibly efficient over all. The community mw team were utterly brilliant, especially as I went ever increasingly past my due date. Can't speak to having baby in the hospital, but if I'd had to give birth there I would have been happy to and have friends locally who have done and have had good, positive experiences.

The only ever so slightly negative experience I had was with the mw at my post-dates appointment who seemed a bit miffed when I declined the automatically booked-in induction appointment.

disclaimer my DC were born in 2003 and 2008.

We are in the "catchment area" for the RFH and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole for maternity.

I've heard good things about UCH.