Crowborough Birthing Centre

[soundbites]

Just wondered if anyone had their baby at Crowborough Birthing Centre and what they thought of it. I am favouring it over Princess Royal, Haywards Heath at the moment but I still need to do a tour of both places. Baby due 01/02/07 so loads of time to decide.
Thanks!

A friend of mine had both of her children at Crowborough and had nothing but praise for it. Very relaxed surroundings and birth plans really well accommodated. She wanted no pain relief and a waterbirth (v. brave!)and both births worked out brilliantly.

I have no comment to make re Princess Royal but hope it helps to hear something about Crowborough. Good luck with your decision.

Hi - as a doula I attend both... HH is not great IME... sadly!
Crowborough is very good... the PN ward is fab. Is it your first ?

sorry to hijack slightly, pupuce do you work in the area? I am thinking of having my second child and have a choice of HH or East Surrey, which would you recommend? I don't think I am close enough to crowborough, but are there other birthing centres locally?

Yes I work around Kent/Sussex/Surrey - Been to both hospitals several times.
I would say your choice between the 2 is not great .... can I ask where you live.. you can e-mail me if you want to discuss your options !
I am not taking any clients at the moment so I am not even going to convince anyone to hire me

i'd rather not say exactly, but i'm pretty much equal distance between the 2 (about a 15 min journey).
crowborough is around 40 minutes i'd reckon, although don't go that way often.

I'm not even pregnant yet, so it may all be irrelevant but i've heard horror stories about east surrey

If it isn't your 1st I'd go to Crowborough... East Surrey is not worse than Haywards Heath... my clients have had better births at East Surrey actually.

thanks for the advice
i was in labour for 18 hours with ds, but i'm still worried about the 40 min drive lol

Ags and Pupuce
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply - yes it is my first and I am getting some odd responses when I say I am really keen on Crowborough since people say I don't know what to expect (one person said that as my pregnancy propresses I will start to wonder how it is going to get out without the intervention of a hospital). At the moment I want to give birth as naturally as possible - active birth / water birth ? in the best environment possible. I live in HH so Princess Royal is a 10 min drive, Crowborough more like 30 mins and I have also been told that when in labour the time difference to get there will be huge! DH is fretting about not being in a hospital if something goes wrong, but someone on my antenatal thread said that the 20mins it would take to be transferred to a hospital is probably as long as it takes to assemble the right consultants in the hospital and if you have phoned ahead they will be ready for you. Thanks for your encouragement (from a doula's mouth too!).

Hi there soundbites,I am quite well qualified about HH and Crowborough as I have experienced both!
DD1 was born at home ( planned ) but then I had to be transeferred to HH for manual removal of placenta... found HH to be a bit impersonal and although some of the mws were great there were too few and they were overstretched to say the least. This was in 2002.
In 2004 mw services in my area had been massively cut and they couldnt guarentee there would be enough staff for me to birth at home i.e get into labour, ring for comm mw and then be told no one in community so you have to come into HH. Also at the time HH was being shut from time to time, so might have had to transfer to Eastbourne or Worthing or Brighton. EEK! Anyway decided to go to Crowborough as lots of friends had birthed there, had the most FANTASTIC care there, felt like a home from home. It was wonderful. I could have antenatal appointments with the same mw and at virtually anytime inc weekends which was great cos dh could come along to. Everyone was friendly and calm and I felt very confident at the idea of birthing there. In reality, I arrived at 4am and due to a baby with a short cord which was round her neck they transferred me VERY quickly (2 wonderful calm motherly mws) to HH, had the choice of Pembury, where I arrived at 6.15am. HH was indeed shut that morning to all but emergencies so I would have had to go further south, as they were so short staffed. DD2 was born by em cs at 9.30am. Stupidly I refused the option of returning to crowborough after this which was perfectly possible and spent three very uncomfortable unpleasant nights in HH. Actually my only regret about the whole thing was not returning to Crowborough, as a second time mother I was left to establish bf single handledly and again HH was understaffed and the staff were overstretched. I couldnt wait to get home and probably did so too early as I couldnt wait to leave. I doubt I would have felt the same at Crowborough as it had such a different atmosphere and my recovery would undoubtedly have been smoother and more relaxed especially with a 2yr old dd1!

HH is 25 minutes away from us and Crowborough about the same. we are in East Grinstead.
Crowborough will transfer you if they have any concerns about your progress and there are obviously criteria which you have to fulfil to be allowed to birth there. As they are mw led they cant afford to take chances. ANYONE can go to Crowborough no matter where they live!

sorry didnt realise that was so long!

Thank you very much for taking the time to write, Mrs Pink (good to bump into you again).

This sort of info is just what I want to hear and will help a lot with my decision - actually, I am pretty sure I want to go to Crowborough, I just need to convince DH and this will help a lot.

Interested that you were seeing the midwives there - I had my 16 week(ish) appmt at my doctors' surgery yesterday and saw another midwife from my booking in appmt and she wasn't nearly as nice and it would be great to have some continuity in that respect, especially if they might be the ones to help me in the birth. How did you arrange that you saw Crowborough's midwives? Was the surgery you were registered at ok with this? Maybe I should just give them a ring and have a chat - or is it a bit early for a end of Jan / early Feb baby?

Sorry - lots of questions.

One thing I would say is that if you birth at Crowborough and they need to transfer you... you ahve technically 3 choices:
Pembury (TW) which is the closest adn out of the 3 the best for BF
Haywards Heath or Eastbourne... bith 25 to 35 mins easily.
Personally if I had to transfer I would to Pembury! Have the baby... and transfer back to Crowborough if need be.
Pembury is going for "Baby Friendly" status and means it is more dedicated in supporting BF than the other 2 (I mean by hat the staff is actually more qualified!)

I just rang and arranged a look round and a chat, and we went from there, they even do antenatal sessions at Crowborough which you can attend. The best one was with a physio who talked about the kind of things you can do before during and after birth for optimum pelvic (a-hem) health!
You have a choice about carrying on at your doctors/mw clinic totally or in part alongside Crowborough or totally Crowborough, I am sure that once you meet them there you will know either way! They are very good at putting minds to rest (esp of DH who arent quite sure!) Caroline was particularly great as was Tracy!

Good luck and you have my email if you want to ask any more. They were also partic great with dd1!

Thanks Mrs Pink

You have been a BIG help - very grateful for the info. Very kind to say I could e-mail too ? All much appreciated! I'll give them a call and see what I can arrange.

My current client is at Crowborough for her 40+ week appt as we speak

Oh Pupuce, I forgot to ask you ?

I am booked into Princess Royal as a matter of course by my surgery. The mw said that I needed to be booked in there whether I decided to go there or Crowborough as there is a lot of paperwork that needs to be processed (?). Does that mean that I would be taken there in preference to Pembury or do you go wherever is closest (obviously hoping it doesn't come to that).

Thanks for all your advice too.

If the transfer is very urgent you'd go to Pembury... or if HH was too full.... but if they have time they'd aim for HH as it is them who are paying for your CBC care !

I am booked in to deliver my 1st baby at Crowborough. I recently had to pay to a visit to the Eastbourne delivery unit quite late at night and have since felt paniced about the chances of me ending up there when I go into labour!! It was a mission to find the ward in the first place, then I was taken into an extemely run down room that didn't feel anywhere near as homely as crowborough and was seen to by a rude foreign doctor I could barely understand, the only thing keeping me sane was the lovely mw who stayed with me the hole time I was there.

I have been told that if I do end up giving birth at Eastbourne I will be able to return to Crowborough. Does anyone know if this would apply at Pembury too?? More importantly, how does Pembury compare to Crowborough and Eastbourne??

I was booked in to Crowborough and so had all of my later antenatal appts there - they were fabulous and I was really looking forward to it. As it turned out I went 15 days overdue and had to be induced so for it was Pembury, and ended up with ECS. I was told I could transfer back to Crowborough for postnatal care if I wanted - which is what I originally planned but DS needed special care so we stayed at Pembury. Not bad, not great - really depended on which midwives were on duty. My horror experience of it was ante-natally.

As an aside I have a friend who gave birth at E Surrey nearly 3 years ago and was happy with postnatal care but she was forced to deliver on her back when she had wanted to squat. However, she was not put off and is due to deliver number two there any day now.

And it's true, the transfer time to Pembury is about what they need to set up consultant care at Pembury. And if they are in any doubt through your labour they will transfer you sooner rather than later.

I have been with mummys at CB,HH and EDGH. No contest to the Crowborough being number one. I know you can transfer back to them should you and your baby be given the all clear. The PN care is fantastic. I know the EDGH decor is very dated but the MW's are very caring and they do there best to suit a MW according to your birthplan. I would rather a mummy be with a caring MW in a scruffy room than a posh room with a MW from Hell
I don't have experience with Pembury but from my experience if you do happen to have to transfer from Crowborough I would rather suggest EDGH and not HH.