Case load care for SE15, giving birth at St Thomas

[Dildals]

I found out that there is no case load care for my postcode, if I choose to give birth at St Thomas (instead of King's).

Aylesham midwives, Brierley etc can only take me on if I give birth at King's. And the midwives that do cover St Thomas's don't cover SE15.

Has anyone dealt with this before? Is it worthwhile to still call midwives that don't normally 'do' SE15 but will do St Thomas? (Not that I have any phone numbers ... I can't seem to find their contact details anywhere online!)

Is there a particular reason to avoid giving birth at King's? I mean, if you want case-loading midwifery care in pregnancy & can only get that by going to King's, is there a reason not to go to King's? FWIW I had care from Brierly in 2 pregnancies & thought they were very good.

Yes, there is a very particular reason.

I will spare you the details but my baby died there. Believe me when I say I thought long and hard about going back to King's, but I really don't believe I would be able to do it. She died due to midwife error, although that wasn't acknowledged as such. The thought of going back to labour ward or bumping in to those midwives is unbearable.

I'm so sorry to hear that, and of course you don't want to go back to KCH.

I think in that case try calling the midwives that you are out of postcode for, in case they can make an exception for you. I don't live in the area (moved away during pregnancy with DC2) so am bit out of touch with the situation in that neck of the woods.

When I gave birth at St Thomas's (5 years ago) I was 'in area' for the local midwives but only just - literally 2 min walk from the Wandsworth/St Georges border.

They were incredibly short-staffed and I only got 1 home visit in 14 days. DD and I were quite poorly after my traumatic birth and we ended up being readmitted via A&E. (They give you phone numbers to call and the answer was always 'we're too short staffed, none calling to you today, if you're concerned go to A&E'.) Once we'd been discharged from hospital for the 2nd time the only way to get continued care and support (still recovering, bf not established) was to drive all over south London to various drop in clinics. Once I was well enough I got the tube and walked (eventually discharged after 8 weeks) but it was unbelievably stressful and draining.

I'm really sorry that I can't offer more positive advice, particularly in view of what has happened previously but I think you should know that there isn't a great level of 'care' out there; especially if you don't live 5 minutes from where the midwives are based.

Could you speak to your GP about your options in view of your experience of Kings?

That's OK here it's good to at least know. I did have a little look on the nappy valley forum and I already got the impression that the midwives down that way (Wandsworth, Streatham) are a bit hit and miss.

The frustrating thing is that I could get case load care from Aylesham Midwives which I really like and they would come to my house, but they can only help me if I am with King's.

I am not sure whether my GP will be helpful, considering she didn't even know that Aylesham Mws take their patients!!!

I have my booking in appt on Wed and you know what, maybe The System will surprise me!

Sorry to hear of your loss. Just a thought, can't you have your antenatal care where you'd like but pitch up in labour at the other hospital? They can't turn you away and you'd have your notes....

Haha Ispyfispi I am seriously considering an ELCS so that would be hard!

The other issue is that I would then still have to have my scans at King's.

Unfortunately we also have quite bad memories associated with the Harris Birthright Centre. We had an appt to discuss our post mortem results and unfortunately they had mixed up our appts and we had to go search for our consultant. Eventually we ended up at the Harris Birthright Centre where they asked for my pregnancy notes (I don't have them, I am not pregnant) and they asked me why I needed to see the consultant. So I told them, but at that point we had been sent from reception desk to reception desk so I burst out in tears. We were swiftly ushered in to the 'quiet room' but I remember standing there sobbing and all the pregnant women looking at me thinking we probably had just received bad news on the scan. It makes me cry even writing this down. So in short, King's is just not an option.

I'm sorry ??