Calow Chesterfield

[hethajf]

Hi everyone, I'm due in 12 weeks and was just wondering if any of you have given birth at Calow recently and how your experience was? I'm not sure yet if i will be in the birthing centre because I might be having a cesarean but i'd really like to hear your thoughts on the place as a few people have told me i should have gone for Jessops (went for Calow in the end due to additional birthing pools and birth:widwife ratio).

Also, what sort of facilities do they have for partners? Are they able to stay overnight or is there at least a comfy chair for him to get some rest if we end up being there for a while? I plan on pre cooking him some meals and freezing them to take with us (big man with a big appetite and awkward dietary needs) do they have a microwave he could use?!

I'm actually more worried about him at the moment, which is amusing but at least it's stopping me worrying about the birth!

x

Hi hethajf I gave birth at Calow 6 weeks ago! I honestly can not rate it highly enough. I went in to be induced at 38 weeks and had a pretty gruelling 24 hour labour(and spent around 36 hrs in the birthing centre). We were given our own room with en suite from when we arrived. There is a gym mat type mattress for your other half to sleep on the floor on and they will also give you a pillow and blanket (although you may want to take an extra pillow and sleeping bag for a bit more comfort if you like as our room was quite chilly)
We were lucky that the birth centre was quite quiet when we were there as they allowed me to use the birthing pools for additional pain relief as they could see that I was struggling and let me stay in there for as long as I needed. There was a nice big beanbag in the pool room so my OH managed to get a bit of sleep as it was comfier than the mattress in our room

The midwives were lovely, especially a lady called Jenny! She was just fantastic! In fact everyone (consultants etc) we encountered were really good and explained everything that was happening which was much needed as we had a few complications (baby's heartbeat dropping and very nearly an emergency c section) and as I was quite out of it on pain relief they really helped my OH through what turned into quite a traumatic labour.

Partners can also stay over with you on the ward after you have given birth, however there's just a chair for them to sleep on. Also, partners can't use the shower facilities in this bit.
I think that they said they couldn't heat anything up for us so maybe the meals won't be much use but we just made sure we had lots of food (sandwiches, crisps, chocolate, water) etc to keep us going! The cafe in the main hospital is fairly good too but does close around 8pm.

Ooh and a little tip - the car park is quite expensive if you're there for the long haul, however if you say that you have lost your parking ticket they only charge you around £5. As we'd been in over 3 days this was quite the bargain for us as we paid £5ish instead of nearly £20!

Good luck with your birth, I hope that you have as good an experience at Calow as I did. If you have any other questions or anything just let me know x