Hello. Will try and keep this brief whilst including all relevant information. I'm in the first trimester of pregnancy with DC2 and have my booking appointment in a few days. I know they are likely to ask me where I would like to give birth. There are two options in my area:
- Consultant led unit which is about 45 mins to an hours drive from my house (traffic dependent).
- Midwifery unit which is about 20-25 minutes drive from my house.
With DD I chose to go to the consultant led unit as I was hoping for an epidural and also I wanted the reassurance of knowing there were doctors around if needed. However my labour progressed quicker than expected, and I found the car drive to the consultant led unit awful (and that was with basically no traffic on the road as it was 2am). When I got there the midwife in the assessment unit kept insisting on telling me I was probably just having early stage labour pains, and didn't rush to get me transferred to delivery. By the time I got to the delivery suite DD was born 10 minutes later and I didn't even get time for any gas and air, let alone an epidural. DD got a bit stressed by the quick delivery too and there was some meconium in her waters when she was born, but thankfully although they said she needed to be kept in for 12 hours for observations she was well enough to go home that day. I never saw a doctor the whole time I was there. Also the postnatal ward was noisy (shared dorm with 4 other women, and so there was always at least one baby crying at any time, so sleep was impossible). It was also very busy and I didn't get an awful lot of support from the midwives there as they just had so many women to look after (I felt quite sorry for the staff on the post-natal unit to be honest as they were clearly very stretched).
So second time around I'm thinking about going to the midwifery unit. It's much closer (which is important as also we need for my Mum to come over - a 30 minute drive away- to look after DD before we go anywhere), and there's a reasonable chance labour 2 will be quicker than labour 1 (so probably unlikely I'll get an epidural this time either). They are also a small unit (rarely have more than 2 women in at a time), and other people who have given birth there have told me how lovely and relaxed it is there, plus all the rooms are private and en-suite so no shared facilities. I am nevous though in case something goes wrong and there's no doctors around, although I am told in the event of any complications they will blue-light you the consultant unit, but that's a 20-30 minute drive away. I guess with DD being stressed during labout last time I'm worried in case anything goes wrong. I also know a mum who started her labour in the midwifery unit but needed transferring to the consultant unit, but unfortunately due to the time involved in the transfer the baby was starved of oxygen and ended up with brain damage.
If you were me what would you do?
