*Choosing a hospital in London??*

[prasessa]

Hi, I'm pregnant with twins and I live in London, N1. I have to choose between the following hospitals:
Homerton University Hospital
Royal Free Hampstead
The Whittington Hospital
and University College London Hospital.

I was told UCH is the best one but I went to visit and I was not impressed. On the other hand, my early pregnancy was monitored at Homerton and it seemed a bit better... I really don't know what to do. For me (as I'm having twins and they tend to be premature more often) it's very important that the Special care unit is a good one - last generation incubators and great doctors... Please advise!
Many thanks!

p

Hi prasessa

I had my twins at the Homerton and thought it was great. It doesn't look that good on the surface and you should take lots of reading material for the long waits you'll have to endure for your ante-natal appointments (unless you can get early morning ones)!! My consultant was Mr Dorman who is supposed to be a bit of a twins specialist although I know someone who had triplets who had Katrina Erskine who was also great. Mr Dorman was quite happy for me to deliver naturally, even though my id twins were sharing an amniotic sac as well as a placenta, but they were head down from quite early on. I had an elective CS in the end, which was a very positive experience as well.

The food's crap - you'll need someone to bring you in lots; as a twin mum you should be given a side-room, depending on availability which although good for privacy, can mean you get a bit forgotten - you just have to keep pressing your buzzer if you need anything! It's just because they're so manically busy!

Their NICU is one of the best as well - so if your twins were early, you'd be in the best place. I was lucky and mine didn't need any special care though, so have no personal experience. But MIL who used to be a paediatric nurse says it has a wonderful reputation.

I also had my first daughter there which was a natural (ish) birth, so can vouch for the delivery suite and the midwives as well.

I have heard bad things about the Whittington and the Royal Free; a friend who had her 2 daughters at UCH came to see me at the Homerton and said it seemed much better.

Congratulations on your twins btw - when are you due? There's a great thread on the multiples section called 'd'ya ever wonder...' where us multiple mums (and you count already meet up regularly. If you have any more qu's ask away.

Hi,
I had all my antental care with dd at the Whittington last year, (but we moved when I was 9 mths to Hertfordshire, so I didnt deliver there).I found the Whittington to be a bit of a mare to be honest-the staff were really quite rude and not very reassuring when I had any concerns and it didnt seem very clean, (though think they may have or shortly be opening a new maternity unit there so there may have been improvements)
I had a friend who had her baby at the Royal Free and she said it was great-but ive never been so cant vouch for it!
Good luck wherever you choose!

I was also at Whittington for the antenatal care but then moved away before the birth. This was a year and a half ago. I feel exactly the same as scootermum and was in the process of moving to UCL when we moved to a different county anyway.

Thanks a lot, everyone! Special thanks to tkband3 who made the effort to write all this..
To answer your question, tkband3, my due date was the 8 of Aug, but I'm hoping I can make it to the second half of July... I'm 12 weeks 3 days now and showing already

Good luck with your pregnancy prasessa and thanks for taking to time to add to my thread - really appreciated.