St Thomas - is it worth fighting to be in the Home from Home bit?

[TheBlonde]

I'm 35 weeks, saw Obs SHO today who wants be to have this baby in the Hospital Birth Centre at St Thomas

Can anyone tell me how different it is from the Home from Home?
I've not managed to get on the tour yet and won't see a MW for another 2 weeks so can't ask them

Do they have pools in the Hospital Birth Centre?
Will they want to do continuous fetal monitoring in the Hospital Birth Centre?

Hi,
Have no idea about the home from home being from oop North but an SHO is the most junior form of obstetrician so I'd not necessarily be terribly chuffed if one was dictating to me where I had to give birth!! Did they give any reason why?

Hiya
Just the reasons I'm seeing the Obs - thyroid & pernicious anaemia - neither of which will make any difference to my labour

Maybe they have a minimum haemaglobin allowed or something but if both conditions are under control it might be worth kicking up a fuss for the home from home. SHOs are good at trotting out the party line but a consultant would potentially be flexible.

How's it going otherwise? Am finding the whole being pg and running after toddler thing a bit knackering, funnily enough.

the two are next to each other and i kept being moved from one to the other. there's not much in it really.

It's all pretty dire at the moment!
We have all been ill pretty much since Xmas, flu, gastric flu, flu again + sinusisitus (sp?)
DS won't have anyone but me when he's sick either
Hopefully we will all be much better by Monday

How are you doing? Are you still working?

oranges - being moved a lot doesn't sound great, were you in for a long time?

SHOs = junior doctors so don't take his or her word for it. I rang up the head of midwifery there - Belinda? - and persuaded her to let me in. Nice hotel facilities, big rooms, husbands can stay on sofa beds, lovely views of Houses of Parliament. However, you can't have an epidural (which I was screaming for). AND the main problem with St T's was appalling staffing levels - one midwife to seven women in labour when I was there on the midwife led birth centre. Dangerous.

My birth was a bit of a mess, so I won't go into it, but essentially, I went in to be induced, but there was no room in the hospital birth centre so they put me in a home from home room, then moved me two doors down to the hospital birth centre, which looked pretty similar to be honest. In both places, I was pretty much left to get on with it. I never saw a doctor and a midwife only turned up when the head was almost out!
The home from home rooms have better views of the houses of parliament though (not being flippant - that was my only good memory of the birth so I treasure it)

but to answer your question in more detail. Both centres have birthing balls, and bath tubs, but home from home has pools somewhere (I never saw them). The hospital birth centre may monitor you, but not unless they suspect fetal distress - it's not done routinely. Is this your first child?

TB, am fine apart from the usual pregnancy grumbles. Work one day a week so will try & keep going to 38 weeks. Have been really lucky this winter so far, not so many bugs. Had sinuisits last spring and it was bloody VILE so sympathies coming your way!

Feck, can't spell it either !

oranges - no, this is my 2nd child

I don't think there's much difference either - started in Home from Home but moved to Birth Centre as was desperate for an epidural (ds back to back and massive). Both had birthing balls, HfH had slightly better views. They do have birthing pools, but my HfH midwife said I could labour in one but she had never delivered in one, so I wouldnt get yr hopes up.

I think the main thing is that partners can stay overnight - which would be fab.

There were only two of us giving birth the night I was there - so gazillions of midwifes around.

My partner stayed overnight in the hospital birth centre, on a mat on the floor. Not as comfortable as the sofa bed but I was past caring.

Thanks, my OH has his heart set on the sofa bed after the sleeping on the floor experience first time round

thanks batters, that's cheered me up

I had DD 4 yrs ago in home from Home at St T's. The only other hospital I looked round was St Elizabeth's at St John's Wood. It was brand new when I used it and I thought it was good surroundings. I didn't want to have a laying on a hospital bed birth coz I don't think people in labour are ill IYSWIM. The room had an en suite, a sofa bed for a friend to kip on, carpets etc, it looked like a hotel room - which emotionally for me was important. I had a great birth. I was diagnosed as high risk but coz I wanted to have waterbirth I was on home from home bit. Cannot reccomend it more highly. I too recall the views, big ben striking. To this day if I go past the same view I feel all emotional.

I never managed to have DD in the home from home unit either, and that was also due to having (controlled!) Thyroid problems, but was probably also because I got there at 5am and they were short staffed You can have a water birth in the birthing unit (pools were very nice iirc) Home from home is just nicer, they let DP stay afterwards which they don't allow on the otherside (because they are 6 bed wards, not private rooms)

BUT, at the end of the day a beds a bed and you don't really take that much notice of your surroundings when you're in labour if you can get in the Unit, go, but it won't be awful if you don't.

I was desperate to have ds in the Home from Home unit after taking the tour, lovely views, birthing pools, delivery rooms that seemed more like hotel rooms etc. However I had slight bleeding at 32 weeks and my midwife said, no way, birth centre only. Anyway,I kicked up a fuss and had a meeting with the Head of HfH and she agreed I could come, hooray. BUT on the day I went into labour, the HfH was full and I got sent into the birth centre after all! I was offered a room in the HFH a couple of hours later but I was past caring by then and ds was born soon after in the birth centre. The midwife was great, very little monitoring, and she was more than happy for me to crawl around the floor on all fours. In the end it didn't matter at all, and there isn't a huge difference between the two units, except ... those views!