London maternity units ranking?

[connyrabbit]

Hi all,

I am 7 weeks pregnant and am starting to think of hospitals... I have googled around for ranking/rating of hospitals but couldn't find anything.

King's College... Queen Charlotte... St George's... ? What else? Private or NHS? DH is really nervous about all this as one of his colleagues recently lost her daughter in childbirth.

I don't have any mother friends I want to discuss this with at this stage (too early to announce it), and although all my work colleagues are pregnant (including my boss, she's going to love my news! ), I can't discuss this here either for obvious reasons.

Thanks for your help all!

Cx

Conny,

I am at UCLH and they are very good. They looked after me on my 1st pregnancy which I needed a D & C. They were lovely and very considerate.

I am 33 weeks now and have been under their care again. We had a minor scare when the baby was slightly big at 20 weeks but they kept me monitored. So that I more regular appointments, further scans and a glucose test. At 32 weeks, they decided my dates might be slightly out and that my baby was bigger than average (scheduled for 8 1/2+). I was really happy they spent the extra time for something that may have not been picked up, from what I read on MN. My friend is also pregnant (2nd) and also wants to be monitored like this since she had large baby previously and they never warned her.

Private doesn't come cheap and for some you need to book in quite early.
Some of the London NHS hospitals offer private deliveries eg St Thomas, St Marys
The websites will have details

Birthchoice website (can't recall the url) will have the stats on interventions etc at each NHS hospital

For the NHS you may not have much choice depending on where you live.

Try the Dr Foster Good Birth Guide here Where do you live? Proximity to a hospital can be important - I'll never forget the painful car journey to the hospital when in labour with DS1, and that wasn't far at 6am on a bank-holiday Monday. Also for the many ante-natal visits.

Harden's London baby directory lists the whole lot, although it's out of date now I think. They don't rate them. I found it quite a helpful book, you could read that furtively

Private at St Thomas's is nice, not cheap. All the advantages of private care with the NHS facilities on site too.

You could also consider the Birth Centre, independent midwives based in south London but cover the whole city, if you wanted a less "surgical" experience. They have a bias to home births but will come with you to hospitals if that's what you want. You just need to be able to resist the initial home birth chat. They will do antenatal appointments at your home and after work hours etc, which might help a nervous DH because he would get a chance to get to know the person who would be with you during your birth. We had a tricky time with DS2's labour at home, they spotted it right away and sorted out an ambulance with blue flashing lights to get me to St Thomas's, where the consultant told me how impressed he was that the midwife had acted as quickly as she had - things could have been tricky for me otherwise. This leaves me biased in their favour!

Queen Charlotte is fab. I highly recommend them. It is also worth considering what kind of delivery you want (I know you probably have no idea at this point). But, some hospitals are better suited to doctor led medical care and other do the all natural approach better.

My experience at QC was for an elective section. But, I think that there are also good reviews of the birth centre. So, if you can get in to QC... and you better huury if you want in there... then you can probably have either approach available.