Choice of hospital Lambeth / Brixton -ideally natural birth and pool

[zaja]

Hi all,
we have just found out I'm pregnant and the GP told us we do need to choose a hospital asap. This is my first pregnancy and I'm 38.

I would very much prefer a natural / pool birth. But I'm aware of both the risks due to my age and this being my first child birth, and also to the fact that I've always had (pre-pregnancy) very low platelets count (which a haematologist told me a couple of years ago made me in any case probably unfit for having epidural during birth). So I feel my best choice would be a birth centre that is part of a hospital in case any issue arise.

I'm in Brixton and so I've been thinking of:
The Carmen Suite at St George's Hospital, Tooting
Nightingale Birth Centre (labour ward) in Kings College
The EGA Birth Centre in UCLH
The Birthing Unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

Have any of you used these hospitals or others relatively close by? Can you share your experiences and thoughts?

Also, anyone had home birth on their first pregnancy and being close/after 40?

Thanks in advance

I imagine you will be consultant led with a platelet issue and the birthing centres may not be an option but you can discuss all this at your booking in.

UCLH and C & W are quite far. You better options would be kings, st.georges or guys & st.thomas.

I'd pick whichever hospital you can get go easily for both the birth and appointments. If you have an existing medical issue then you're likely to be consultant led and end up going to the hospital for your appointments - I didn't see a midwife until 32 weeks. You can get birthing pools on a labour ward if this is of interest to you. I didn't have a choice but to be on the labour ward at Kingston due to my medical history, but still had a "natural" birth with only gas and air and ended up having the only intervention free labour in our NCT group. In London the hospitals are all pretty similar so you need to pick on things like ease of access - if you work at Euston then traipsing to Tooting for an appointment during the middle of the day every week will get very annoying for you even if you have the most understanding of employers whereas if you work in Wimbledon then this could be the best option.

If you still can't make a decision then check the policies for birth partners staying with you if this is something you'd like to have happen. In Kingston one person can stay 24/7 including after you've had the baby whereas at St George's and C&W this isn't possible meaning depending on when your baby comes your partner might be asked to leave relatively soon after the birth and come back during visiting hours, whereas at Kingston they can stay whenever the baby is born. I didn't check this and it was fluke that we ended up ok but for future babies I'd certainly check.

dd lives in that area, went into labor (midnightish) and at 8am on a Tuesday requested she be driven to the hospital (C&W private ward). her partner was amazing MI6 like driving on the wrong side of the road, going through yellows arms out the window to signal urgency etc.
dd in the backseat panting away, me on my mobile trying to phone in her impending arrival. it took forever to cross the vauxhall bridge forever to make it across town.
grandson born less than an hour after arrival.
honestly she was probably fully when we arrived but requested an epidural.
i'm a retired nurse and surprised she walked from the underground parkade to the ward.

Congratulations! I don't live far from you and had my first child at St Thomas's and will be there again in the next few weeks. I had planned on a water birth if possible for DD but went down the epidural route instead once I was in the thick of it, but nice to have both options on site. IME appointments won't be at the hospital apart from scans as you would most likely see the consultant and/or midwife in clinics based at local doctors surgeries so that shouldn't impact on your decision.
I can't comment on the other hospitals I'm afraid, and I would say that my experience at St Thomas's has been ok but one of my main criteria was somewhere i could get to in labour without a massive drama!

Not going to comment on quality of care but if you are ‘high risk’ and want a waterbirth, investigate the criteria they have for waterbirth for high risk women (like St Thomas have all their labour wards on one floor and you can negotiate to use the pool even if you are high risk depending on what the issue is).

But not UCLH. It’s bloody miles away from Brixton and if you go into labour in the daytime you will he on the road for hours getting there!

Thanks so much to you all to share your thoughts. You mentioned many things that we hadn’t considered and so it's really helpful to hear your ideas. We have at the moment prioritised closeness and what we heard was a very good scanning/screening initial/monitoring system at Kings. But we feel we will continue exploring the different options as we've been told we can change hospital at any time.
Thanks again

What about Lewisham? They have a very nice birth centre. Kings are very consultant-led I think (although I had a great home birth and the community midwifery was great with the PRUH/Kings team) .

I had my first at Lewisham but was quite a while ago now and I think they made a lot of positive changes when no longer under threat of closure.