Hi everyone
I have 2 children a girl aged 5 and a son aged 3 and am currently expecting my 3rd. I need help choosing between royal free and UCLH to have my 3rd baby. After having 2 at RFH by emergency csection, and bad experiences, I’m a bit stuck.
I’m sorry if this is quite long and very specific but you’ll see why below.
My daughter was born by emergency c-section at Royal Free Hospital. My first experience was not positive. My midwife was not informative or reassuring, as a first time mum I had to ask her for information which should not have been the case. After changing midwives things picked up. Prior to my daughters birth I went in to the ward with contractions but was told I was not in labour and sent home only for my waters break and come back in to find I was dilated 2cm. I was then sent home again and asked to come back by that evening if I hadn’t had my baby. Again, she hadn’t arrived so returned and was put on IV antibiotics as my waters had broke >12 hours ago. The nurse was terribly incompetent and almost burst the blood pressure cuff and left my entire arm bruised from failing to cannulate my multiple times. In labour they basically forced me to be induced as my labour took a long time to progress. In total my labour was 38 hours long (not all active of course) and when I was fully dilated I pushed for 3.5 hours still to have not given birth. I was then scanned and turned out she was side on and although engaged she wasn’t turning so they chose to forceps me. Again tried multiple times to bring her out but she refused and ultimately I was c-sectioned. I was not shown my baby and wasn’t even told she was a girl until I asked. I was not helped with breastfeeding and was just left in recovery until they moved me to a bed. I didn’t get skin to skin until 3 hours after I had her. I was left on my own in hospital as my husband was unable to stay, they placed my daughter in a cot too far for me to reach and being numb from the waist down meant I was unable to reach her, when I asked the nurse for help it was not well received and most of the time they looked confused as to why I couldn’t do it myself. My daughter then had trouble feeding and I was kept in for 5 days as she wouldn’t latch! Ultimately the reason was she had a tongue tie that was missed and I should’ve gone home much earlier and been discharged to the community midwives as I was mixed feeding her! The whole thing was awful. My scar was lovely although has a slight tear when they got her out, otherwise I healed well but was left with some nerve damage to my bowels from the long labour and forceps so I have some ongoing issues with bowels but my daughter had her tongue tie cut and I was able to breast feed. She is now a happy and healthy 5 year old.
When I was expecting my son, my prenatal care was significantly better. I went back to RFH and explained what happened the first time and they were extremely reassuring and the plan for birth was much better. Sadly at my 24 week anomaly scan the sonography was extremely rude and unfriendly, she rushed the scan and made a huge issue about giving me a picture and did not reassure me all was well but when asked she said “yes your baby is fine”. (And I know it isn’t about the picture of course but it was just another thing she didn’t do at the scan). Following that I arranged a private scan at 26 weeks to find my son kidneys were not developing and he has one tremendously large kidney and once significantly small kidney. Having no family history of any issues like this it was unexpected. I was advised to inform the team at royal free which I did. They then arranged for multiple further scans. No one could explain why this was not identified at the anomaly scan. I raised a complaint for an investigation but didn’t have a reply and was still planned to have a VBAC at RFH without the answers. My birth itself was at RFH, it was relatively straight forward, again a long labour, my son’s heart rate wouldn’t pick up so they rushed me in for an emergency c-section at 7cm dilated as they said it would take longer to get to him due to my previous csection and they felt it was best not to run the risk of seeing how the labour progresses as he looked unstable. So emergency csection #2 happened. I was allowed home on day 2 and he latched beautifully. He was investigated immediately and referred to great Ormond street hospital. After months of invasive tests he has MCDK and a dysplastic kidney, they other is still growing. He is otherwise a healthy and happy 3 year old boy but just has 1 working slightly small kidney that is hoping to grow.
So my dilemma come from this. My 2 local hospitals are RFH and UCLH. I don’t have many mum friends locally. My 2nd birth experience was much more positive than my first at RFH mainly because they had access to my notes and understood my history. Unfortunately I lost confidence in them again as they clearly missed the anomaly on the anomaly scan. I was told by my GP that UCLH have excellent prenatal care. However I have been told their aftercare is awful and many babies who have developmental delay in the area have come from UCLH.
Do I go back to RFH and hope because they have access to all the past issues it will ensure I get the appropriate care this time or do I go slightly further away to UCLH in hope that they do a good job?
Any feedback from your experience with UCLH or any feelings in what you would do would be really helpful.
Thank you in advance!