Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford

[Seabright]

Anyone given birth here? Any comments, good/bad or indifferent welcome

Twice! Elective sections both times, so I can't comment on doing labour there.

It was alright, not amazing, but as always the care depended on who was on duty. The whole CS thing was very good both before and after. Breastfeeding help was pretty poor but it was for DC3 and DC4 so I think they thought I knew what I was doing and left me to it.

Anything you want to know in particular?

Two sections here too.

Midwives were great, surgeons great. Hospital ok, food crap.

Breast feeding help was minimal but I felt i could ask for help and they took dd for a few hours in the night so i could sleep.

Twice here too! One long labour and emergency section, one elective section.

Basically very good. Surgeons and consultants absolutely fantastic, midwives variable - some excellent, one or two a bit unsympathetic. Rooms clean and it all seemed well managed. Food disgusting - bring some snacks!

Both times I was unlucky and they were very busy, so the staff were very stretched, but I was told this is unusual. Even so I thought overall the standard of care is good.

After my first, I asked for and received a lot of breastfeeding advice. You will only get what you ask for, not much is volunteered, but the midwives were good about bf advice I thought.

I used to work there as a midwife & all I can say is notice a bit of a trend (the previos 3 posts)? Does not surprise me. Obviously nothing has changed since I left. If you are keen on a natural birth go to the midwife led bit. On the whole though the wards are quite nice but the labour rooms are rediculously small & pokey and the docs interfere too much.

Hi - I've had two there, both vaginal. The first was excessively fast (had time to take my trousers off and swear merrily at the anaesthetist who was touting for epidurals!) but the midwife was fab, stitching up efficient and quick following birth. The ward was less succesful as it was excessively cold (November and all mums and babies shivering) and it took a lot of persuasion to get an hour off from my screaming newborn on the second night of no sleep - they were vastly busy, but I was desperate and persevered. The second was in the 'home from home' room - fabulous, fabulous place with great midwife who just waited for me to say when I needed her and otherwise left me alone with the radio and sleepy dh. I think they do a great job on stretched resources and I wouldn't hesitate to give birth there again.

P.S. Hi Procrastingatingparent - guess who this is?!! (No1 was born elsewhere!)

Hey, clucky, did you used to have a different and in fact completely opposite name?!

Anaesthetist touting for epidurals, Yep sounds very Guildford.

PP - ah yes, that would be me - I'll tell you that story sometime if you fancy!!

Maxbear - the poor bloke didn't get very far as he was trying to advise me on 'reducing the pain if you lean over dear' - I was about 2 minutes from pushing out dd1 and all I can remember doing is growling at him through the pain, thinking something about grannies and eggs, men the so called experts, kick him so he can feel the equivalent pain, etc, etc. He was a very brave man!

gave birth there a month ago and found it an ok experience.

downside for me was that they don't seem keen on giving pain relief, i asked for an epidural about 6 times and only got one when i was rushed off for my emergency c-section(so i wasn't faking the amount of pain i was in, midwife) no one touted me for an epidural

also i had one of my hands rigged up to some drip thing and had a catheter in so wasn't mobile and when my baby started choking on something he puked up i couldnt pick him up, i pressed the call button and no one came, so i was half holding my baby up with my right hand and panicking for ages, eventually another new mum came to my aid. what really pissed me off was that i could see the midwife station from my bed and they were all ignoring the call button