Has anyone actually used the Home from Home Birth Centre at St Thomas' ?

[charitygirl]

I went for a tour and loved it - my dream birth would be to start off in the 'garden', deliver in one of the pools, and then toddle off to deliver the placenta in one of the lovely rooms. Naive I'm sure but it sounds nice! When we looked round, all these facitlities could be viewed because there was no one in them. Didn't think anything of it but...

...last night, at my first NCT class, the teacher said 'Yes it's lovely, but I bet it was empty wasn.t it? No one ever gets to use it sadly'. She said that women get moved to the consultant led unit v quickly/unecessarily, and that midwives get diverted there when there are emergencies leaving the Home from Home unstaffed and they 'close' it.

Now I know NCT teachers are very home/natual birth and she was doing a hard sell on the home birth. BUT it did sound plausible so I thought I'd see if any MNers had used it/had a good experience. I don't want to be expecting to use it only to find out it was never really on the cards.

hmmmm....I'm hoping for HFH at tommies too...sounds like it's wonderful if you get to use it

my midwife claims most people start out in home from home and then move to the centre if they need epidural, etc.
she attends births so will have to ask her how accurate that is, and about staff shortages.
i had one friend who gave birth there and said it was great.
from what i can tell, lansdell suite is £650/night.

When I visited Tommies, the tour was done at the Home From Home, but as others have mentioned it was eerily quiet & empty! That doesn't mean it's not used in general... maybe wasn't used on that particular day that much. One thing I wonder is- if someone knows from the beginning that they will be wanting an epidural, do they go straight to the labour ward, or is home from home the 'standard' place to check in first & then you get moved? I'm asking because I don't fancy being transferred mid-labour, since I'm completely sure I'll ask for an epidural from the beginning. It would make more sense to go to the labour ward from the beginning, wouldn't it?

I had my daughter at the HFH at Tommies - the guests seemed to enjoy it more than I did - the views, the big room overlooking Big Ben. Me - all I know is that it hurt! The environment was irrelevant! Six weeks till I go to St Georges for no.2 - big gulp.

I had both DD and DS at the home from home unit at Tommies. Both times the midwives were fantastic, they gave me loads of support and I was lucky and managed non-intervention water births with both. CF was my NCT teacher too - she is fantastic, but a bit negative about the NHS. Both midwives I saw really wanted me to give birth in the H from H unit and did all they could to support me in staying there.

And yes - the view is fantastic !