Kings College Hospital vs. Queen Elizabeth, Woolwich

[chestnutlady]

Hello everyone,

I am due to give birth to my firstborn in May this year, and am struggling to decide whether to have it at Queen Elizabeth, in Woolwich, or Kings College Hospital.

I really really hope to have a WATER birth, and as natural a birth as possible. The thing that freaks me out most about a hospital birth is I am concerned that the midwife may be looking after more than one birth at the same time, so won't be able to spend the time explaining what is happening, what to do and when, what not to do, and just generally providing a reassuring presence. But I do definitely want to have a hospital birth, in case of complications.

I would be really grateful if anyone has any recent experience of giving birth at either Kings College Hospital or Queen Elizabeth Hospital, if they would be willing to share those - and especially if anyone has experience of both, which they would recommend? Especially for (i) water births, (ii) one-to-one midwife care, and (iii) post natal care.

Many thanks in advance and good luck to all those other mums to be out there!

I had my first baby in Lewisham and I'm having my next baby at Kings.I know alot of people who have been happy with Kings however as with most if not all hospitals in London they are sometimes very busy and overstretched.
When you are in labout the midwives will leave you to it unless you are being monitored or if you have an epidural.You will only get one to one care if no one else is having a baby at that time (unlikely!) or if you have a home birth(or independent midwife,birth centre etc).I don't know about the QEH I'm afraid but imagine it is also a busy hospital.
Hopefully if you have a natural stratighforward birth you will be out the hospital within a few hours.Post natal wards are renowned to be overstretched in most hospitals so don't get your hopes up!
I believe that at Kings and Lewisham you have to take your newborn to them to get the baby weighed.When I had my DD (march 08)the midwife came to my house to weigh the baby.Not exactly ideal!

I had DS1 at Kings 8 years ago. They have since upgraded it and made it very swish I believe.

My experience was very positive. I refused a student being present (previous experience put me off) which they were very good about, I had a consultant midwife assisting my midwife. They listened to me, when I wanted to carry on pushing after 2 hours, they let me (all was well with him and me) so avoided any intervention. It was all led by me and aided by my birthing partners (not DP, but two good friends who had been through it all before). DS was born with a very slight birth-defect, and we were under Kings care until last year. We saw the same consultant since birth, had numerous operations there as a result and although we left the area, we still went back for care.

The post-labour ward was grim, but I've never met anyone who enjoyed a shared ward. They really tried to help me with breastfeeding (however, I firmly believe that a hospital ward is not the best place to crack it, getting home and getting community MW care sorted us out)

So I have nothing negative to say about Kings. Good luck wherever you decide upon.

As far as being left goes, there's A LOT of hanging around in the early stages. Once in active labour I had constant care, and don't remember being left without one or the other MWs.

I also registered there for the birth of my second child. We had moved away by then, but when I phoned to tell them I was on my way in, I was told they were packed and would probably end up delivering in the waiting room. I think they wanted me to go to my local hospital. Luckily I had already planned for a homebirth as well, so in the end they did me a favour.

"I had DS1 at Kings 8 years ago. They have since upgraded it and made it very swish I believe."

not that swish, I'm afraid.
KCH has great care in the labour suites, and pretty minimal care on the post-labour ward. Which is about par for most of south London I believe.

Lots of the community midwives attached to Kings are ace though - not just the Albany and Brierley practices, but the other teams too.

Gave birth to both my boys at QEH (DS1 - 23 months old and DS2 - 9 weeks so experience is fairly recent). There's only one room in the labour ward that has a water pool and I believe there's also a blow-up pool that can be used in another room if you wanted. My first birth wasn't great - midwives didn't believe I was really in labour, got to the delivery room when I was about 7cm and in a hell lot of pain! Repeatedly asked for pain relief but they just had no time to give it to me. DS1 delivered by ventouse. To be fair to them, once they realised my DS's heartrate was dropping with each contraction, they got the doctor in asap as well as the pediatrician team and DS1 was delivered safe and sound. Postnatal care was horrible. Was left in a shared ward (standard practice for the first 24 hours after birth) sharing with women who had radios on through the night or having difficulties with pregnancies. Moved into private room and midwives weren't helpful when DS1 cried all night. Very little help with breastfeeding as well. Also, though DS1 was born in the early hours of Saturday morning, I didn't leave hospital till Monday noon as there was only on pediatrician on duty that weekend at the hospital and we kept getting pushed down the line...

Experience with DS2 was much better. I knew the midwifery team better and one of the midwives on reception recognised me and told them to get me in asap. I was already 6c m dilated. Was given gas and air as too late for anything else and baby born very quickly. DS2 was born at 7.32pm, I asked to be discharged that night but unfortunately it was a very busy night and we didn't leave till 11.45pm. I was ready to go by 9pm! Also, this time we realised we didn't have to wait for the pediatrician as we could bring the baby to the local GP for a newborn check. So didn't have to wait around for it.

In terms of what you want for your birth, I would say:

• Absolutely no guarantee you will get a water birth as only the main delivery room has a birthing pool and we used that room in my first delivery so if it's occupied, you won't have a choice. They don't 'save' the room up for women wanting water births.

• I love the midwives I saw while pregnant and to be fair, I think they try their best but both times I've been there, it has been very busy.

• If anything, the midwives there are TOO pro-natural birth! You really have to demand pain relief for them to give it to you. They were even stingy with their gas and air!

• I've heard they have a very good special care unit and that was important to me if anything goes wrong.

Well, at the end of the day, I have two healthy boys so despite both not-so-good experiences, I would say at least they did what the needed to do, which is to deliver my boys safely. I hope that has helped... It's just my experience but I'm not sure if my expectations are too high!

Ax

Hi

I had my DS at Queen Elizabeth, Woolwich in 2008. I did use the room with the water birth pool, arrived at about 5cm dilated told the MW on the phone that I was coming in and wanted to use the pool, and I think they kept it for me as it was free at the time and noone else had specifically asked for it.

My birth started out fine, was in the pool from about 5.5 to 8cm - was on Gas & Air pretty much straight away, offered by teh MW, and progressed quickly while in the pool but unfortunately when I got to 8cm I got a bit panicky and felt faint so the MW insisted I got out of the pool (for safety in case I DID faint). After that, I had an epidural (put in very swiftly) after it was recommended by the MW who was concerned my blood pressure was a bit high. Unfortunately after the epidural was in and I rested a bit my progress stalled and after several more hours I had a c-section (30 hrs in all).

I had a MW with me all the time, because I was in the pool, but I didn't actually get on with her that well. I think I could have asked for someone else, but I'm a very 'compliant' and 'polite' patient so am not sure I would have. I think it would have been better to employ a doula for the one-to-one support, explanations, suggestions etc. If it's important to you, maybe think about that? At least you choose that support person, they are experienced and totally focussed on you, without having to make notes in the charts, monitor, talk to colleagues etc etc.

I found the delivery staff to be good - prompt anaesthetist, lovely surgical team once the decision was made to go for a c-section.

Afterwards, on the recovery ward my MW helped me breastfeed DS for first time and later in post-natal ward, I was helped by a breastfeeding specialist and given advice on using a syringe as DS wasn't latching well to start (we got this sorted at home).

I didn't have any complications and physically healed quickly from the c-section (emotions were a different story but that also passed).

Overall a fairly positive experience and I'm planning to return for my next.

I think LadyBee made a good point in that if you want things explained to you every step of the way, it's best you employ a doula or midwife yourself. In terms of my labour, they were both very quick and the midwives were busy both times so not much explanation going on. I remember being asked things but in the haze of pain I was in, they could have asked me if I wanted a donkey and I would have said yes. Also, I never did a birth plan.

The thing is how your experience goes also depends on which midwives you get on duty. I met some lovely midwives during my antenatal clinics but never got them as my midwives during labour. I didn't get much support BF-ing while on the ward BUT the hospital does have breastfeeding counsellors, one of which helped me post-natally and in referring both my sons to get their tongue tie sorted really quick.

Hello everyone, thanks so much for your comments and helpful advice. I went on a tour of QEH yesterday and it was so busy!! We couldn't see a room because they were all in use. I would have thought Kings is even busier so maybe it was just an unusually busy day for them.. it is very difficult to decide, I am currently registered at Kings and the main reason I am considering moving to QEH is because it is closer (10 mins vs 30 mins by car), and also they seem more pro-natural birth with lower C-section / intervention stats. I just don't know!!

At the end of the day as many of you have pointed out it probably depends most on the mw on duty on the day...

chestnutlady I considered going to Kings as I had excellent pre-natal care there while pregnant with DS1 because I had a high risk pregnancy. But I saw mostly consultants so no idea what the midwives are like! In the end, I pump for QEH as it's literally 5 minutes down the road as opposed to Kings (would have been 30 minutes on a good traffic day!). In the end, that was very important as I had very quick labour with both DSs! So good luck whatever you decide...

Hi.I had a look round Kings today and was impressed,very clean and a nice midwife.There are two pools and one room as a large deep bath as well.However,it's first come first served.
It wasn't busy today while I was there but that is just luck of the draw I think.