Anyone with experience of St Mary's Paddington?

[Petsville]

I'm due in August, booked to have the baby at St Mary's. Has anyone had a baby there recently, and what's it like? I'm very nervous about it as I had a bad experience on a ward there last year - had to have a termination for triploidy, and they said I couldn't go home till a doctor had seen me (fair enough) but then left me alone for 6 hours, not letting me drink anything (after I'd been throwing up all morning because of the drugs, so effectively a whole day with no fluids) in case I needed a D&C, before a doctor had time to come and have a look at me. I only managed to get seen after 6 hours by threatening to discharge myself - got the impression that nurses thought I was a total nuisance and shouldn't have been wasting the doctor's time or theirs. I think the problem was basically understaffing, so absolutely no point complaining, but I'm dreading having the baby. At least when I had the termination DH was there to look after me but if I have to be on the post-natal ward I'll be on my own at night. Please come and tell me what it's like - if it's awful I may need to think about adding a bit to the mortgage and going private because I'm far more afraid of the hospital than I am of giving birth.

Hi, Any chance Petsville, emsken and/or fancab could give an update to those now going through similar concerns?
Thanks!

I was planning a home birth with DD1, I had an independent midwife and had my scans on Harley St so I was not registered with a hospital at all. Unfortunately when DD's little feet started coming down I was raced in to St Mary's for a super quick ECS. The post natal ward was awful, they sent my husband away and did all the other awful stuff that you've read already ("pain relief, that's not on your chart"; "if you sleep with your baby she will die" etc). When my husband turned up at 9am the next day I said "right let's switch to the private wing" - and luckily there was room for us and it was lovely. I suggest that you try NHS and see how it goes, if it is terrible: switch then (I think it cost us about £3k for our three days there?). Good luck, I like to compare childbirth to a flight to NZ with a toddler, pretty crap but it's over after a day or so and it's worth it once you get there.

Thanks sugarsnappea! Really helpful to know that you can switch if it doesnt work. Absolutely horrendous that anyone should have to go through any of that though and the only way to get normal care is to pay but at least we know!

I had ds at st mary's 4 1/2 years ago and my experience was similar to a certain extent. I am automatically high risk and antenatal and labour ward were really good levels of care. Post-natal was grim and we then got re-admitted because ds had jaundice and that was a really harrowing experience. The bfeeding support was given by la leche volunteers. There was an absolutely excellent one the 2nd time we were in who really helped me and managed to ensure we established feeding. It's unfortunately luck of the draw. I also had an issue getting food on post-natal which given I have type 1 diabetes and had been told to inject was bordering on negligence.

Saying which I'm back there again and expecting twins because I tried UCH in between for a mc and found it much worse. Their antenatal system (never got any further) was appalling and dropped me through the cracks at every point. From sending me a letter a week after I had the mc confirmed inviting me to a GTT test (it's impossible for me to get GD), calling me up every month for 3 months after the ERPC done at UCH to ask why I wasn't attending antenatal appointments and a nurse at the ERPC who tried taking my details for an hour because she couldn't speak English (and I speak no Polish). I already knew that UCH's postnatal was not much different and the reason I was willing to try them out as they'd let type 1s go to 40 weeks instead of 39 at St mary's and I was very keen to try a vbac. Saying which when I had my 1st appt at st mary's before I knew it was twins the lovely diabetic consultant said I could go to 40 weeks if my control was as good as last time so not all policies are binding.

I did start to have nightmares about being on post-natal again but after getting very upset dh pointed out that the main concerns I had were:
1.no food
2.problems with bfeeding and people accusing me of not feeding properly/dehydrating baby
3.no sleep

These would be solved by:

1. DH and my parents supplying me with more food than any one person could eat.
2. Kindly assuring accusing person that since i fed ds until he was 11 1/2 months I did know what I was doing.
3. With twins you're very likely to get a private room.

No post-natal in London is wonderful as they're all serving too many women with too few staff. Saying which I found St mary's clean (no cockroachs ala UCH) and if there was a problem although you might have to insist you would get seen. Unfortunately needing to be assertive and having support around you is the only way to survive the NHS either post-natal or other wards.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. I was also told you could transfer to the lindo wing but they have to have spare beds as they need to give priority to the women who have paid £12-15k for the whole service.

Thanks for your really helpful post Tiggers especially distilling (thanks to your husband!) the main concerns and their solutions.

I recently did the tour and they specifically said that single rooms were for twin cases so you should be fine on that front. I am not worried about food as I am a fussy eater anyway and paddington has so many options for people to bring me.
What I am more scared about is:

• the night time when I will be alone on a postnatal ward with overstretched midwives and strangers.
• the day time when I read that you have to have your curtains open all day. I have already decided I dont want visitors apart from DH and my mum. I really dont want to have to see everyone else's visitors. This sounds silly, but having seen how cramped the post natal wards are you really are head to toe on top of everyone. Also when on the tour there were big groups of families with children visiting and I would have hated to be on the ward then.

-breast feeding. not having anyone there to help or be patient with me or forcing me to feed formula by scaring me that it will negatively affect the baby.

I have read about midwives not giving correct pain medication, ignoring people, accusing new mothers of all sorts. Does anyone have any strategies for how to word insisting or deal with any of these?

Also if it gets too much at night can I just discharge myself rather than getting down. Anyone have any experience of this?

Thank you for your help and kind words. I am also considering Queen Charlottes but as you say Im sure all post natal care is bad during the night because of staff shortages.

St Mary's ashithole, in all honesty.

UCH is much better if you are going down the NHS route.

No experience of private, but I'd say consider the costs carefully. If what you want is just good postnatal care, book a private room for afterwards and save yourself thousands of pounds!

Had DS on the labour ward and agree post natal wasn't great

Had DD in the birth centre and it was fantastic. Rooms were as good if not better than some private I've been to

Agree with digging.... if you're able to go to the birth centre it is a revelation. I had DD there and it felt more like a hotel than a hospital, all wood panelling with all the medical equipment hidden away unless needed. A huge double bed for me, DH and DD to get into afterwards with as much postnatal support as we needed. Would HIGHLY recommend it.

There wasn't any rule about curtains open when I was in. I don't know if it's changed. If there was most people ignored it. I slept and fed with the curtains closed which was most of the time.

If you have a normal birth and are low risk most London hospitals will try and chuck you out within 6 hours. You can discharge yourself as well although obviously you want everything to be ok.

When I was in with ds having jaundice my father and dh were intent on getting me out by the end of the 2nd day so I didn't need to spend another night there. We couldn't leave without seeing a paed to confirm that ds' jaundice had gone down to acceptable levels. Average wait for a paed was 6-12 hours. They very politely sat there and refused to leave at 8pm (when visitors are meant to) on the grounds that ds and I would be leaving to once the paed had seen us. 2 hours later we were all out with me more yellow than ds! If you really wanted to go, you could just say to the midwives that you need x or y and if not received will have to go home and if they don't listen drag your dh out of bed and make him pick you up. You're likely to get a whole talk about how you have to be signed out by drs but that will be your decision to make.

In the day it's best to get your partner to deal with difficult midwives (although the worse person I had was a health care assistant). At night just keep on politely insisting until you get what you want. Nights are difficult there's no two ways about it. But they can also be difficult at home. Oh and most babies get really hungry on the 3rd night and scream the whole time. You just have to keep on trying to feed them.

I'm glad to hear that about the twins and single rooms

Just to add the reason post-natal is so bad is because the resources are devoted to a certain extent to the sharp end i.e. labour and antenatal. You're less likely to kill someone on post-natal than the other two just traumatise them for a while which is obviously less of a concern. The reason I refused to contemplate UCH again was their ante-natal system was so dire on a systemic level that it didn't matter how good the people at the top were I felt that I would not receive the necessary care at the key points. And that was considerably more worrying than rude HCAs and low staff at night.

Both times my antenatal care was very good. I did GP shared care and I always saw the same midwife at the GP surgery. She was the same one who did the home visits after the birth (5 visits in 10 days)

never bothered me that I didn't see the same midwife more than twice though