South / West London

[emble]

Hello everyone

I'm in Tooting and so my options for the birth are St George's, C & W, or I suppose
Mary's, although that is a bit far. I have an entirly unfounded aversion to George's so am considering C & W, but was wondering if anyone had any thoughts / bad / good experiences?

thanks!

No aversion to St Georges is unfounded IMO. I live 5 mintues away and had my first there and went elsewhere for my second.

Think C&W has as bad a rep as George's. Go to Kingston if you an get in. Just off the A3 so easy from Tooting.

There's a thread a bit further down about C&W. I'm about to have my third baby there and think it's great. Consultants second to none, midwives mostly lovely, and most importantly, lots of nice food options on your doorstep.

I had a fantastic experience at St Georges - going there for no. 2 in a couple of weeks. Best Neo natal unit in london area too...

Hello glad I found this thread. I had my first at St Thomas's - very happy there. Move and now down for St George's - honest assessment please - what was good/not good about it? I've heard very conflicting reports.
Also do they offer nuchal and combined blood test?

I had DD at Georges in Jan 08 and had a great birth experience ... water birth on carmen suite (their home from home midwife led ward). Unfort postnatal care let the experience down but i think this could be an NHS issue rather than specific hospital??

thanks everyone!

I think that, seeing as the reports are all so varied and everyone has such different opinions, I might just chose C&W because of the Carluccio's and Starbucks. Hope that doesn't make me sound totally ridiculous!

St George's is just enormously busy - I think four births per bed per day on average, that's why they encourage home births. Though the outreach midwife team were lovely and very helpful.

C&W - not keen on because I used to work for a maternal charity and heard lots of bad stuff about it, admittedly all anecdotal. Plus it's horrendous to get to if the traffic is bad/there's a match on.

I had my first in St. george's and wasn't keen - thought it was dirty and the staff unhelpful but this was four years ago and they have spent a lot of money on it since (and now have the MLU). I had my second in Kingston and loved it - clean, organised, and fantastic staff.

I was singing the praises of C&W on the other thread BUT if you live in Tooting I think I would be inclined to go to St Georges purely on location. It might take a while to get to C&W from where you are depending on time of day etc.
Good and bad at all of them I'm sure. Good luck!

i agree with TVfriend, the nearer you are to the hospital the better. can you imagine getting stuck in traffic? also st georges do a deal on parking, cheap as chips unless it has changed since 2008.

i gave birth in st georges the first time and could not fault the delivery of DS. ended up having a c section byut the midwives were amazing throughout my marathon labour. the only thing that let it down was the post natal care which as someone said earlier is more of an NHS thing than hospital specific. i am moving to tooting in a few weeks time before no2 arrives and i will be 5 mins walk away!

Hi

I had my first in St Georges and planning to have my second there too. The antenatel care was good, they do all the nuchal scans etc. The midwives I had through labour were great, the Carmen Suite (midwife led unit) is a good place to have a drug free birth (en-suite bathrooms etc) but I wanted an epidural so ended up transfering to the normal delivery suite area. Totally agree with postnatel assessment - a bit grim but definitely an NHS thing as friends who gave birth in Kingston, St Thomas's and C+W all had the same opinion of their post natel care (take antibac wipes and a pair of flipflops for the shower).

My GP gave me some sound advice - basically all the south west London hospitals have good maternity services but if you end up being in labour when they are busy then your experience might not be as good as it could be. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend St Georges but have not heard many people praise C+W to be honest (but totally anecdotal), although St Thomas's and Kingston seem to generally get good "reviews"!

I had my daughter 5 1/2 months ago at C&W - it was good! Labour care really good - some excellent midwives - try and get a senior one. They got me my epidural when I asked for it (had to wait an hour as they were both in theatre with emergency c-sections but that's not their fault!) - no trying to persuade me against it thank god - I was 5cms though and going quickly.

They let me stay in the labour room for about 4 hours which was nice. The best thing was the proximity to restaurants - I didn't eat a single hospital meal. The ante-natal care wasn't great - I had trouble breastfeeding and was constantly wating for someone to come and help me - ringing the buzzer and getting my husband to go and find someone. However, they are understaffed and there were far more important things for them to attend to than me I think - not their fault...

Showers were okay and so were the loos most of the time - obv take flip flops though.

However, we live about a 3 min drive away and that still felt like an age so proximity to hospital is fairly key I would say! Good luck...