giving birth in Spain

[Rosa1]

Anyone have any useful info about giving birth in Spain? I live in the Cadiz province and have heard lots of bad experiences regarding giving birth in our nearest hospital. The more I hear, the less I want a hospital birth. Anyone have any info re private midwives or hiring tens machines??
Am due in december and this will be my 2nd...first was a great experience in the Uk but wont be practicle to go back for this one!

You want SenoraPostrophe. Keep it bumped for her.

I too am due to a baby in Dec (my 1st) and am really anxious about procedures here. I've seen a website for an English midwife but she is on the Costa Del Sol which may be a bit far for you, not sure. Try her website: www.costadelsolmidwife.com
I have read other postings about ladies who have bought TENs machines and had them posted from UK, afraid I can't help about chances of hiring one.

lucy5 on the December ante-natal thread is giving birth in Spain. Come on over and quiz her a bit.

Hi, I am practically 40 wks with my first. I read up a lot of birth in Spain before I got pg so I realised it would be very different from what family and friends have experienced in the UK....infact it is more or less like stepping into a time warp and I imagine my birth experience could well be very similar to my mum's when she had me 33 years ago!! But I would try to speak to your local hospital, midwife or obstetrician as a lot of changes are being made to childbirth practices and it varies a lot between each and every hospital. Spain is "growing" so much so fast and you may well find that a story from one year ago is simply not relevent anymore. Enemas are standard in many places, but not others. Pushing the stomach to aid delivery of baby is done in many hospitals, but not in others. It really depends on the individual staff and clinic. Try to make a list of all your questions and have a good chat with whoever you are getting your care from. You may be pleasantly surprised honey.

Good luck!

Claire x
Estepona

Hi Rosa, where are you in Cadiz?

hello!

I've just had my 3rd here, and yes, there were stirrups and everything but they were so nice this time I didn't care! (that wasn't the case last time but I'll skim over that).

the biggest difference is that in most hospitals they give you an epesiotomy without even telling you, never mind asking. this time I was prepared for that and yelled "no me corta!" when at the yelling stage. they didn't and they did tell me when to stop pushing. they also brought ds2 back when I asked for him (they took ds1 away for 4 hours or so, but that's only in some hospitals - they didn't take dd away).

re private midwives: the midwives on this list would be a start .

Hi,

I had my 2 DDs in the UK and my DS here in Spain (Cordoba). Although I found the antenatal care to be better in Spain (e.g. certain tests as standard like Group Strep B plus a 36 week scan), I found the birth to be not a great experience. Having said that, I am pg with my fourth now, so it can't have been that bad.

The main problem for me is that they treat birth as a medical procedure. This means that you do things at their speed and their say-so. For example, my contractions weren't progressing as fast as they wanted. As I'd only been in labour for a few hours (went straight to hospital when I woke up feeling contractions as DD2 was born only a couple of hours after the same happened in the UK)I wanted to wait and let my body get itself going. They were very against this and wanted to give me syntocin to get things going straight away but, as it was my third, I was quite stroppy and said no. So they told me that it was my right to say no, but I couldn't stay on the maternity ward and would have to go to another ward. That was fine but the baby wasn't monitored there. I didn't mind that but it was quite scary signing a waiver saying that I was leaving the mat ward against doctors' instructions and I did so at mine (and my baby's risk) not theirs.

Anyway, I returned a few hours later and not much else had happened and they were desperate to give me the syntocin (similar to inducing me). I asked them to break my waters instead as this had happened in the UK with both DDs and I felt more comfortable with that. They agreed on the understanding that if nothing happened in 30 minutes they could give me syntocin. I was so desperate just to get on with things by then that I agreed. Within 20 minutes of taking the drug I was in real pain as the contractions come on really fast that way, without a chance for your body to naturally release endorphins. The TENS machine, which I used for both DDs, didn't feel like it was up to much!! Anyway, he was born a few minutes later. Thank goodness.

I just didn't really like their attitude, that they knew best. They were almost all men and seemed quite oblivious to the whole natural birth thing.

Having said that, there was no pushing on the stomach (how barbaric!), no enemas, no shaving, none of the real horror stories I'd read. They delivered DS straight onto my stomach rather than taking him away from me (something else I'd heard about). But they did send DH out at just about every painful moment (e.g. when examining how dilated I was) just when I needed him there. Also, after the birth I was sent for observation (standard procedure there) for two hours with the baby and DH wasn't allowed in the room with us, which I thought was a bit uncalled for. They wouldn't let me sit up in bed to breastfeed DS, told me I had to do it lying down (during the observation period), but I refused (history of difficulty breastfeeding which I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot this time)so they reluctantly agreed.

Re the TENS machine, I bought mine from Blooming Marvellous in the UK. Also, they don't tend to use gas and air here or pethadine, it's epidural or nada.

Hope that helps a bit. Sorry if it sounds negative. I believe your best defence is to be prepared (and stroppy!)so I hope you don't mind me painting this picture. As I said, I'll be doing it all again next year. Feel free to ask anything else (if you get this far - bit of an epic, sorry!)

Julie

where are you, clarice? we should visit cordoba at some point.

they do do enemas and shaving on the costa del sol btw. but not in granada. it varies a lot. I had a huge row with my midwife this time round over the number of scans that are "necessary" (in Marbella i seem to remember it's 3, in Granada, 5) and they cocked up my GBS test. but hey ho. hospital food in spain is fan-bloddy-tastic . well, breakfast is crap and you'll need to ask someone to bring in a falsk of tea for you, but the rest of the food is great.

Hi SP, we're in central Cordoba. It is worth a visit for the mezquita alone. We lived in Granada for a year before coming here. We loved it there too.

Was a bit worried reading your bit about episiotomies. I have escaped them with all three so would be gutted if they did one this time around. But assume they won't as they didn't with DS.

Must admit, my ideal would be to have antenatal care here and go back to the UK for the birth. But that's just not practical. Oh well - it's gonna hurt wherever I am, I guess.

SP, I agree about the food, I was in the Costa D Sol hospital a couple of weeks back(a bit of bleeding) and they had read in my pregnancy book that I'm veggie but eat fish, and I was given fantastic food-better than airplane stuff. But no water! Not even to help you take medicine they give you-very strange.

Do you, or any other mums who have given birth in Spain, have any other hospital/birth advice for those about to give birth here? ie.when to tell them 'no me corta', what to tell them at the beginning (I don't suppose they are expecting a birth plan), what to be aware of etc. All I(think I) know is that I can only have one person in there, they will almost def want to do the episiotomy, and it's an epidural or nothing. Oh, and that I will have to take my own water.
Any other info would be really helpful. Thanks!

Rosa, I've recently bought a new Tens machine on Ebay for 26quid(seller:tenspainrelief). It would have cost 12quid to send to Spain but I was cheeky and had it sent to family who then sent it here

Hi Anna/Rosa/all

I gave birth at home here (in Cadiz too)2 years ago with Claudia Kaiser (she's on that list) as my midwife. It was my first and went brilliantly except for the placenta didn;t want to budge. Long story short ended up in Jerez hospital where they duly shoved me in the stomach to get it out (not a common practice in the UK these days). In short I checked out asap.
A friend of mine just had her 2nd in a private clinic in Jerez and it all went well.
More than happy to chat about this at length if you want to CAT me I'll give you a call.
In the meantime, said 2 y.o screaming.....

Hi,
I am a retired community midwife now resident in Spain. I have been returning to England to do the occasional maternity nurse job but I really miss being in Spain so I was wondering if anyone out there needs a maternity nurse to help with their newborn, day or night, in the Costa Del Sol, between Benalmadena and Marbella or live in for a couple of weeks if further afield?
Obviously I can't practice as a midwife as my registration has lapsed but I keep up to date with current trends and practices.
I have four grandchildren hence the nickname!

Hello all, I'm on my first and also a bit worried about what I have heard about the birth experience here in Spain.

I am not sure how good your spanish is but I was reading a great document 'Nosotras Parimos, Nosotras Decidimos' I think it was on a page called Instinto Maternal and it gives loads of advice about making your wishes heard..it encourages you to go ahead and do a birth plan and make them accept it etc etc.

If you can't find the webpage let me know and I will find the proper link for you. It made me feel a bit better that there are Spanish women who want to change the way things are done and it's not just us guiris stomping about shouting about how antiguated everything is!

Me again, I just got home and thought I would double check where I saw that document. It is on www.elpartoesnuestro.es and look under the subcategory ´conoce tus derechos´ on the right.

I haven´t read through everything in depth but it may be of some help to you.