New Maternity Unit

[ck78]

Hi,

I am due to have my 3rd baby in May and my other two children were born in Bournemouth so I don't know much about the services that are on offer here. I am aware that Cheltenham is now a midwife only led unit and I had my first child in a similar type of unit in Bournemouth. However with my son I had to be blue lighted to the main hospital in Poole as I needed to have my waters broken and they could not do ANY intervention in Bournemouth. My concern is that if I decided to go to Cheltenham will they be unable to do something as simple as break my waters or would it be another blue light trip over to Gloucester?
I am low risk at present at 27 weeks and feel fit and healthy and do love the idea of going to Cheltenham and having a similar birth to my daughter. But wish I could find out a little bit more about what this new unit can do/offer. Any info would be great.

Thanks

I have heard that the facilities in Gloucester are fantastic so it might be worth going to have a look before making a decision. Don't know much about what Cheltenham can now do as my DS3 was born there before they changed it to a midwife led unit. I have heard on the grapevine that they are very keen to push people towards Gloucester though if there is the slightist hint of trouble. I would go and look at both!

i have had children in both cheltenham, and gloucester hospitals and found them both to be very good. i had 3 births in gloucester (my first son was still born, and 2 live sons) 14, 12 and 10 years ago. they were very good at meeting my individual needs, no idea what they are like now. my daughters were both born in cheltenham, both high risk pregnancies and both inductions. dd1 was high risk because i had gone into labour at 26 weeks, and also because she had cracked one of my ribs. dd2 was high risk because i had severe spd (was on crutches from 18 weeks), because it was my second pregancy in under a year (girls are 11.5 months apart) and because she had an ovarian cyst. all went well, dd1 was born in under 5 hours, and dd2 in less than an hour and a half (apparently quite rare in induced births) they are now 6 and 5.

I'm not sure, but I would assume that midwives at Cheltenham would be able to do the same as those at Stroud since they are both MLUs within the same PCT.

Stroud can definitely break your waters (first hand experience!) and do other basic procedures. You can't have an epidural though, as there isn't anybody qualified to administer one, and that's a major reason for transfer to Gloucester.

Another (I was told the most) common reason for transfer is simple failure to progress. It isn't so much that they want to "push" you to go to Gloucester, but the reason that they are so safe is that they have strict guidelines for transfer, and they follow them.

I would talk to your midwife as she should know what they can/can't do. You can also see if they still do tours of the unit and speak to someone there.

i had my first baby in gloucester 11 days ago and can honestly say the facilities are fantastic. i needed an emergency c section in the end so am pleased i was there already and it was just a walk down the corridor into theatre. the midwives and theatre staff were great and my son and i couldn't have been better looked after.

I wanted to go and look around Gloucester. But they are only doing 'virtual' tours as they have had bad MRSA and swine flu.

I have heard lovely things about Cheltenham, wish it was still consultant unit as well. The odious consultant I saw was very cross when I said that. (obviously part of the panel who decided to make a mega unit at Gloucester) She was also extremely un supportive of my plan for a vbac so I'm going back to London. If I wasn't "high risk" I'd be at either Stroud or Cheltenham.