Your experience of maternity care in Oxford

[CrowmarshGibbon]

Just been having a conversation with a friend about the ante- and post-natal care that she received and realised how very lucky I was with the care I received here. I was fortunate enough to attend the Wallingford Midwife Unit for the majority of my care and, although I was transferred to the JR for the birth, felt I had good continuity of care for the rest of my pregnancy and post-natal check ups. The Health Visitors,also, were excellent.

Having had a look around there seems to be a shortage of personal accounts of the care in this area, I was wondering if anyone would mind sharing their Oxford birth story here for future mums-to-be to benefit from?

Some things to mention if you're struggling with what to say:

• who did your ante-natal care and how did you find it?
• were your choices listened to/respected?
• where was your birth and how was it?
• what was your immediate post-natal care like?
• where were your health visitors based and did you feel cared for by them?
• how was the feeding support in your area? Did you feel supported in your choices?

I had my ante-natal care with midwives/GPs at my local GP surgery. As there are a team of midwives covering I saw a few different midwives for the appointments, but they were all very lovely. I also had to see a consultant at the JR for a couple of appointments (a minor issue thankfully).

I had a water birth at the Spires unit, and had an excellent midwive, I cannot recommend the unit highly enough. They also helped me a few days after the birth when I was passing blood clots.

I would say post natal care is where I feel things could have been better. I saw lots of health visitors as the team working for my GP surgery did the official checks, but another team covered my local surestart centre where I tended to go for weighting and advice. I didn't really build a relationship with any health visitors. Luckily most of the info I needed is on mumsnet!

Feeding wise, there is a brilliant breastfeeding clinic at the JR, without them I wouldn't have made it through those early weeks.

I'm just starting the whole thing again, and plan to follow a similar care pathway, possibly with a home birth this time.

Thanks for sharing that. Are you expecting now? If so have you talked to the mw about having a home birth? Were they receptive?

I am expecting now, but I've not even had my first scan yet, so haven't thought too much about birth plans. It was actually my midwife who suggested a home birth during my booking appointment. I'll love to hear from anyone who would like to share their home birth story.

My experience was very positive. Saw the same midwife & GP throughout my pregnancy in E Oxford. Gave birth at the JR in delivery suite, though birth plan was all about the spires. I had a horrible labour but staff in the JR was absolutely amazing, from midwives on level 6 / 7 where I spent the night before giving birth, to midwives, anaesthesiologist , doctors, students, etc and staff (midwives, breastfeeding consultants, paediatricians, doctors, physiotherapist, hearing people, etc) on level 6 where I spent a night post partum. They were all incredible. I think it's largely thanks to all this amazing care that I didn't get PND from the awful labour I had... I consider myself incredibly lucky and grateful!

my last birth was 7 years ago, so not sure how helpful. Pre-natal care through midwife at GP and for about 2/3rds of the preg at the silver star unit at the JR, because they were worried I was high risk. When it became clear all was fine, I was just under the care of a consultant. I was going for a VBAC because my previous child was born by an emergency cesarean. Because we had no relatives around I hired a retired midwife to attend the birth with me in case my partner could not be there for all of it. She provided continuity of care in the delivery suite, although as it turned out the delivery was straightforward and quick and so the hospital midwife would have been fine. I stayed one night in the JR after the birth. Then was visited regularly for weeks by the community midwives, I think (retrospectively) due to suspected PND... I was exremely impressed by all the care I received. The only person who was a bit of a twit was a trainee doctor who didn't believe I was in labour and tried to send me home. He was overuled by the consultant who sent me upstairs for a few hours to have a bath and see if the labour settled. A few hours later the baby arrived. All much better than my previous frightening birth in the US.

That's lovely to know Mary.

For anyone who's considering a homebirth there is an NCT Oxford homebirth group and a good Birth Choices group on Facebook who meet up in Didcot (not too bad to get to from here)

South Oxfordshire Birth Choices

Hope these are useful. I can personally vouch for the friendly nature of the South Ox group.