Choice of hospitals for the birth

[InMyPrime]

Can anyone tell me if there is any choice allowed in where you can give birth in Edinburgh? I imagine to minimise risk of complications, you would want to go to the one closest to you, but what if you're halfway between two, can you choose or are you just assigned to a hospital by your GP? I'm all of 3 weeks pregnant(!) so it's early days yet and haven't even gone to the GP yet but we are looking to move house in the next few months (have been looking for a while) and now that I'm pg, I can't help being slightly influenced in my choice of location by access to a hospital for the birth.

What if you live in Fife / the Borders, can you still choose to give birth at the Edinburgh Royal, if your midwife is there and you have got to know the medical staff? I'm a little concerned by how small the other maternity facilities are outside of Edinburgh to be honest although I'm aware at the same time, when the big day arrives, I'm sure I'll just want to get to a hospital asap and not really care which one it is...!

you do get a choice- I live in the centre of town and started off with ERI but changed to Livingstone ( St.Johns) once I found out I had to have a section as the aftercare is supposed to be better there, it is quieter in general and smaller wards. Discuss with your GP when you book in.

You definitely can choose, for instance one of my friends (a trained midwife!) lives central Edinburgh but went to Borders Hospital as she had worked at most hospitals in the Edinburgh and Borders area and preferred it. She had to change the hospital a few weeks before her due date so that she could get midwifery services from her local community midwife team throughout her pregnancy. If labour had come on too quickly she would have just gone to ERI but as it was she had plenty of time.
Note that you don't normally get the opportunity to get to know any of the hospital midwives (at the ERI and St Johns at least) as you are looked after by a community midwife for the duration of your pregnancy and then allocated a midwife at hospital when you go in to give birth. Obviously if you are under the care of a consultant due to any complications during pregnancy you would be more familiar with the hospital staff by the time you go in for the birth.

I really wouldn't choose where you live based on hospital location as wherever you live in Edinburgh it's never going to take you that long to get to hospital, especially with a first pregnancy. In the unlikely event that it all happens super fast you can always call an ambulance!

Good luck and hope you enjoy your pregnancy.

Thanks for your responses, guys. Glad to hear I can choose if I want to. I wasn't aware that you are assigned a community midwife who is different to the midwife you have in labour, so thanks for that info, Bellebelle.

My main motivation is that I know the ERI quite well through work connections and have dealt with the staff in the Reproductive Medicine unit. I also know the site very well and where everything is so I'd really rather go there if possible (even though I know it has problems being very busy etc) rather than go to an entirely new hospital. My main worry is that if I moved out of Edinburgh, that I wouldn't be allowed to go to the ERI for the birth but it sounds like I can still do that if I'm not too far away so I probably don't need to get too hung up on where we live.

I think you'll be fine requesting the ERI. Everyone in the system seems very relaxed about where you want to go and if you are comfortable and familiar with ERI then it seems a natural choice. Good luck.

Hi there

Just to say, if you live in Edinburgh I think both ERI and St Johns Maternity units are great, however, be aware that if your chosen one is full you may be sent to the other. We chose ERI (Simpsons) but when we phoned when I was in labour we were told it was full and we had to go to St Johns. Luckily we had done a dummy run a few days before and St Johns was great.

Good luck with it all