Lewisham or PRU

[clare40]

Hi, I live in Chislehurst, and have just found that I am pg. Where do you get the choice to give birth if you live here? Has anyone had any experience of having giving birth in the new Lewisham birthing unit or the PRU. I would normally wait a few weeks to see a doc, but I have been told that if you want a hospital out of your obvious choice you should see them straight away - is that true?

Hi Clare,

You can choose where you want to have your baby, and no, you dont have to see the GP earlier if you want an out of area birth but I would advise seeing the GP as soon as you can to get things rolling with regards to Antenatal care, scans, MatB certificate and lots of lovely freebies from companies wanting you to spend money with them!

My sister had both her boys at the PRUH, and they were fantastic with her, she had to have an emergency C-section the first tie and elected for one the 2nd time, her youngest is 5 weeks old. My sister in law had her son at Lewisham and again they were excellent. Unfortunately she too ended up with an emergency C-section (the boys in our family dont like making it easy for their poor mums, luckily I have 2 girls!)
Her little boy is 10 months old now and has had some dietry problems which has seen him in and out of Lewisham, and I have not got one bad word to say about the care they have both recieved.

Im sorry I cant give actual personal experience as both my daughters were born at Queen Marys which has now closed its doors (although they do have a midwife led birthing unit still).
My advice would be to do a dummy run to both hospitals during rush hour and chose the one you can get to quickest. Car journeys are not fun whilst in labour....
I hope some of this helped

The new birth centre at Lewisham is lovely! I've been on a tour and heard that early reports from mums have been good. I think you can call them direct and actually book yourself in if you want to. All the contact details are here, you don't have to go via the GP.

Congratulations!

I've heard good things about the new birthing centre at Lewisham too. Having said that, I've also heard a lot of positive comments about PRU. If you're likely to be high risk and not use the birthing centre maybe you should opt for PRU as I've heard some good and some bad about the regular Lewisham maternity unit.

I know you didn't mention it but just in case - really, really don't do Queen Elizabeth

I've also heard both good things about the pruh and lewisham - probably best to take a tour of both. I had dd at qms and as all the labour services have been temporarily closed for the winter, I am now going to darent valley instead. I live 5 mins from qms so want as quick a journey as possible and darent valley just wins. The pruh is not too bad a journey if you cut through petts wood and crofton. Good luck and congrats.

I had an elective CS at the PRUH 3 weeks ago. It is absolutely swamped at the moment due to QMH closing. The midwives on the day shift were fine, if stretched, but the night shift were unhelpful and unresponsive. I had to get out of bed at 1:30am 17 hours post-op, catheter bag in hand, to ask for painkillers because no-one answered the bedside buzzer. I also had to lift DS when he cried despite being terrified I'd burst my stitches because there was no-one to help me do it. The midwives agreed I was well enough to be discharged the next day but it didn't happen because no doctor was available.

I have a fried who had a good experience being induced at Lewisham's MLU in September last year.

Most of the mat ward staff at the PRUH seem to be doing their best in difficult circumstances, but the level of demand on their time clearly seems to be affecting patient care right now. I have complained formally about what happened to me and would definitely not go back there in future.

Sorry to be a bit doomy. I had concerns when I was deciding where to go about the impact on the PRUH of QMH closing, but figured it would be ok. I was wrong.

Thank you all so much for your replies, and esp Flora! (Flora - congratulations!!)

I will see them both, but I am more tempted to go to Lewisham (I never thought I'd say that!).

Thanks again!

It was 2007 when I had DD so it may have improved, but I had an absolutely horrible time at the PRUH.

I was there for induction and was treated quite poorly - the obstetrician was horrible. There were hardly any proper staff, it was mostly agency who clearly didn't give a toss. No Breastfeeding support, even the NCT BFing counsellor was rubbish and not very helpful at all.

I'm sorry to be so negative but I'm sure those first few days really affected me. It was only after I had my second baby in Redhill and was treated brilliantly from induction to BFing that I realised just HOW poor the PRUH was.