what is the best hospital in london?

[slinkstah]

After having a traumatising exerience in my last pregnancy whilst in hospital, i was hoping to choose a better hospital this time. can anyone recommend any hospitals which they have had positive experiences in with high risk pregnancies. in antenatal care and antenatal ward and birth etc.
thankyou for any replys

Private or NHS slinkstah?
St John and St Elizabeth is VERY good but private, so I hear.
My local one treated me very well for a pregnancy after an unexplained stillbirth at 21 weeks, but the subsequent pregnancy in itself was not deemed to be "high risk". That was QEH in Woolwich. They have a Bereavement Midwife there who is excellent and has had a positive influence on the Head Consultant especially. But like all NHS units they are short of midwives and the postnatal care is minimal. Also no NICU, only SCBU.

I had high-ish risk pregnancy and had a good (as far as these can be !) experience at Kingston.

hi marina, i had an unexplained stillbirth too at 23 weeks. The care i recieved was awful. so i am nervous about this time.
i might consider private, do you know roughly what kind of price, private antenatal care is?
why weren't you considered high risk? what antenatal care did you have with your next pregancy, any more than usual?
although with my last pregnancy i only had 2 antenatal appointmnents in the whole 23 weeks and that was aparently normal

I wish I knew the answer to that question. I had my second ds at St Mary's in PAddington. Terrible experiences there. I have heard similar about most other NHS london hospitals. St John's and St Elizabeth (St Johns Wood) is fabulous. I have friends who have had babies there and I have heard only good about it. However, it is very very expensive. I am hoping to win the lottery before I get pregnant again Only problem is I don't play the lottery!

Is St Johns better than the Portland? Something about the Portland puts me off (not just the prices!) but not sure what.

Hi slinkstah, can't help you with costs I'm afraid, sorry - hopefully someone else will.
WRT to the stillbirth, it was because it was unexplained that I was not automatically "high risk", ie, after a postmortem, they concluded that Tom had no genetic or other conditions that might affect a subsequent pregnancy. But what I was offered was "extra" care from the Bereavement Midwife, ie, I could ring her any time and go and cry on her shoulder, ask detailed questions about any extra scans or other non-invasive screening I could have, etc. So you could argue that I was considered high risk of losing the plot, but the baby was carefully monitored throughout. In the end I had a c-section but that was because she did not engage and there was a risk of cord prolapse.
I remember you posting about your stillbirth Does this info help at all? Caring support for pregnancy post stillbirth is pretty patchy in London unfortunately.

St Johns is WAY better than the Portland IMO. It is a proper hospital with no worrying recent record of letting mothers die post c-section oranges.
In my first NCT group four of us slummed it in the NHS and one, thanks to company healthcare, opted for the Portland. She had the least positive experience of all of us, frankly. But her baby and she were fine.

Thanks Marina. I think I got the feeling the Portland were more concerned about providing 3 course champagne dinners than monitoring mums after the birth, but glad your friend is okay. I looked into costs slinkstah - the London ones cost between 5000 and 10,000 for a birth (not sure if that includes scans and blood tests), depending on how high risk you are, and what type of room you want etc. And I think they take you to an NHS hospital anyway if there is a major problem.

i think i am going to monitor my own pregnancy and only go to hospital for scans etc. i think i will write to some hospitals and ask them their policy. see if i get any response. i am only 3/4 weeks pg so its early days and plenty of time.

it does seem like most hospitals in london have no midwifes, i had my dd in the midlands and i had a midwife stay with me throughout labour. my last labour i saw 2 differnt midwifes through the 8 hours , 1 at the beginning and 1 in the last 5 seconds and only came in as i was screamiing the place down, dh was ready to deliver baby.

Don't suppose you're anywhere need Edgware? It has one of those rare things, a birth centre, so if you like midwives and not doctors that might be worth a visit. Sorry to hear about your rotten experience. IME, anything nasty happening like that once results in the NHS going into overdrive to take care of you next time - extra (and early) scans and more regular checks with a midwife. Hope it happens well for you.

I am really sorry to hear about your last birth. Do you know what caused the still birth - I hope you don't mind me asking was it Strep B? I have had both my children at John & Lizzies and think it is a brilliant place. DS had problems after he was born and was transferred out to St Marys & then the Portland as they didn't have room for me at St Marys and I had to have a c-section. The Portland did provide excellent care for me son but I did prefer being at John & Lizzies because it is a very small unit and you really get to know the midwives before the birth. There are some fantastic midwives who do really care and take great pride in their jobs. As for cost they have two packages one is midwife-led care, you pay a set fee which includes all ante-natal appointments and those with the consultant plus scans and delivery charge plus one night. You can do the same at the Portland and they have their prices on their website. I think both places charge about £6000 for that. With John & Lizzies you also get the added benefit of being able to speak to a midwife day or night from when you are booked in until your baby is one. I ended up having two emergency c-sections so the insurance paid the vast majority but I believe an elective is somewhere around £10,000.
My consultant (Donald Gibb) now only works out of the Portland but as another option I know that he will give back up appointments to those using the NHS. He is very experienced and might provide you with the reassurance that you need. Here is a link to his practice \link{http://www.thebirthcompany.co.uk/Birth Company}

try again Birth Company

I had my baby at st marys paddington (NHS), and though i wasn't a high risk, i did feel i was looked after well, great midwives during labour, crappy post labour ward, but that's what you get with the NHS all over I beleive. There is a private wing at St Marys (Lindo Wing), with various consultants there who are rated highly by those who use them (Teoh, Smith, Murphy), definitely better post natal care. Importantly (I think), St Marys has a GREAT special care baby unit. Our dd ended up in there with bad jaundice that wasn't initially responding to treatment, and the teams up there were just fab. She was one of the least ill babies there ( for some of the others), so that might be something you want to consider....
Good luck with your decisions and your pregnancy!

I had mine in Kings and had a mixed time. They sent me home 4cm dialated even though they knew I lived a fair distance away. I phoned on the way home as contractions were very bad and wsa told not to bother coming back as there were no beds. I got home, had to turn around, DP driving like a lunatic (caught in traffic jam) abandoned car in ambulance bay and made it to Delivery suite with about 15mins to spare.

Once I got in there though the midwives were brilliant. You can imagine I was pretty panicked (thought I was going to have baby in traffic jam)and with there help gave birth without any pain relief. They really really helped me focused. Never knew how important a good midwife was.

Baby and I had to spend 7 days in hosp afterwards and I saw a lot of midwives on the ward and I would say most of them were kind, caring and treated the patients with respect. A far cry from what I had experienced at St Georges.

So, once I was admitted I was treated very well but I should never have been sent home especially as the midwife who saw me the every first time did a sweep without my knowledge.

Hiya, i had my ds at the Heath Birth Centre at The Royal Free in Hampstead. As it is midwife led , you have to agree to no epidural, you can only receive gas&air or , i think, perhaps pethidine also. It was a magic experience in there for me and dh....god yes it was scary and yes it was bloody painful, but the whole birth room was lit by a lava lamp with oils burning and gentle music playing(all done by the midwives!!) the midwives themselves were amazing, so careful to stick to my wishes and they ASKED before they did anything to me.....i was 8 1/2 cm before they checked my dilation which was my choice as i didn't want to labour feeling like i had a gun to my head to achieve it in a certain time frame. I laboured in the birthing pool, didn't have the cord clamped/cut till it had stopped pulsating and delivered my placenta naturally, again all my wishes. I was allowed time to sleep cuddled up in my bed with dh and ds and eventually we were woken 2 hours later to hot tea and toast, you can't get better than that can you??!!

I was very high risk, and had my baby at St Georges, Tooting. The care I recieved was exemplary, and I couldn't fault the nurses in the SBCU, they were so kind to me.

there is a birth centre in Peckham too,called the albany which by all accounts is fantastic.

apparantly 89% of women give birth with their primary midwife present- which is so different to the nhs hospitals!

there is huge demand though, and i found out about it too late to get in unfortunately.

I had my DS at St George's and the care was substandard. Too many women in labour, too few midwives, too few beds, DS was delivered by a student on her own

However I have heard that for C sections and the SCBU they are much better

I have heard good stuff about St Thomas'

You could always opt for just a private midwife

slinky, I made a post about the Portland earlier today in another thread here . We were happy. HTH.

When I was at St Georges though, I was in the High Dependency unit within the maternity section, and throughout the whole labour I was never left in on my own, although they did draft in some agency intensive care nurses for my stay. So I haven't actually got any experience of how the normal rooms operated, but I found everyone there to be really kind and efficient.

I had DD at Mary's Paddington. I wasn't high risk, but we did have complications during the pregnancy and found the hospital very good indeed - Murphy & Teoh were brilliant.
During labour I had a great midwife who came and went a bit but was very much there when needed.
Post-natal ward not a bundle of laughs, but not awful in any particular way.

I was lucky enough to go to the home from home birth centre at St Thomas's and it was lovely. View over the Thames and Big Ben. Gave birth on all fours looking out over it (well the midwife made me look up at the clock after DS was born). I had a midwife with me throughout my (short) labour, and had two towards the end (and a HCA watching!). As you stay in your room for up to 24hrs after you don't have the postnatal experience. Again post natal care could have been better, and I feel that the pediatrician should have picked up on that DS had tongue tie. But I would go back there. Hopefully won't though, as will have moved and would kind of hope for a home birth next time. Where abouts in London are you? Do you have a good GP? You might find you have a choice between certain hospitals, those nearest, not all in London. However, your GP should hopefully be helpul. Good luck, I hope all goes wonderfully well for you.

the best thing would be to get on to a one-to-one midwife scheme, so you can build up trust with one carer throughout your pregnancy, and then have them attend your birth. Queen Charlotte's and Kings both offer this, but not to everyone - I don't know if living outside the catchment area would make a difference. At Charlotte's they prioritise women with particular social or medical needs, and I'm sure a traumatic past experience would count. Good luck.

I would advise to go on some hospital tours. They will be surprised because they expect you to only go on a tour when you are 35 weeks which is too late to change hospital unless you go private. I loved St Thomas and also Queen Charlotte but both are full, however if you are still in your first trimester you might have a chance to get in. So don't wait too long, go and have a look and once decided get your GP to write a letter. Given that it is still early they might accept you even if you are not in their area, once they are almost fully booked they only accept people out of their area.