St Johns Maternity Hospital - anyone know of it?

[Jennyb]

Does anyone know of this hospital - I cannot find a telephone number or web site for them. I've heard it is a private maternity hospital in Hampstead or nearby. I'm on my third pregnancy and the last one was not so good and I'm tempted to pay this time around.

St John and St Elizabeth - in St John's Wood. Very holistic and midwife led. Emma Thompson had her baby there. I don't think it has its own website but you can find the details here:

Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth

Good luck!

know a couple of people who have had babies here - sounds fantastic. Only thing I would check though is what happens if there is an emergency. Will they have to whack you in an ambulance and send you to the nearest NHS A&E? Do they have an on-site crash team or neonatal unit? Sometimes the birth itself is the easy bit and, even though it isn't something you like to contemplate, it is worth being aware of what provisions they have for emergencies.

Thanks Marina and Willow2 for the info. My first child was an emergency CS and second an elective due to placenta praevia and I think I will probably have to have the third by elective also so will be booked in before the due date. I live in Herts so it is about an hour's drive away but then Cambridge was 45 mins! I will be sure to find out about the emergency provisions - I didn't even think of that - thank you!

Has anyone had their baby at a private hospital? A friend of mine is thinking of going private and I really couldn't advise her whether it's worth the expense. If you've gone private, please let me know if you'd do it again.

Hi

I know a few people who have given birth at St John's & St Elizabeths. All of them have raved about the one-to-one attention and holistic approach to giving birth. If you are a 'natural birth' type it will probably suit you down to the ground. You give birth with dimmed lights to welcome the baby into the world in a relaxed and unthreatening way. Your partner can stay over (all the rooms have double beds) and you are encouraged to have your baby in bed too. The birthing rooms all have a birthing pool, beanbags, cushions, cd players etc etc. They are very keen on water births.

If your baby has a problem it will be transferred by ambulance to the SCBU at St Mary's in Paddington (local NHS teaching hospital). If your baby is moved there you can move too. I don't know if they have an intensive care unit if something goes wrong for one of the mums.

They do not do a 'managed' 3rd stage labour i.e. give you the injection to encourage the placenta to appear. A friend of mine who gave birth there ran into probs because her placenta just didn't come away and then she had a big blood clot and haemorrage and then her stitches didn't 'take' as she wasn't stitched up for several hours after delivery.

I guess it depends on what suits you. I wouldn't personally go there because of the worry if there was something wrong with the baby. Other private options nearby are the Lindo Wing or the Portland (eek! shockingly expensive). Have you considered having your baby privately at a local NHS teaching hospital? This guarantees private care, so you can build up a relationship with your consultant, and a private room after birth. Also all the benefits that go with being in a big NHS hospital with the latest equipment e.g. intensive care and a SCBU on site.

Good luck!

bon, I was going to have my dd at the Portland until went to visit it and saw what a dump it is. I decided to save the £10,000 pounds and spend it on furniture for the new house. I had my dd at Queen Charlotte's on the Active Birth Floor instead and had a thoroughly positive experience. And as it turned out I had a massive haemmorage and might well have died had I been at the Portland.

From a different POV, we opted into private care or DD's operation last year. Our consultant told us where he did private ops but it has no paediatric intensive care unit and I was concerned about this so I said I would rather have the op done in our local large teaching hospital with lots of facilities.

This was fine with our consultant.

We didn't get a private room (which I also didn't mind) but the catering was lousy and the cleanliness of the loos/showers not brilliant - I've been to the private hospital we would have been put in and it's far more hotel-like. But the staff were fantastic and we felt cared for. It was a positive experience.

And Sainsburys wasn't too far away and the canteen on the next floor down provided much better food than that which was delivered to the wards so not all bad.

Good lukc with your choice

I had a very positive experience at the Portland. Checked out all the neonatal stuff and while they can't handle the super-preemies, they do have a NICU and emergency facilities. (My little sister had a daughter, who is now a completely happy healthy 4 year old, at 25 weeks and who weighed 1 lb 5 oz at birth. So I really did my homework.)

A friend of mine had a long complicated labour that resulted in an emergency c-section there. Everything was fine. She wasn't fond of the labour or whole emergency thing, but found the care to be excellent. I had a few minor problems and the staff was always wonderful.

My experience was that my consultant was always available, 24/7, more than willing to answer any questions and listened to me. He's a great guy (although I was a bit nervous about using a male ob/gyn) and helped me through my son's (my older son, not the baby) health problems. The labour was wonderful. My midwife was constantly available-- even checked with me to see if it was ok for her to have a break for dinner (I was there quite a while) and introduced me to her replacement while she was gone. There was one change of staff, so I had three midwives total and that's counting the one I had for the 30 minutes of the other's dinner. We had time after the birth to "bond" or whatever (I was extremely grumpy by that point, I don't like giving birth) and everything that happened from that point, except the medical stuff that needed to happen, was led by me. My mom and son came to visit me in the delivery room and then hung out in the postnatal room while we got cleaned up. My husband, of course, was there the entire time. The food was excellent (fond memories of steak sandwiches).

The best things for me were the support I knew I had day in and day out through the pregnancy, as there were hospital midwives on call as well as my ob, and the feeling that everyone was listening to what I wanted and what I had to say. I was never worried about emergency care-- in the worst case, UCH is minutes away. And there aren't high level NICUs at every hospital, so if that's your criterion, be very careful about where you choose.

It also helped that it was the closest private hospital to me and the consultant came highly recommended.

SofiaAmes, sorry you thought it was a dump. It wasn't trendy or anything, but was very clean and the staff were wonderful. My elder son had been there as an inpatient when he was admitted as an emergency case with scarlet fever. Our experience then was wonderful also, especially as he was quarantined for a couple of days.

Oops, forgot to add that for me one of the things in favour of private care was the knowledge that had something gone wrong, my own doctor was right there able to do something (eg, some unknown consultant didn't have to be found and then dragged in to do an emergency c-section).

If you're going to go private for any reason it's always worth finding out what emergency care is available, most importantly does the hospital have a "crash" team on 24 hour standby. According to a leading anaethetist many don't - some smaller ones just have a junior doctor or two on at night. From what I've gathered the Wellington and The Cromwell in London are two of the best equipped/staffed.