UHW Cardiff-anyone had a baby there?

[NotAnotherUserName5]

I'm due to have my baby at UHW-Cardiff Hospital.
I'll be having her on the CLU. Anyone got any experiences of the place? What's the post natal ward like?

Sorry I can't help, but that's my local hospital, have you had your scans there? I wanted to know what the prices were like for scans and whether they're happy to tell the gender?

I had my 12 week scan there. I can't remember if it was £3 or £4 per pic. That figure rings a bell.

You have to purchase a voucher for the scan in the coffee shop located inside the maternity unit when you go in.

I don't know with regards to gender, but I did find out gender no problems with my 20 week scan at another Cardiff and Vale hospital. So policies I would imagine are the same.

That's my hospital too. At the 12 week scan they asked for £3 per pic, but the 20 week scan was done in a different area of the hospital where they only wanted £3 for the whole strip they gave us. And when we went for a growth scan at 34 weeks they gave us some nice pics of his face and didn't ask for any payment at all!

They were happy to tell us the sex at each scan they were able to see it.

The post natal Ward is good at Cardiff, I was there 3 days after having my son & even though they were slammed the midwives were really helpful & lovely.
They even got a lactation consultant in to see me & as I'm a dairy intolerant vegetarian were able to get me different foods.

The showers were good too.

Only thing I didn't like was the consultants but that was related to the birth.

Also I don't know if they still do it at Cardiff but on Wednesday evenings they did need pregnant women to practice 4D scanning on.

doleritedinosaur-thanks. Great info.

I will be in a couple of days so good to know what it's like.

How many mums/beds were in per room? I'm dreading trying to sleep when my/other babies are crying.

There was 4 beds per bay & there was another bay opposite mine with the toilet next to the bay.
Down past the midwives desk was the shower rooms & more toilets.

There's several private rooms as well but they said they were like gold dust.

There was a baby opposite us that when it woke up did wake up the others but settled pretty quickly & was gone after our second night but I was feeding my son every 3 hours anyway so for me it was a useful alarm clock.

The other mum's are really useful when you need a shower to watch the baby/for advice/human conversation I found.

I also used to try & sleep from when visiting hours ended so from 8pmish onwards so if it was a bad night I got a bit extra sleep while the baby was.

There's lots of student midwives about who are really helpful especially with breastfeeding/helping bathe & organising pain relief.

& to be honest if your baby is crying you won't be sleeping, I've never managed that haha.

Good luck & also they do take forever to discharge you/see doctors as they're so busy.