Birmingham/West Midlands Maternity Units

[America5]

Hi everyone!!

I wonder if you can help with your personal opinions / experiences on maternity units in the West Midlands. My midwife has given me the options of:

• Birmingham Womens Hospital
• Heartlands Hospital
• Coventry and Warwick University Hospital

Any opinions / experiences would be greatly appreciated as I need to decide by next week!!

I had DC2 at Warwick and would highly recommend them.

Check with your midwife where your antenatal appointments will need to take place as this might be a factor in your decision.

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets ah have you! Is that Warwick hospital or Coventry and Warwick Hospital? As I did look at Warwick but was unsure if it was midwife led or not?

I’m on a course with one of the senior midwives from BWH. She is awesome and could deliver my babies any day of the week.

Warwick - UHCW was too far from me. Heartlands is my closest hospital in terms of distance but in heavy traffic Warwick is much quicker. I don't know how things have changed due to Covid but a new midwife-led birthing unit opened in 2018. I had an ELCS so I was on the traditional labour ward, and there is a Level 1 SCBU where DC had excellent care for a couple of days.

@America5 I'm having the same debate! Due to being consultant lead, iv a choice of warwick hospital or coventry (UHCW)! Warwick is closer to home but heard great things abit UHCW...decisions!

Good luck with whatever you choose xx

@weaselwords ahh that's lovely, thanks

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets I've heard good things about Warwick so am slightly inclined to have a further investigate into there. I'm glad your experience was a good one. My nearest hospital is Solihull but I'm pretty sure that it is just midwife led now

@Sophierella24 aww are you, how far along are you? Thank you! I wish the best of luck for you too! Xx

Yes, Solihull is midwife-led only and although there is a midwife on call 24hrs I don’t think the ward is open 24hr. Happy to be corrected on this as I don’t have personal experience. If there are any complications you will be transferred to Heartlands.

You might want to consider your pregnancy risk level and any birth preferences that you might have (eg access to a birth pool). More prosaically I also considered boring things like traffic and parking, both of which are pretty hellish from my home to the Women’s.

Good luck with your decision

Solihull is midwife only and ZERO drugs. Think you get gas and air and that's it. You can only go there as very low risk

Heartlands - I'm having to go there as having twins. I wanted to go to Good Hope. It would NOT be my first choice because the parking is horrendous - or was - one of the perks of covid is no visitors so there are spaces now. The staff though have been lovely so far.
Very busy and one of the concerns I was told about by previous patients was safety concerns on the post natal ward and with English predominantly being spoken as a second language by many patients/visitors nurses just buzzing visitors in because they couldn't understand who was who. Again should be improved with lack of visitors due to covid

Birmingham Women's - ditto on the parking! Also very busy. And depending which side of Birmingham you live it can take bloody ages to get there.

Warwick - don't think it's consultant led so depends on your preference

Good Hope is an option but they don't allow elective c sections there so if you want one you'll only have heartlands and women's as your choices?

I had an elective CS and was consultant-led at Warwick.

It depends where you live...those hospitals are quite far apart, especially if the traffic is bad!

This is going to sound silly but I had a stay in a post natal Ward at Heartlands when pregnant and there were very very few toilets, I think one single toilet at one end of the ward and one at the other (and it was a big ward). When I had a terrible stomach ache post c-section I was so glad to be at good hope and be able to get to the loo. I think i would pick the women’s from your choices depending on your location.

@Didiusfalco

Don't worry it's no sillier than my dislike of Heartlands due to the parking! 🤣

I've never been on ante natal at Heartlands but I have been on wards overnight in EPU/Gynae at Heartlands due to two ruptured ectopic pregnancies and I'm sure it was only 4-6 beds per ward and I think there was a toilet per ward? But outside the ward in the corridor

I'm not looking forward to the ante natal ward to be honest - I'll be having a c section with twins and partners only allowed in for the bare minimum and no visiting hours

Which is a point actually OP......I'd check with each hospital what their current policy is on partners during labour/post recovery/visiting hours due to covid

I can imagine heartlands and women's are the most strict as they are the biggest and busier and you may find more relaxed rules at one of the smaller hospitals

To be fair ivf, in lots of other ways I liked Heartlands and it was more modern than good hope. I was sent there from GH because they could offer a higher level of care, so I’m sure you will be in the right place.

We had exactly the same choices and went with Warwick as it’s an easy nip down the motorway and the birthing suite looked incredible! Those were literally the only reasons other than we’ve been to the heartlands/good hope/Solihull for other things and they just seemed a bit off.

Thank you all for your really helpful comments! I think I'm swaying towards Warwick hospital as long as my midwife can do it there as she didn't actually mention it as an option so fingers crossed as it sounds like the better one and is a closer option for us!