Can you choose which hospital to give birth in?

[confusedcb]

Hi all, apologies if this is in the wrong place, I haven't been on here in a long time.

My husband and I are trying to get pregnant (we've had 3 miscarriages so might not happen). If we do manage to get pregnant and keep it I was wondering - does anyone know if you can choose which hospital to give birth in even if you don't live there? I tried to find out online but had no luck.

We are planning on moving to Scotland but can't right now because of my son's schooling. We were thinking that if our next (admittedly currently hypothetical child) was born in Scotland and was a Scottish citizen, we would hopefully still be able to move there even if Scotland became independent. So we would go and stay there for a while near my due date before returning to England later (and then move permanently when we're ready). If we're going to live in Scotland it would be nice (and potentially necessary) if hypothetical child was a Scottish citizen. Yes I realise I sound slightly insane!

I'd prefer if this didn't turn into a discussion about whether they will or won't break away, or talks about Brexit (I don't want to create an antagonistic thread), I just want to know if it's possible to choose a hospital elsewhere in the UK if you don't permanently live there. Please also if you have any thoughts that verge of criticism by all means share them, but please do so delicately, my mental health isn't great and i'm generally petrified of forums for that reason. Thanks in advance!

You have a degree of choice, but the hospital you book at is the one you go to for all your antenatal care, so if you live a long way from there at the moment it might be massively inconvenient.

However, if you have your antenatal care as normal and then move house later in your pregnancy, it's absolutely fine to transfer your care to a local hospital in your new area. I'm not quite sure how it would all work with your plan, depends how temporarily you're intending to be in each place.

There is no such thing as Scottish citizenship. Whether your baby is born in England or Scotland they will be British. (Speaking as someone from Scotland living in England)

What the rules would be if Scotland later became independent who knows but I think it would be surprising if British citizens were not allowed to live and work in a newly independent Scotland.

I'm sure that you could ask to give birth in a Scottish hospital if you say that's where you will be living at your due date but I imagine it would require some admin between the 2 hospitals because all your antenatal care/notes will be at a different hospital.

You have a choice of nearby hospitals, as they would do all your appointments. You couldn’t use one as you are hoping to do unfortunately. Obviously if you moved to that area during pregnancy it’s different, but not as you’re proposing.
I am right on the border of England and Wales, I can choose to give birth in the welsh hospitals if I wanted but all my antenatal appointments would have to be done there.

Thank you all, very helpful, it sounds like it might not be workable but it's nice to know it's possibly an option if I move there. I just had a panic that Scotland would become independent, then we wouldn't be able to relocate there (or we would but we'd struggle to be accepted as Scottish citizens and get a passport). Chances are that to be accepted as a Scottish citizen we'd need to have been there 5 years (although I realise this is all guess work at this point).

Showmorekindness, thank you that's very helpful. That's a good point about there being no such thing as Scottish citizenship, I suppose what I should have said was that I thought they would be much more likely to grant citizenship to someone if they were born in Scotland.

I chose a different hospital to what my ‘standard’ one would be. I live on the boarder of a city and a town. I should have gone to the town but chose to go to the city. The city one had an excellent maternity reputation where as town wasn’t so clever. City one bigger too so god forbid was a problem it was all there. Town one would have to go to another hospital. However what was difficult was my scans abs consultant appointments (ivf pregnancy so consultant led care) were at city one and community midwife care was town one and the two didn’t connect up. One used online notes the other hand held. I had to do a lot of chasing of things and ringing etc. Just a thought. Although I’m not entirely sure your situation is workable sorry!

In all honesty, your proposal sounds like it would cause a lot of unnecessary stress.

If Scotland do become independent, you can’t guess now what their entry requirements would be.

I think you’d be better of with continuity of care at your local hospital. Much less stressful in my opinion.

There's no such thing as Scottish citizenship by birth. Baby would be British.

Ideally your maternity care should be at the hospital you later give birth in, but in practice, no maternity ward will turn away a woman in late-stage labour because of paperwork. When you're at their door, it's too late.

Around me you call when you are in labour and then are told which hospital to go to (ie which had space).