Moving back to UK whilst pregnant

[MumtobeUK]

Hi,

After 8 years living abroad in the EU, I am moving back to the UK with my husband and toddler in the early summer. No specific date set but I will be 20+ weeks pregnant. I am a little concerned about my antenatal care and how it works in the UK! Can anyone help or has anyone been through a similar move?

I guess wherever we choose to live will have to be the place we stay until baby is born at least, for the assigned hospital and midwife appointments?

Does anyone know how easy it is to register with the GP and get my file opened with the midwives at hospital?

Is anyone clued up on seeing a private obgyn alongside NHS incase there is a delay in getting myself in the system?

Where I live the health system is really great and you get regular scans (basically one every 4-6 weeks) throughout the pregnancy until birth. In the UK are you offered just 2? 12 and 20 weeks? I am a little concerned as I am getting my covid vaccine here and my mind would be more at rest if I knew there were regular scan appointments after 20 weeks! Can one go see a private Dr for extra check ups?

Someone worried me the other day and claimed the UK has a high unplanned C-section rate as the care during labour is inadequate and mum and baby aren't monitored regularly enough? They said I should definitely go private...!! Can someone give me some positive feedback on giving birth through the NHS? My first birth was vaginal, no issues but I had very very regular checks and an obgyn led the birth.

I'd be moving to London or Surrey if that helps anyone who is able to give me some peace of mind or help.

Thank you! Xx

Don’t know time scales for GP and midwives atm but I can’t see there being a massive delay.

Just two scan yes, 12 and 20 unless twins, something wrong etc. You can go for private scans.

I gave birth in an NHS hospital and I cannot fault the care at all. Midwife never left my side, myself and baby constantly hooked up to machine and monitored. It was honestly best experience.
Not really sure why a midwife would ever leave a women when in established labour?

Seems like you want a lot more than the NHS offers in regards to check ups etc so might be best to go private.

I've never had an issue registering with a GP or midwife through the NHS so wouldn't worry overly. They will probably want you to do a whole new lot of bloods- they don't trust their own tests from one pregnancy to the next (they checked my blood type each pregnancy, as if it might have changed!) so I doubt they'll trust the tests done where you currently live. If you tell the new GP that you need to book in with a midwife they will tell you what you need to do.

You'll have a 20 week ultrasound and that'll be it unless there's a problem or you're high risk, but many people choose to have private ultrasounds, which are widely available and cost about £70-90 each. You can have them whenever, but shop around carefully as some have no medical value whatsoever and are basically just an exercise in obtaining souvenir photos.

In my experience, in the UK you can either go down a more natural, midwife led birth path, where the only monitoring in labour is someone checking the heart beat with a stethoscope every so often, or you can have a labour ward, medicalised experience where they often end up sticking you on a foetal heartbeat monitor and they monitor baby throughout with a nice little heartbeat graph. I preferred the more relaxed one, both were absolutely fine.

Private in the UK isn't great for birth- it covers one doctor and is super expensive. If something goes wrong and you need more than one doctor, it's back to the NHS. And overnight they use locums which are often just NHS doctors working a second job anyway. I wouldn't bother personally.

Thank you @PinkCookie11 and @MrBond I appreciate your help! I don't want to go private so NHS will be the way forward for me. Would however, consider some extra scans after 20 weeks though if I could find a private Dr who could monitor me on the side. If that's a thing!?

I am pleased you both have positive experiences with the NHS. I may be better suited to a more medicalised experience just because that what I got here where I live and I appreciated the reassurance that baby was being monitored all the time. But will look into midwife led so I am informed on the choices. Mind you I had an epidural with my previous birth and the thought of not having one second time round sounds unlikely!!

I wouldn't normally choose to move country mid pregnancy but having being given the opportunity to move back home, I just can't say no after so long living away.

Leaving the antenatal care I am receiving here will be hard but I hope not a bad decision.

It'll be fine, OP. Also, it might be worth noting that there are three types of C-Section in the UK:

Elective- chosen before labour even starts
Emergency- as labour progresses, it becomes apparent that a c section is safer, so they switch to that
Crash- a true emergency, baby needs to one out immediately as the situation is dangerous for mum or baby.

So emergency sections are in response to monitoring in labour, you don't get emergency sections because of lack of monitoring. Crash sections are a different thing, and that might be where your informant was getting confused.

Also, in the UK we have pain relief options that aren't available in many places in the world. Gas and air, namely, is fabulous and I have gotten through two labours on that and a TENS machine (rent privately) without an epidural. There are other options too. If you're currently in a country where it's basically an epidural or nothing, you might be surprised to find out what's available here.

@MrBond good point you are correct - it's either epidural or nothing where I am. Nothing in between. That's something to remember! I have been curious about the famous gas and air!

I wont take my friends advice too seriously. She basically made out having an NHS birth is guaranteed to be a train wreck and majority end in c section. I didn't really quizz her as I didn't want to go in detail knowing I will likely be giving birth in UK this year.

She probably doesn't actually know much about it, she's just repeating what she's heard from various sources.

I would say, do research into your options in labour, learn about the different types of pain relief (doing an NCT class or other birthing class might be helpful, usually they're more aimed at first time mums but they do a lot around birth choices), look at the data around safety- it's all online. I think antenatal care is something the NHS does really well overall. I wouldn't say they're perfect and I do think they're a bit too quick to reach for the episiotomy scissors, but that's true of pretty much all countries, I think.

As for extra bits you'd get elsewhere, you can book your own group b step test privately, when you get to about 35 weeks- we don't do that here as standard yet, but pretty much everywhere else in the world does, so you might want to look into it. Costs £35 and if it's positive you tell your midwife and they'll give you the antibiotics in labour. I'd also recommend doing a private scan at around 36 weeks where they check bloodflow through the placenta using an umbilical doppler- again, standard pretty much everywhere else in the developed world and can identify babies in trouble in the final stretch of the pregnancy, but not routinely done here yet. I recommend ultrasound direct for that- my sonographer with them was an NHS sonographer and she went through everything with a fine toothed comb. It was called a presentation scan.

Good luck with the move and congratulations!

I had a straight forward pregnancy the first time on NHS I had baby naturally with gas and air it wasn't a train wreak, I had issues breastfeeding but that was more my body and the pressure around breastfeeding rather then my care during Labour which I honestly couldn't fault it as midwife led.

You might be shocked at how little your seen in pregnancy in the UK if you're moving from somewhere where they see you regularly. Especially if it's your second baby and first pregnancy was straight forwards. So long as everything is going well it's just the 2 Scans at 12 weeks and 20 weeks and Midwife appointment if second child are usually 8-10 week (usually first appointment) 16 weeks, 28 Weeks, 34 weeks, 36 weeks, 41 weeks.

I am having an extra scan at 32 weeks but it's because I have a placenta issue picked up at my 20 week scan, so if your pregnancy needs extra you will be given extra care.

I can't comment on private services as never used them but private scan facilities are all over the place I know our friend has paid for a private scan at 8 weeks £59+ and she's paying for another at 16 weeks from £59-£99 both reassurance scans.

Hopefully there will be no delays getting you into the system.

You shouldn’t have an issue registering with a GP and midwife. I had three additional scans with DD2 because they wanted to monitor her size.

You can ask for continuous fatal monitoring during labour.