Whittington or UCLH? Any recent experience with ELCS?

[Ginger84]

Hi all,

I am 8 weeks pregnant with my second and my GP referred me to UCLH for my antenatal care. I used to live in Southwark so was with the amazing St Thomas hospital before. I have a bad case of tokophabia so my GP thought that UCLH would be good as they have a prinatal mental health unit. Honestly I am not interested in the perinatal mental health unit (I don’t also fall under their criteria) and will tell them no thanks when they reach out. I only asked the GP for a midwifery team (like the one at St Thomas) that has experience dealing with women with anxiety and tokophobia. She said such a team doesn’t exist in neither Whittington nor UCLH and simply referred me to UCLH to deal with me. UCLH is very very far from me (literally same distance as St Thomas) and Whittington is conveniently located. I also heard that at UCLH the midwives are different at each appointment, which will not be great for me, as I really want some sort of continuity of care. At St Thomas that’s what helped me a lot. I heard that at Whittington this is not the case. So I am now thinking to simply self-transfer to Whittington and hope all goes well there.

Can anyone please share any recent experience with Whittington (or UCLH)? If you have had an ELCS, how was your experience? Did they schedule it early on for a second? It would really make a huge difference for me if this was settled early on.

Thank you!

If you want continuity, choose the hospital which is closest geographically to you. You will then be under the community midwives.
UCLH midwives are great but they can't book you for community care if you don't live in their area.

That’s definitely a very good point that I wasn’t aware of. Definitely speaks in favour of Whittington. Thank you.

I was actually a community midwife at UCLH myself.

If you live in their area you get their community midwives - same for all hospitals.

I also lived in the Whittington catchment area, and when I wanted a home birth, I booked with them. I had to, because you have to be with the midwives who will attend your labour.

As you have tokophobia it would make sense for you to be booked at the nearest hospital, so that you can take advantage of having real continuity of care.

(I would have said all that in my previous post but I was on my phone at that point and it would have taken ages to write lol)

Anyway - I am assuming you had an elective CS last time (because of the tokophobia)? You will be automatically offered another CS this time because of the previous one, and because you (presumably) want one.

I had the same (Whittington) midwife throughout my antenatal care, and she and her colleague attended me in labour.

I was born in the Whittington myself - although my mother always claimed that I was nearly born on the 210 bus on the way, as apparently my dad didn't believe her when she said she was in labour with me.

Elective sections are often booked in at the Whittington from UCLH in any case, so you’re perhaps better booking in at the Whittington to start with.

Your postnatal care will be from the Whittington midwives, too, so you might as well get to know them.

I really hope it all goes well for you.

Thank you for your very helpful comments @TheShellBeach! I definitely feel confident now to self-refer to Whittington. A three minute phone appointment with my GP (as is the case nowadays it seems) wasn’t really helpful in understanding my needs and recommending the right place for my care. Your comments have been extremely helpful and indeed, continuity of care is what I am after. Also very helpful to know that they will automatically offer me a CS, as last time it was a real struggle until they were finally convinced of how bad my tokophobia is and that caused me real anxiety throughout until they booked me for my CS a week before the scheduled section.

@Dinosaurus86 that’s what I heard as well, so indeed makes sense to go to Whittington from the beginning especially given how close it is.

Thank you both again for your very helpful advice.