Recommended Maternity hospital or clinic

[Tarey]

Hello everyone.

I am going to have my first baby, and my GP told me to self refer to a maternity clinic / hospital. I live in East London near ( Stratford). The choices I was given by my GP are; Barking Community Birth Centre, Newham Hospital, The Royal London Hospital, Whipps Cross Hospital. Which one(s) from these would you recommend?.
Also can I self refer to some other hospitals apart from those mentioned by my GP?, and if so, which ones are good?

Please help a first-time mom😊

You can self refer where ever you want. You just need to think about the logistics of being able to get there and there is always a slight risk that the hospital won’t accept out of area recommendations.

I was in SE London when I had my first and was keen on St Thomas’ Hospital, but on a bad day it would take over an hour to drive there, and then parking was extremely limited. In the end, that was the right decision as I had a few complications and spending over an hour to get there would have been too stressful!

1

Thanks a lot for the insights😊

I'm with Whipps Cross - haven't had the baby yet so can't comment on that experience but have found everything pretty efficient at the hospital, the antenatal clinic seems to run like clockwork so I've never waited very long for any scans or appointments. The EGU at Whipps is also amazing and looked after me really well early in this pregnancy and last year when I had a miscarriage. I'm less positive about the community midwives working out of Whipps - had some difficulties getting appointments booked in at the right times and they never answer the phone if I need to get in touch with them. That said, even if you chose Whipps as your hospital you might end up with the community midwives working out of Newham because of where you live. Ultimately the deciding factor for me was location - Whipps is my local hospital and I didn't want to spend lots of time travelling to and from appointments or have a long journey to get there when the time comes. Good luck deciding, and congratulations!

I went for Kings in the end. It wasn’t my nearest but it is the leading centre for fetal medicine which swayed our decision.

I had my second at a different hospital and there was a noticeable difference when it came to the scans. King’s is probably too far from you.

Thanks for sharing! Definitely helpful!!