UCLH/ST Thomas/Chelsea & Westminster - panicking & anxious

[person1983]

Hi all

I'm 32 weeks with my second child, currently registered with UCLH but for some reason started having panic attacks and wonder if they are the right hospital. I am will have a planned c-section but could go into labour before their set date.
Anyone had a recent experience and can describe their experience?

THANK YOU😨

Hi @person1983 I am currently pregnant (6w) and am researching about hospitals and reading as much info i can on the two hospitals closest to me: st thomas and uclh. I was wondering if you[´ve stayed at UCLH and how your experience has been?

PS sorry no one replied to your post, specially if you were anxious about making the right choice :/ I hope everything turned out ok for you and your baby!!

Personally I think you can have a bad birth at a highly recommended hospital (happened to a friend who ended up with double prolapse due to medical negligence at a fantastic hospital) or you can have great medical care (I did twice) at a hospital which is average rated and has quite a lot of bad reviews online.

what I mean to say is, picking your hospital isn’t the be all end all. The kind of birth you will have will largely depend on what your body does on the day, not the hospital

@BTigre

Hello, I agree with @Rumblytumblytea I've written my experience below but in reality I know often it's a matter of luck. You have higher chances of good experience in a good hospital but it's hard to control and predict which is partially why I was so stressed and anxious.

Worth saying my first child was born at Kings during COVID so everything I'll describe about UCLH is relative to that experience.

Generally, it was a very good experience. I had contractions a day before my booked EC and everything was progressing really quickly. The staff prepped the theatre very quickly and didn't apply any pressure on me to have a vaginal birth despite being fully dilated. The surgeon was absolutely brilliant, I'm going to try and figure out her name to thank her. I'd say my recovery was much quicker as well but this could be a results of other factors.

Neonatal care is quite good though there are occasional delays waiting for scans but I'd say that's expected everywhere.

The labour ward after is not great everywhere as been mentioned but they did discharge me as soon as was medically possible - 3 days later.

One side note about the anxiety I had, in reality it was all pointless worrying. We can't control everything that is going to happen, we can build various scenarios and hope for the best.

Hope this helps.

Hi @person1983 thank you for sharing, it does help. While I understand there is a luck factor involved, as a foreigner living in the UK for only 1 year now and expecting my 1st child, everything seems so overwhelming and scary that it does help reading about other people´s experiences and it[´s reassuring when the testimonials are positive, if that makes sense. So thank you again for taking the time to reply to my query :)