A 'birth only' -independent midwife, is 1000 pounds ok?

[aiti72]

Funny question, but I honestly have no idea about the cost of these services in London.. We're looking for an independent midwife(or experienced doula, however medical training would be a bonus) for a hospital birth in July. Now the first lovely midwife contacted me telling she'd come to the hospital for the labour (plus would meet me twice before) for 1000 pound fee. Does this sound reasonable? Thank you very much for your advice!

have you asked the LOVELY and GORGEOUS marslady, i believe she's in London. and there are others on here, all of whom are delightful it seems to me.

should i post marsy's website? is that a breach of etiquette cos it's got her name on it? if you cat me i'll send it to you, how's that?

ooh yes, contact mars. shes great. good with cake too, which never hurts i find. also dancing. no doubt she has another trick or ten up her sleeve (we all heart mars, can you tell?)

actually, its almost worth having another just to have mars doula me. not that i dont pop babies out in about 2 pushes with minimal effort and barely a break in conversation, thus making doula-ing a pretty swift if not utterly irrelevent thing in my case... [waffles endlessly]

i know what you mean, nappies, it seems so lovely, the idea of having mars or lulu or pruni around to keep you going.

oh yes, lulu too. id move to liverpool for that (lulus my adoptive mother did you know that? i wish it were true )
and i didnt know about pruni. i bet shed be wonderful too.

£1000 sounds very reasonable, A friend of mine had an independent mw and I'm sure it was a lot more than that. I think I would prefer to go on a recommendation.

It's unusual that they're offering delivery-only, I thought the whole point of being an independent MW was getting to know clients well etc etc. That being said, £1000 isn't outrageous I guess.

Also, v worth asking if your independent MW has experience, or better still, bank work, at the hospital in question.

£1000 is very reasonable for an IM. However when you enter the hospital - she can;t medically advise - she can only act as a Doula. If you were having a homebirth then an IM is a great idea - but would also cost alot more.

Why not look into doulas in your area?

I agree with hertsnessex - an IM can only act as a doula in hospital, even if she does do some work there.

Im a midwife in a central London hospital and I have worked with Marslady with one of her clients and I can thoroughly recommend her. I have worked with quite a few doulas actually and nearly all of them have been superb, and I may be wrong but Im sure they would be less than £1000 (although I reckon some of them would be well worth it!)

Well, technically, IMs can only be doulas in hospital. But I had an IM in a London hospital, and she was able to do things a doula couldn't (e.g. be in surgery for both CSes - granted only because she knew the duty nurser, but still ...).

aiti, FWIW, an IM who is not delivering your baby at home, is acting as a doula/ birth partner ,although obviously she has medical training, but she is not doing your antenatal care. doulas visit at least twice, help with birth plans, are on call for you from 38 - 42 weeks, at the end of the phone for you, so would not be doing anything much different to a doula.

i can personally recommend marslady and hertsnessex as doulas who are in london...

i really need to move down south

come on lulu...........come on down!!!

tempting though it is, i'd be too busy socialising and eating cake with you and mars to doula ! my sister lives in essex and when we vist, am so going to see you !

Ah, yes, she lives really near me doesnt she. Next time you are down let me know and you and DH, kids etc can come over!

xx

yes, i will tell you as soon as we have a date sorted xx

Great, look forward to it xx

Thank you so much for your advice, lovely ladies! Doula does sound like a good alternative, somehow almost better than a midwife (my experience of midwives is them slapping me on the legs and yelling: 'stop complaing, that is not even pain yet'. It's just that I'm very anxious and think that if I had someone with medical training she wouldn't let me die in labour (yes, it's almost that bad. But I guess they can't let me die, not even in Royal London..

I know people in London who had IMs and given the lack of staffing in general they were often left alone with the IM for long stretches (ie the IM was very definitely acting as MW, was involved and consulted etc). If you like her, sounds like a deal as my obstetrician wants six times that (does include antenatal/postnatal care but still, don't tell my hubbie)!

(I didn't mean to imply that the other posts by more knowledgeable peeps were incorrect of course, just that circumstances meant that the IM played more of a role than she was technically supposed to).

"an IM can only act as a doula in hospital"

Yes - in theory. In practice they often do more than this. Mine did when she transferred in to hospital with me (she'd been caring for me at home but the labour wasn't going anywhere, so went in for a bit of augmentation).

She helped me with the clinical decision making, which I don't think a doula would have been able to do. She also 'caught' the baby and encouraged me to lift him from the bed myself (the hospital midwife had wanted to make me sit down, then pick him up herself and hand him to me).

I think £1000 sounds fair btw.

I paid £2500 for my indep midwife last time, including all antenatal and postnatal visits, so £1k for the birth sounds like a good deal to me.

However I think the postnatal stuff is very important (postnatal support from hospital and community midwives is minimal, in my experience). Plus during the actual birth, it made a difference to me knowing the mw from beforehand. I completely trusted her to know what was going on and to use her experience to support me without pushing me in a certain direction. In particular, I knew she was aware of all my wishes without me having to vocalise them during labour, or for her to spend time scrutinising my birth plan. So personally I prefer going for the whole package.

hth

Slinkiemalinki, that's what I tought, if left alone for long I could at least consult the IM, or does she have to stay silent about medical side of it?

Different story is that I have a heart condition and therefore this pregnancy has been classified as 'high risk'. Surely they cannot leave me alone for long in labour, not even in Roayl London ?