Has anyone ever given birth @ paisley royal alexandra?

[broodymom]

I am booked to give birth there as inverclyde royal is a cmu now, i have to be in a consultant led unit due to heart problem. I was wondering how it was? I also have the option of any glasgow hosp its just further to travel though.

both my children born in rah - one consultant led and one in the cmu. i'd definitely recommend it. shame inverclyde doesn't have it's own consultant led unit anymore.

good luck!

hey broodymom, i had my DS in June at RAH consultant led. i thought it was fantastic! i found the care just great, i was consultant led due to low platelets. i ended up with emergency c section but i no problems post op.

i really liked the RAH cause you get 20 wk scan and dads can visit from 1230 till 9pm which is so good, unlike other glasgow hospitals dads only get an hour extra at visitng time.

they had just done up labour suite on 3rd floor when i was there and as far as i know there is still a lot of renovations going on. infact that was the ONLY bad point there was a lot of building work going on in mornings i.e drilling etc, but my DS slept through it!!

who is your consultant?

anything else you want to know just let me know ;-)

Oh thats good to know, i have never been to RAH before. I live in Argyll so i get sent between the cmu here and inverclyde my consultant i think is Robins??? i have never met him but its in my notes !lol

Last time i had Dr Anthony.

I found it a lovely wee unit very friendly. it gets a good name on the whole. My consultant was Dr Hair, he was great.

one other thing to warn you...the food is awful ;-(

when are you du? my friend is having her first there in feb

I had my daughter at The Queen Mum's although RAH is my local hospital. I'm pregnant again and spent Saturday night in RAH after some bleeding. Not only would I not have a baby there, I won't even return for my check up tomorrow and will go instead to The Queen Mum's. I found the consultant I saw to be unhelpful, arrogant, uncommunicative and unkind. I'm considering lodging a complaint since it took me calling a different hospital and explaining what I'd been throught before even beginning to understand my situation. If I were you I'd ask to be referred to the Queen Mum's since they deal with more pregnancies and babies than anywhere else and have have much lower incidences of hospital aquired infections and infant mortaliles.
However, you have to do what would stress you out the least and being close to your hospital certainly makes life easier. Godd luck and sorry about the rant!

that's awful vicmac. you must have been so upset. very unlucky also - i've had a few experiences of the early pregnancy assessment unit (miscarriage, bleeding with second pregnancy, irregular heart beat in third pregnancy) and i was lucky enough to having caring and sympathetic staff.

hope the rest of your pregnancy and labour is more positive!

VicMac, that's rubbish you had such an awful time! you must have been particularly unlucky!

my friend was there recently after an early pregnancy scare and found them great. the reason i chose RAH was on recommendation of so many preople, my other option was Southern and after visiting people in it i was disgisted as to how dirty it was!! being a nurse i notive every little thing!

i would go back in a heart beat i'm sorry you didn't have a good time ;-(

i think the RAH is good because it is so small, you get to know a lot of staff during your ante-natal care.

all the best for rest of your pregnancy.

out of interest, who was the consultant?

Hi. I never found out the consultant's name - sorry - he barely spoke to me.

i am in argyll as well, but will hopefully give birth at dunoon general, a MLU.

i had a bad experience at Inverclyde and lodged a formal complaint against them.

so i've been to RAH for all my scans and the like this time round and found them fine.

i had my other two at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and RAH strikes me as very similar - large CLU.

the chopper takes about 10 mins. to get to RAH from Dunoon - now that the community midwives are right next to the football area they just roll you right across.

yeh think the CLU is large but the CMU seems lovely too. i just found the satff so helpful esp during labour when i was feeling a bit out of control they just reeled me back in and i was back in "the zone" ;-)

also got good bf support on the ward.

another nice thing about the wards at the RAH, you can go and make a cuppa anytime you like and in the mornings you go to the ward kitchen and get your breakfast whenever you feel like it. It was also a chance to chat to other mums. I ended up in a 4 beded room on my own!! it was great!!

Vicmac thats sounds awful! i hope you get treated better at the QM.

Expat Dunoon is my local hosp! even if i could have my baby there i dont think i would. They have delt with my 2 previous pgs but i dont think they experience enough births,not to put the mw down but i personally feel better in a fully equiped hosp!lol, and the temporary unit they are in just now is no use the rooms are tiny!

My ante-natal care is with Dunoon but i had a disaterous booking appt and scan there last week when mw (who is deff not qualified enough in scanning, she was my mw 7 yrs ago with dd)told me i'd lost my baby and sent me to epu at inverclyde with nothing written in my notes the mw there where discusted and the sonographer found my baby right away !

So i have decided to mainly deal with inverclyde and only the most expericenced mw in dunoon who are Jackie and Ruth in my opinion!! lol sorry about the rant I think it echos vicmac that everyone have different experiences in differnt hosps and need to find what suits your needs x.

Ps Lib my baby is due in April.

broodymom, i hope you get on ok at RAH. you are right everyone has different experiences i guess and just go with what feesl right ;-)

spring baby, that's lovely!

i had a consultant who didn't speak very good english at inverclyde tell me there was no baby at all!

there was, come to find out at RAH, although it didn't develop past about 6 weeks and the missed m/c was diagnosed at RAH.

plus, i was left with marked bruising from the scan at inverclyde, and this supposedly from a consultant.

after that, i refused to go there again.

of course, what troubles me about RAH is the distance.

i have to give birth on my own, as DH has to stay with the two girls, so i'm trying not to go so far and in a larger hospital it's not always possible to get someone who can stay with you through it all.

of course, now i am swelling so that may not happen!

am 33 weeks so we'll wait and see in a couple more weeks where i'll end up.

i think RAH is great medically, but it is a large city hospital and my experiences there are similar to the ones i had at ERI.

i'd go there in a heartbeat if it were just a bit closer.

but i went so fast with DD2 i'm afraid i wouldn't have time to get there.

shame we don't have a closer option out here.

expat, i think the RAH is pretty small in comparison to other hospitals in glasgow. when i was in labour there were a lot of staff about. we had the same midwife during her whole shift but the ward sister and other midwives would pop in for a chat too, which was really nice. i never really got left for any length of time..maybe 10 mins or so? i think that you will be on your own they won't leave you.

still doesn't solve the problem of how i'd get there, lib, unfortunately , so that's why i'm hoping i don't have to go there.

expat! of course! if i could take you there i would!! ;-)

p.s i can never get my smileys to come up??!

Broodymom, I had dd in the RAH 18 months ago, it was a really good, positive experience, despite my birth not going to plan! Midwives were great, also lots of breastfeeding support postnatally from councellors etc. I was with Dr Robins last time also, as my first consultant retired halfway through my pregnancy. I'm having my second there too, in April, also with Dr Robins...maybe I'll see you there!

Would definitely echo what somebody else said about the food mind...it was worse than awful.

Oooh Esme I think i'm due on 18th April a spring baby will be fab! I think i will go with the RAH and when dinner time comes i'll get hubby to sneak me in some take away lol!

The breastfeeding support sounds good as i plan to BF this time round i tried and gave up after 1st day with dd1 and never tried with dd2 and she ended up dairy intolerant and has lots of problems because of it if i had BF she would have been ok! so i dont want to put another baby though that also i feel ready to BF this time i felt embarassed before and had no support at all, so all the help i can get will be good. x

the food was so bad in ERI, even DH couldn't eat it.

Lol I can say that Dunoon generals hosp food was nice, but then i think i got special treatment as both my mum and sis work there and my dad is in the ambulance service so everyone knew me and where very kind !

the only decent food at RAH is breakfast, after all it is hard to get cornflakes wrong!

DH brought me in food to keep me going, but to be honest i lose my appetite cause i had a general anaesthetic! ;-(

i always bring my own food after ERI.

i even bring my own battery-operated travel kettle and tea stuff in my hospital bag.