"Positive first birth"

I have recently gave birth to my first baby, a beautiful little girl at the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) maternity Community Maternity Unit (CMU) and I’m here to brag about how fantastic my experience was.

From the triage phone call to having my baby girl in my arms, everything was faultless. Every staff member involved in my care was wonderful, friendly, caring and knowledgeable and easily made a first time mum feel capable.

I would like to specifically mention my two midwives, firstly my community midwife Kylie who has been truly exceptional. Kylie’s knowledge is incredible and tailored my care specifically to my individual needs. She has meant a great deal to me during my pregnancy and want to thank her for always going above her duty of care. It was very reassuring when Kylie was there consistently throughout my pregnancy, post birth at the hospital and then home visits, put me at a lot of ease to have a familiar face.

Secondly my wonderful midwife that helped get my daughter into this world safely Rhona. As a nervous first time mum and therefore first birth, she said and did all the right things. Rhona gave perfect care and I couldn’t be happier with how my birthing experience went. Rhona was the perfect balance of tough love and caring and she made me feel so comfortable and that I could be vulnerable around her and I think that takes a pretty special person to make a stranger feel that comfortable.

I have nothing but positive things to say about my experience and I am truly grateful for everyone that participated in my care in the CMU. However, if I had to pin one thing that could be adapted to make this experience even better would be to allow dads/ other guardians to the breast feeding support group pre birth as I feel like this would have been beneficial for my husband to have the knowledge to assist me at home breastfeeding, thus said we have received great support from the community team. 10/10 experience, might not return for a while though, one baby is enough! Haha! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.