"My positive experience of having an 'out of hours' baby"

I'm writing this in response to an article I read yesterday in The Daily Mail - it basically scared you into believing that if you have a baby either overnight or at the weekend, then there will be inadequate hospital care and that you or your baby are more likely to die.

I gave birth on a Sunday. Sunday morning to be precise, so my baby was definitely arriving 'out of hours'. Not only that but he was coming fast, I had a very large contraction at home after having a few mild pains at home. I rang the triage line for the maternity ward and the midwife who spoke to me was patient, kind and gave me enough to express my concerns. She agreed that I should go in to be checked and said that she would await my arrival. She was true to her word and was indeed waiting, which is just as well because 5 minutes after I arrived I gave birth to my son, I didn't even make it to the labour ward, the lovely midwife I spoke to initially helped me to deliver him right there in triage. She made sure I still had access to gas and air and allowed me plenty of time to recover afterwards, even making me a cup of tea and some toast.

I was then moved up to a post natal ward but unfortunately had to be transferred to scbu because he was very small and his blood sugar was very low. He was only there a couple of days because he bounced right back, but the care given there was absolutely exemplary, despite the fact that we were still 'out of hours'.

The post natal ward was also very good, the midwives and the health care assistants were very accommodating, and didn't wait for you to ask them if you could have help with something, I was regularly checked on and asked if I was OK. They were very understanding when I became upset about my baby being in scbu (it's really hard being on a postnatal ward full of new mums and babies when your own baby has to be somewhere else) and at no point did I ever feel neglected or forgotten about, despite again, being 'out of hours'.

So here I am, 4 weeks later, with my perfectly healthy baby boy, and memories of what was an enjoyable and pleasant experience from start to finish, reading how terrible it is and that dreadful things will happen if you give birth 'out of hours'. Of course its inevitable that there will be cases where awful things do happen, but it's sad that we only ever hear the bad news stories. I'm sure that the majority of out of hours births are positive experiences, like mine, so I thought it would be good to read something positive for a change.