"Water birth in Carmen suite June 2013"

Anything else?

I gave bith in St George's Carmen suite in June 2013. I thought that the care received antenatally, during labour and postnatal was excellent. My initial antenatal booking appointment felt a little impersonal, however was thorough and well organised. The fetal medicine unit is brilliant, and on one occasion I was referred by the community midwife for a scan and managed to have the scan the same day after a little wait. On another occasion I was referred to the day unit for monitoring, which again I went to the same day and was promptly seen and monitored, reviewed by a doctor, and given advice. When I went into labour and phoned the ward, I was advised to go for a review. After a litte wait as there were several women in front of me, I was reviewed by a midwife who was excellent, given advice and she suggested I would likely be in that evening to deliver, which I was. I was lucky enough to deliver on Carmen suite were I was initially assessed by a female midwife, then a male midwife looked after me overnight during my labour and birth. Initially a litte sceptical (only because I was it that aware there were make midwives!) I found the care I received to be excellent My midwife was calm, reassuring and positive. He would say he well I was doing and how he had told the other midwife how well I was doing...all the things you need to hear when you are in pain! He read my birth plan and we talked about it and he checked as we went along that I was happy. He was really unobtrusive throughout and just let me get on with things with my husband there to support me. I delivered a healthy baby girl in the birthing pool less than 5 hours after arriving (my first baby). The room itself is spacious with pool, birthing ball, pillow and floor cushion however we brought our own music player which was lucky as I'm not sure they had any CD/iPod system in my room. We were given plenty of time alone with baby after birth and not rushed even though another lafy was waiting to come in. Eventually moved to post natal on Carmen suite where I was only one there for few hours. lovely and quiet and staff helpful and I got my tea and toast post delivery!. The day midwife checked on me and baby, gave advice, checked bf going ok and then baby was checked by meon midwife later in day and we were discharged. The ward appeared clean, as were the toilets although things look a litte dated. Overall fabulous experience. Really impressed by staff. Would recommend. The only areas of improvement I thought were: possibly improve booking visit to be a bit friendlier rather than factory style process, more advice on ward about breast feeding and what to expect (I.e engorgement, how to spot mastitis, how long to leave baby on each side etc) and not to let the Bounty photography woman on the post natal ward when women alone, tired and vulnerable after giving birth.