"Maternity care and birth centre"

I gave birth at NMUH 7 weeks ago using the Birth Centre facilities. I can honestly say the standard of care was excellent throughout, from ringing triage to being discharged.

I had a straightforward waterbirth in the Centre, 9 hours of early labour at home and 6 hours in the Birth Centre. The staff were excellent throughout, triage was busy when we arrived but I was seen quickly and admitted after a short bit of monitoring. We had a private room with birthing pool in the Centre, 1 midwife and 1 student midwife (as stated in our birth preferences). Our preferences were respected and we were listed to throughout, making us feel safe, secure and empowered. The aftercare was also excellent, we stayed down in the Centre (had our own room) overnight and were seen by a midwife for checks etc the next day. Throughout my pregnancy I was seen by a consultant midwife, community midwife and student midwife, all were excellent and professional. I cannot fault the Birth Centre it’s facilities and staff were brilliant.

With any service there is always a bit of room for improvement- general maternity services for appointments is sometimes very chaotic and stressful at the hospital. I feel this is due to the sheer volume of people with some not understanding how stretched the services are and having unrealistic expectations of what staff can do. It’s obviously a very busy hospital and staff are at full stretch, sometimes appointments ran over and the wait times were long causing people to get annoyed. I had one negative experience throughout my pregnancy and this was in the early pregnancy unit, where a health assistant was extremely rude and clearly didn’t want to be doing her job, this was down to one individual not the team though.

I would highly recommend the Birth Centre at NMUH, look after yourself mums to be, stay fit and healthy throughout your pregnancy and you could also experience excellent staff and facilities there.