"Pregnancy"

My partner and I have nothing but absolute praise for the facilities and standard of care we received through the pregnancy of our first daughter.

Being a worrying pair of first timers we never felt we were putting the staff out of place with questions or asking for things to be checked. My partner always felt they were really understanding and able to assist her in any way possible.

From the male perspective I found all the midwives to be extremely friendly and easily approachable either in person or on the phone. I also felt the antenatal classes were a huge assistance to myself as a first time father. I was never felt put-out despite sometimes being the only male there.

Although we had a named midwife (Brenda - an absolute star), the nature of holidays and on-call and shift patterns meant that we had experience of every midwife in the unit, and we have not one single bad word to say.

We also went through the hypnobirthing with Donna and found this to be a tremendous asset to us when labour commenced.

Unfortunately in the end we were unable to have the birth at the unit but my parnter was in no doubt that if all things had been as they should our girl would have been born in the unit with the midwives. This speaks volumes of the unit and the staff as at the outset of pregnancy she was dead against this idea at all. It was only through the professionalism, friendliness and personalities of the unit that her mind was changed.