"Wonderful experience at the Birthing Centre"

I gave birth to my baby boy in the birthing centre at St Mary’s on 4 September 2018. From start to finish, we had an amazing experience and received outstanding care and support.

We arrived at the birthing centre at about 8am and our little boy was born by midday - it was a very fast delivery for a first baby. This was made possible by the care we received from the wonderful team of midwives at St Mary’s. The first thing the team did was to read my birth plan and to ask questions about it - this gave me huge reassurance that my birth wishes would be respected. And they were. My birth went almost exactly according to my birth plan and the one change I agreed to make was made in a fully informed manner and with my full consent.

My husband and I felt in safe hands from the moment we arrived. My contractions were strong and regular and I couldn’t really communicate with anyone - I needed to just focus on managing the pain. The midwives understood this and communicated with my husband. After the initial assessment we were transferred into a private room with a bath tub and we stayed there for around 1.5 hours. We had privacy and were on our own as we had requested. When the contractions increased in strength our midwife came back and helped me into the delivery room where our baby was born within 30 minutes. All of our wishes were respected including delayed cord clamping, natural delivery of the placenta, following my own urge to push (rather than being directed to push) and having immediate skin to skin contact with our baby.

The best part of our experience is what happened after the birth. Our baby stayed with us throughout and was never taken away from us for weighing or washing. Within 30 minutes of him being born, we were offered help and support with breast feeding and I was helped into the shower to clean myself up. We stayed in a double bedroom over night where we received further support with breast feeding and swaddling. A friendly midwife was always on hand to answer any questions we had.

We can’t express how grateful we are to the midwives at st Mary’s for giving us such a wonderful birth experience. Thank you and please keep doing this great work. Our special thanks go to five staff members.