"Giving Birth at NGH"

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone on the maternity ward at NGH as I feel not enough people leave good reviews and take NHS services for granted when everything goes well.. I gave birth to my first baby in 2018 and we found out a few weeks before due date that she was breach. The hospital has been amazing! I wish I could give them more stars. Unlike my midwife who was strongly pushing me towards an elective, the hospital really did leave it up to me to choose if I wanted to try and give a vaginal birth. While the consultant also strongly advised to have an elective I felt that I wanted to give my baby every chance of turning and from there the hospital staff supported my choice. Once I was in labour and the midwives checked the position of the baby they asked me again if I wanted to try and assured me that there is nothing “wrong” and this does happen although not ideal instead of throwing out scary statistics and panicking us. In the end we decided to have a c section due to lower risks for the baby and again the surgeon and the whole team were just brilliant - calm, collected, supportive. My daughter was born a good weight but a little distressed so the medical staff checked her over before bringing her to us while I was getting stitched up.

Everything was so peaceful and joyful, I have breastfed my baby straight away with skin on skin in the recovery room and we stayed in the hospital for 3 days. The aftercare was good, the surgeon came to speak to me after the surgery and follow up to say I have a condition where the uterus is a heart shape that prevented the baby from turning so we did well not to try and manually turn the baby (this is apparently very rare). I had some issues breastfeeding and again the staff was incredible, taking the baby away from me at one time so I could get some rest (she did continuously cry through those first few days), offering formula as a potential solution but not pushing it and just continuing to help the baby latch on. We really wanted to give it our all and eventually on day 2 we had a decent latch and a feeding baby which is when we were told we can leave.

I must say, the only small complaint I had is the food - the menu wasn’t very nutritious and choices were limited and a couple of times my meal was forgotten, but it’s really not something you worry about in those circumstances. My biggest issue were other patients who were disrespectful towards the staff, acting loud and selfish (and this is on maternity ward! ) watching films on their phones at night with no headphones and talking on the phone. Separate matter is day visitors - please please please, I know people want to come and see you and the new baby, but if anyone is ill, for example your other children, just wait until you are home. You are bringing germs and noise to an environment full of newborn babies and exhausted mothers - consider their needs before your wants unless you have a private room.