Hi. i had my second in st thomas's in jan last year. i was very lucky with my midwife. the labour and birth were great. i thought ante natal was excellent and i never had to wait more than a few minutes to be seen.
post natal in the ward - not any different from other london hospitals i think (i tried two but hear similar things about others). they also had a great post-birth follow up - i had a tear and they kept bringing me in for pelvic floor assessments, exercises, physio, etc. really very thorough.

Thank you very much for all your replies. Only two months to go and I will definitely post feedback hopefully it will be good one

I had my first baby at St Thomas's and my second at St Georges. I had good experiences at both even though I was more nervous the first time around and I also ended up having a ventouse delivery which wasn't very nice. The second was delivered in the Carmen suite at St Georges which was amazing - a natural water birth. Both times the staff and midwives were great and at St Thomas's I had a student as well as a pro which was very reassuring. I found the after care was much better at St Georges than the after care at St Thomas'. I think that was because I was in the Carmen Suite. Good luck.

I had my first child at Chelsea and Westminster and had fantastic care pre-birth and during the birth which ended in an emergency c-section, but the after care was pretty rubbish. I was in hospital 4 for days, had a very large hungry baby (10Ib's +) who cried all the time and had very little help from anyone on how to breastfeed etc, mainly due to the fact that they were understaffed on the ward. I ended up leaving hospital in tears and absolutely exhausted.

I decided to have my second child at Thomas's and had a totally different experience. I managed to give birth naturally (although was not allowed in the home from home due to my previous c-section). The midwives were fantastic during and afterwards, there was a breastfeeding workshop the following morning and I was allowed home the following afternoon. I had a very positive experience.

I have heard good and bad experiences from all the hospitals in the area. I think it did help that I was more confident with my second child and more prepared to ask for help. With your first child you really are thrown in to the unknown so part of the difficulty is that you really do need more help. If you feel like you are not getting the help you need to demand it and keep demanding it and don't sit around waiting for someone to come and help you because you are more likely to be forgotten about. I hope it all goes well, everyones birth experience is different so just because others had bad experiences that doesn't mean that you will.

" I know lots of people who have had babies there (St George's) with no problems and they have a fantastic neo natal unit if god forbid you would need that "

Having had our first at St Thomas' (which I've already written about), I've just had our second at St George's. I want to echo the quote above; our son did need the neonatal unit, and they were utterly fantastic. All of the staff were amazing and looked after our little chap brilliantly.
Actually, in general, everyone at St George's was very good, but I was lucky and went into labour on a quiet day!!

honestly i don't think its a standard experience to get your room on the NHS for postnatal care, esp at St Ts. Its such a busy hospital that as far as I know, you are out of a delivery room and into a 4 bedded ward asap. I'm guessing if you managed your own room, you were lucky enough to have been there in a rare quiet patch!

I had my daughter in St T's May 09, and had a fantastic experience, with our own room in Home from Home for 3 days, sofa bed for Husband, en suite etc. The Midwives were brilliant, very friendly, and I will definitely have No. 2 there. I would say the only down side was the hospital food, and there weren't very many take aways in the area!

Good luck
K

Hi. i had my second baby in st thomas's and i thought it was fantastic. not for the posh value. it was clean, VERY WELL ORGANISED - everything, team, anasthesists, doctors. i was lucky with the midwife - she was very much better then average. but the hospital runs like clockwork, at least compared to the royal free which was always a big disorganised mess.

i recommend visiting labour wards as you will have a feel for which one is right for you. i liked st thomass most.

postnatal was not that bad if you are second time mum, think could have been a bit difficult for first. but i think all post natal care is indeed pretty average.

nannyforurangels I had both my kiddies at St.Thomas's and I had a relatively positive experience !!

I had planned to have as many drugs as possible with both kids and ended up having two natural births in the "home from home" which is pretty amazing (shame you only notice the view once the baby has arrived and you are on your way home but nice for some family photos !!!). So I did end up having a private room to myself for the night and it was pretty nice. Totally agree with the Dettox wipes comment though ... I did a fair amount of Dettoxing my room in the first stages of labour !

I would hugely recommend the Clapham Midwives at St Thomas'. Its difficult to get on the books if you are not in the "catchment area" of their surgery but they are absolutely AMAZING. And they follow you pre and post natally. They stay with you for your whole labour and post birth and come and see you at home after the baby is born (from memory they came about 3 times to check everything was ok). There are only 6 of them and they make sure that you get to meet all of them before your due date so you will have a familiar face when you go into labour. The midwife that I had when my daughter was born came in on her day off when I went into labour with my son 18 months later - thought that was pretty amazing !

They are based at the Clapham Family Practice - I was not with this practice but with a lot of phone calls I managed to get on their patients list ... good luck !

I had both my kids at St Thomas's, and agree with the other posters. The Birth Centre is great, the doctors are fab, but the postnatal ward leaves a lot to be desired. I know that some of the staff at the hopsital are aware of this, and I was encouraged to write and complain afterwards about it, so that something can eventually be done, so I would encourage all of you to do so as well.

Having said that, nannyforuangels, I doubt St George's would be much different in the postnatal ward - I think it is simply a matter of staff shortages in London hospitals. Let's hope you can avoid the Postnatal ward for at all long - and if you do end up there, make sure you have plenty of visitors as they are what will keep you sane. And don't forget to make a fuss if you are being badly treated - otherwise you will just be ignored! Good luck.

I had a fantastic experience at St Thomas's in September last year. Apart from the mid-wives threatening to send me home for the first few hours (and just as well they didn't because my daughter would have probably been born at home or in a cab en route), once labour really got underway they were fantastic. Lucky for me I had a natural birth this time around and was able to stay in the lovely home from home suite with an amazing view - even if I only noticed it after the baby was born! We didn't really need much attention once she was born but found the midwives to be available and helpful when we did need them. Hopefully this is a sign St Thomas's has recently improved or perhaps I just got lucky?
I had my first daughter at UCLA in Los Angeles four years ago and the mid-wife led care up until she was born was amazing, then it was absolute misery on the ward afterwards. How can this be the norm? At a time when new mum's and babies are so vulnerable it's so sad to think of the level of care most receive.
Good luck, I hope it all works out well for you!

I can pretty much echo the others feedback.

St.Thomas' is great...absolutely fantastic...until the baby is out and you are down on the ward!
Unfortunately I ended up with a c-section so had to stay far, far longer than I wanted to, but the important bit was that I was fine and so was my daughter (if a little starved as I couldn't get breastfeeding sorted no matter how many people came and helpfully squeezed my nipples and swung her on!!).

Take dettol wipes, good snacks and if you can remember your own pillow.

Out of interest - if one does go private ...how much does it all cost?

I can only give pretty much the same response, I'm afraid. I had a planned home birth, was taken in just a few hours before I gave birth for some unexplained bleeding. I was therefore not in the home from home unit. the midwives during labour and birth were awesome and helped me deliver a big baby with no pain relief and no tearing (I say this not to boast, but to show you how supportive they were of all my choices). Once on the post natal ward it was horrible, horrible, horrible. A student midwife sent my husband home, came a wrenched my sleeping baby from my arms and stripped him, poked and prodded him, giving me "familiarisation" of the ward (at 1:30am I couldn't give a sh*t where the breastfeeding room was) and then made me latch him on to feed. When I said that the birth midwives had already okayed me for feeding (they were super helpful and he had latched on well straight after birth) she said "well, from what I can see I wouldn't have said you were doing very well". I could have actually killed her if I hadn't felt so humiliated and exhausted. The following day I phoned my husband and asked him to come and get me out as soon as possible. At about 11am I asked a midwife whether the baby should be feeding more she asked when he had last fed and I said about 7am. she said, in a really patronising, sneering way "I'm sure he'll be fine" and left. As we all know, when you are a brand new mum you haven't a scooby what they should be doing and I felt embarrassed and upset. Anyway, I checked myself out asap. Sorry to be not very helpful and this was 2.5 years ago, so maybe things are on the up!! Good luck.

even if you know about the Lansdell, it doesn't guarentee a place.
we tried the night i gave birth as i was still throwing up from all the drugs when they wanted to move me onto postnatal. Really wanted husband around. No luck. Lansdell full. sleepless scary night on postnatal. husband chucked out.
Postnatal experiences don't seem great in alot of hospitals but i keep hearing of people who had such bad postnatal experiences that it affected establishing breast feeding and bonding with the baby in many cases, and at the least meant an exhausting start to life with a new baby.
Am wondering how to take this forward as we all seem to be singing the same tune. it would be a great victory to ensure that subsequent pregnant women get a more positive experience. Let me know if you'd be interested in putting together ideas...

Wish I'd known about pre-registering at the Lansdell. We did enquire, after the baby was born but they said it was £600 a night, which was a bit rich for our blood.

Mind you, in hindsight, it might have been money well spent as I had such a horrible time in post-natal, despite being in a single room on my own.