"Home Birth and Hypnobirthing in Surrey - Royal Surrey County Hospital Guildford"

My husband and I recently had a wonderful birth experience with the home birthing team of the Royal Surrey Hospital and one of the senior midwives, Sally Stainer who runs a Hypnobirthing course at the hospital.

This is the letter which we sent to the Chief Exec of the hospital after the event:

Mr Nick Moberly

Chief Executive

The Royal Surrey County Hospital

Egerton Road

Guildford

GU2 7XX

28 April 2015

Dear Mr Moberly

I am writing on behalf of myself and my husband to pass on our sincere praise for the Hypnobirthing course run by Sally Stainer at the Royal Surrey Hospital as well as the amazing work of the RSH homebirthing team who recently assisted with the birth of our first child in March 2015.

As a first time mother I was understandably apprehensive about having a baby but having attended the Hypnobirthing course run by Sally Stainer at the RSH I felt hugely empowered and excited about the prospect of having our child in the comforts of our own home. Sally was a fountain of knowledge and most importantly positive inspiration and myself and my husband strongly believe that her work in encouraging the use of Hypnobirthing should be actively supported by the Trust and more women should be made aware of the hugely calming and relaxing benefits of Hypnobirthing. Using the Hypnobirthing methods I had my baby at home with the use of a birthing pool and cannot express enough how positive the whole experience was.

For the few weeks before my baby was born and for the birth itself we were supported by the RSH homebirthing team who we can also not praise enough. Deana Frost and Tanya Ashton attended the birth along with a student midwife, Sam, all three of whom were amazing and made the birth the most wonderful, calm and empowering experience. I cannot fault the professionalism of the team and the wealth of experience held by both Deana and Tanya meant the birth felt controlled and calm at all times.

All three also provided my husband with the support and encouragement he needed to truly participate in the experience and for which he is extremely grateful. In addition, the follow-on care provided by Deana and Tanya as well as Laura McLean and another student midwife, Hannah, was wonderful and meant my baby not only had a wonderful birth but also didn’t need to attend the hospital at all in those precious few weeks following the birth.

In my opinion it is vital that RSH continue to support and provide such a wonderful homebirthing service – it is a true testament to the hard work of Tanya and her team that women such as me can have such wonderfully positive birthing experiences which, as far as I understand, are ultimately less costly to the Trust than having women in the labour ward.

Please pass on our gratitude for this extremely positive birthing experience to your colleagues which we put down wholly to the wonderful services provided by both Sally and the homebirthing team. Please consider this an open letter which we are happy for you to pass on and use as you wish. We are already looking forward to having baby number two using exactly the same birthing plan!

Yours sincerely