"Amazing antenatal consultant care,great birth..."

I had my twins in St Thomas and was particularly impressed by the care and consideration. I was assigned a consultant who was expert, caring and brilliant - thank you. What a wonderful experience. The birth was great too - safe, caring, great midwifes, fantastic team of doctors and again great involvement in decision making. I had a vaginal birth. Thank you. Couldn't have asked for a better experience and felt safe and looked after throughout. I particularly liked that my lead consultant came to visit me the day of the birth, that was a lovely touch. Also, one of the midwives who looked after me one-on-one came to see me on postnatal, that was lovely too.

The reason I gave 4 rather than 5 stars is that the postnatal ward experience was horrible. Some of it is inbuilt in the situation - 3-4 women with babies in a room, no sleep, and lots of screaming. That was to be expected. But I was unlucky and had the midwife and healthcare assistant from hell on my first day. I had problems with the milk kicking in- indeed it never did properly and as I couldn't name a brand as I had expected to be able to breastfeed, I was refused formula - my advice to all new mums: take a few small bottle of whatever formula milk you have with you in hour hospital bag. I have heard friends doing that and they had a much better time. No help with feeding twins. Upshot was that babies got dehydrated and almost had to go to NICU, I was stressed and did not sleep at all for the two days in postnatal, all of which was totally unnecessary and could have been managed better. Then I was told I was freezing my babies to death because I didn't put a hat on - the ward is very hot! The midwife was disappointed when they didn't show a fever despite my 'bad parenting'. The discharge talk was another low-light of the stay, upshot was that parents are the enemy and should not be trusted with the babies - the message to new mums was that you are likely to kill them with whatever you might do. My recommendation to St Thomas would be to follow the NICE guidelines with regards to twin care in postnatal wards and to have a dedicated twin midwife.

Overall, I could not have asked for a better antentatal care, birth and I am particularly grateful to my wonderful consultant and doctors and midwives through birth, but next time, I would run home and look after myself as soon as I can stand on both legs again.....