"Very satisfied with Whittington Maternity services"

Our son was born at the Whittington in March 2017. We self-referred to the Whittington quite blindly, based mostly on these ratings and it's location. We attended the Whittington for our 20 week scan onwards. The hospital is somewhat dated and obviously like any public service there is a bit of waiting time, but we found it to be clean, well-run and well-organised. I really only have positives to say about the service and staff, especially the midwives. They are exceptionally accommodating, kind and positive.

We intended to use the birth centre but my waters broke 2 weeks early and I was induced. Baby's heart rate dropped momentarily and we were immediately moved to the labour ward, where we stayed for the next 12 hours and gave birth naturally. We were moved to the postnatal ward for monitoring and stayed overnight. I had heard that postnatal services are lacking, but honestly with the number of beds/ladies/babies in the ward, I thought the midwives and nurses all did a fantastic job and continued to be positive and caring throughout.

Some other positive experiences we had:

- we were assigned a single antenatal midwife who remained our single point of contact throughout pregnancy. Not only was this midwife exceptionally caring and positive, I found that they made themselves available to us as much as possible, e.g. we could email/text/call them directly.

- we attended a birth centre session run by one of the midwives. It covered in summary much of what our NCT classes had covered and we also got the change to see the birth centre and one of the birth rooms.

- giving birth in the labour ward did not mean I couldn't have the natural birth I wanted. I was still attended to by a fantastic midwife who guided me to give birth naturally.

- when we had the scare with baby's heart rate dropping, the room was suddenly filled with multiple doctors all discussing our case and preparing for a potential c-section. Whilst scary, it was reassuring to know they had the resources and doctors to respond very fast in an emergency. As quickly as the room filled with doctors, they all vacated the room when it became clear that baby's heart rate had normalised, and they left us to it.

- we were consulted and given time to think about the induction and each step/intervention.

Overall, the pregnancy and birth at the Whittington was an overwhelmingly positive experience for us and I hope others have the same positive experience. We'd like to thank staff in the antenatal, labour and postnatal wards for how well they cared for us.