Stoke Mandeville hospital

I did 19 months ago and had a traumatic birth but received fantastic care! You are always going to get horror stories from people. I'm due to give birth there again in 6 weeks time and am feeling happy with my decision to go back there 😊

I gave birth of May this year and I will be honest, most staff are amazing & my delivering midwife was amazing. The lack of staff was the issue, seemed everyone was giving birth at the same time,there was a whole ward of inductions booked in and they couldn't facilitate around it due to not enough midwives to deliever. At one point they were asking us to drive to a different hospital where they falsely told you they would get you straight onto the labour ward in their hospitals which we saw with one couple to be absolutely un true and they booked their own rooms after checking if this information was correct. I was there for 5 days, the communication on handovers were not proper nor did they have correct information on each woman they were looking after, i was nearly given blood pressure medicines despite me having normal blood pressure. I was given anti sickness which was told on each 4hr check would be administered for them to forget and say I had to ask myself for it each time which was never told

In all honestly it was a mess and 2 midwives for each ward was the problem, they needed to keep trying to get agency/community midwives in just to try deliever people's babies on the labour ward. The pre labour ward was being used for women who had just given birth which they should of been on other side it was just completely over run & should of been red zoned as they were saying but they didn't and there's 3 hospital midwives looking after both connecting wards so it was hard for them to meet everyone's needs when needed. I know my experience was it was busy time but I appreciated the ladies being transparent and saying alot of us were there induced for the sake of covering their backs but wouldn't meet the criteria they had told us before being admitted in my case I was told on a additional scan my son would be at extreme risk of dying if they didnt get him out after a few days, it took them 5 days which took me only 2 days off my original due date to see to me and deliever. I felt so sorry for them 😔x

I also had my baby at Stoke Mandeville in May of this year. For someone with extreme anxiety I found the experience a very positive one. I had to have a c-section at 36 weeks due to my placenta and everyone was very helpful, pleasant and I felt very looked after. They were incredibly short staffed and when I arrived they didn’t have a bed for me. I was popped in the antenatal ward and was told that when I’d had my baby I’d have to go back there because they didn’t have any beds on postnatal. I wasn’t very happy with this because I was in the middle of 6 bays with a new baby and there were girls in there with pre-eclampsia, early waters and other things that meant they were supposed to be resting. I was eventually moved to a side room but I found that sometimes I was waiting a long time for pain relief etc. overall the care was outstanding but they were just so stretched 😊

@Stephanie I'm due to give birth there in October and this fills me with absolute horror! It sounds like the staff are really over stretched through no fault of their own. Just not nice to hear other women not having the best experiences.

Thank you ladies for giving honest experiences helps a lot x

I had my second baby at SMH 6 weeks ago (my daughter was born at a hospital in Sussex where we lived at the time). I had an elective section, and the surgery / theatre team were amazing and made the experience. It was very straightforward and I felt well. However the postnatal experience wasn’t quite the same. They seemed very understaffed and I was rarely checked on (I didn’t mind too much as I was a second time mum and kind of knew what I was doing) but there was no welfare checks etc. It was also very busy the night I was in, and I was actually in an antenatal bay rather than postnatal which I felt awful about because I was with a room full of women who hadn’t had their baby yet and my son’s crying must have kept them awake. The handovers between night and day staff seemed to take ages, and the night midwives didn’t come and introduce themselves so I wasn’t sure who I needed to ask etc. x

@Amy thank you x

No problem. Message me if you’d like any more detail xx