Labour ward - What is it like to give birth on the labour ward?

Описание: http://www.which.co.uk/birth-choice/

Three mums tell us why they gave birth on the labour ward and what their experience was like.

Transcription:

Giving birth on the labour ward was much better than my expectations. One thing I found surprising was that my baby was delivered by a midwife...in my head I thought he would have been delivered by a doctor.

When I realised that you did get your own room and my partner could stay with me I was a bit relieved.

I knew from the beginning of my pregnancy that I wouldn't be able to give birth in the birth center because the doctor told me that having picked up Strep B infection my only option was a labour ward.

I spoke to the midwife in triage and she told me I was going to give birth...I was surprised because my waters hadn't broken and he was seven weeks early.

I ended up with a c-section because after my waters broke 24 hours later, no contractions, after 13 hours on hormone induction still minimal contractions so I finally got the caesarean section and it went really well.

If I could go back and do it again I think I would find out more about what the labour ward looks like, what a birth center looks like...I think more importantly I would have looked at the labour ward so that my fears wouldn't have been as necessary.

For women that decide to give birth at the hospital, I would recommend a visit to the postnatal ward as well The postnatal ward was really busy, there were a lot of people and it wasn't something that I expected.

I think if the hospital is closer it's much easier because my little one was premature we had to make trips there for about three weeks and it's much easier when the hospital is closer to where you live.

I chose a hospital based on reputation and what I'd heard from other people rather than the one that was geographically closest to me and having had aftercare from the other hospital I'm really glad that I made the choice I did.

Things go wrong sometimes or differently than you would expect so try not to have any expectations.