Guy's or King's? Lanes midwifery contact please

[valeenitt]

Hi all,

I am 32 weeks pregnant and after an appaling experience at Kings (mostly regarding the position of the placenta) I have decided to transfer care to St. Guy's and St.Thomas'. Obviously, I am converned about how long the transfer is going to take and if I am doing the right thing. If anyone has been in the same situation, please get in touch.

Also I am with Kings' midwives at the Gardens Surgery (not a great experience there either - in 8 months I never saw the same midwife twice!), what is going to happen to that? Can I get in contact with other community midwifery services? Everyone I have spoken with are full of praises for the The Lanes, but I haven't found anything on the net.. is there a particular referral process.

Please help!

[carebear]

Hi there,

I am 31 weeks pregnant with complete placenta previa. I opted to go to St Thomas's right from the start because I gave birth to my first child there and also because I was already anticipating the possibility of a planned c-section before we knew about the placenta for reasons associated with the previous birth.

I therefore can't help much with the process of switching hospitals at this stage, but depending on what specific issues you are dealing with, may be able to answer questions about how St Thomas's have handled issues around my placenta situation and my experiences there generally both last time and this time, feel free to PM me.

A friend of mine recently switched from Lewisham to Kings, so although not the same hospitals, still the same Trust involved. She switched quite late in her pregnancy and I think it was a fairly smooth process, but again give me a shout if you have any specific questions and I can try and find out for you.

Regarding the midwives, this has been one of the definite downsides to not being associated with my closest hospital. I had a rather limited choice of places I could go to for my appointments and ended up opting for the hospital itself. The midwives have been good (and I've had the same one each time with only one exception which was for a last minute appointment) but it is a big hassle getting there each time. I'm not sure if the same would happen to you or if you would stick with the same ones since you're that bit further down the line, and I also don't know what happens after birth. I suspect they switch us back to our local community midwife team as the St Thomas team won't want to travel to Dulwich but would be interested if anyone knows what happens on that front.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much help that is or if I've just given you more questions, but do get in touch if you think I can help!

[sillywoman]

The Lanes Midwives are Kings Midwives If you go to St Thomas's you can't be with them. There are no local Tommies Midwives because ED is not their area. You'll need to go to Tommies for your antenatal appointments.

[CocoC]

The Lanes are fabulous midwives and delivered my first born at home, but as far as I know you have to be a Dulwich Medical Centre patient as well as under the care of King's. Plus their services are very sought after so it can be very difficult to get caseload care with them. Good luck with your transfer and I hope everything goes smoothly for you.

[valeenitt]

thanks so much for your advice.

I have read patients can go to Guy's and self-refer. I might just go to get a sense of how things are.

[Kelpie]

I would give them a call rather than just turn up, they're always super busy and you'll be disappointed if you go to Guy's as the maternity unit is at St Thomas'!

I have had a transfer experience. I was planning a home birth last year, shortly after moving house from Kennington to Camberwell (yes, yes, absolutely crazy idea) so I had arranged to transfer from Tommy's to King's. It's fairly straightforward but you have to do your booking appointment and bloods etc again. My midwife at Tommy's arranged the transfer with the King's midwives personally. My experience was that the transfer of care seemed to go smoothly but the baby then came early and I ended up in hospital at Tommy's (as I was still technically under their care). The midwives there were fab, but the ones I met at King's were too. That said, apart from a pre-term delivery I didn't have any complications.

[londonhypnobirthing]

Hi Valeenitt, I'm sorry you had such a difficult experience last time around. I'd really recommend staying at Kings and trying to get on with one of the community midwife teams - i.e. The Lanes, Brierley or Oakwood - you can self refer and if they have space they will do their best to accomodate you. Try Brierley as a first port of call on 0203 299 6163. If you want to talk further please don't hesitate to PM me x

[sidmeister]

We had ours at King's (same as Rio Ferdinand, we found out later :)) and used the Lanes' midwives. I cannot praise them enough. You can't go wrong with Vanessa and co.