Lismore and surrounds - birth experiences.

[stellarella]

Hi, I am originally from Grafton and will be moving back to the Lismore area late this year. I just want to get a feel for the kinds of birth services offered in the area.

So any experiences with Lismore Base Hospital - what is it like, high intervention rates, do they have a birth centre, do they offer water births?

What about private Birth Centres?

Or has anyone had a home birth? Are there many independant midwives in the area?

TIA :wave:

[ZooKeeper]

Hi there, Starfish was born at LBH, and I went thru as a shared care patient. They have a high intervention rate for past EDD births, basically if you are more than a week overdue they discuss induction, and it is done at 10-14 days as a general rule. I got induced and it was bloody awful but the midwives there made it as good as they could, given one is strapped down by the monitors most of the time. to avoid forceps/ventouse skip the epidural, this also lowers the risk of a caesar, which usually they do if active labour lasts until sunset or so.

don't know about indie midwives, they are about but cost too much for us to consider. can be hard to find a gp who is female here too and taking new patients. skip the obstetrician if you go lismore base, they do it free at their clinic.

starfish is up, gotta fly.

[stellarella]

Oh someone replied!

Thanks :)

ETA: Eeeeek!! Sounds pretty awful!