Femina hospital pretoria?

The next open day is on 4 July. They usually have one per month. Just remember its not at Femina clinic, the open day is at their birth house (38 Belrene Ave, Rietondale)

Hi @Hasie
When will the next open day be? I wont be able to go 6 June and would also like to use Midwives Exclusive.
Thanks

Hi ladies,

Your best bet would be to visit Midwives-Exclusive on one of their open days, the next one is 6 June 2015. It is a 2 hour info session and a tour of their birth house facility in Rietondale.

At the info session, they will give you all the birth options available in Pretoria and explain how the all work. They do not try to convince you to use a midwife, they give a fairly unbiased breakdown of all the birth options.

Here you can meet doulas, find out about HypnoBirthing, reflexology and sometimes their dietician or physiotherapist will have a chat as well so that you can make an informed decision of what you need.

You set up your own birth team, you can have a gyni, in a hospital and hire a private doula or birth with a midwife, with or without a doula, do hypnobirthing, have the post birth support of the midwifes or their lactation consultant even if you didn't use them for birth...

The idea of the info session is to explain to you what they offer and then you choose if you would like to use one or more of the services that they offer.

Phone them to book a space on the info session, it is free.

Gloeiwurmpie,

You definitely have a good point there. I never looked at it that way. My gynae is based at Waterfall Hospital in Midrand and, the only reason I went to do all my check ups with her last year was because, I had heard that she was very pro natural. However, I met a lady who was also seeing her and the whole pregnancy was trying to persuade her to do a c-section as there are so many risks associated with having a natural birth. I know this is a favourite with gynae's as most of the time c-sections are attributed to ease of convenience. The gynae went so far as to tell this lady that if she was determined to stick to her natural birth plan - if she went into labour after 5pm, she will not be available and the doctor on duty will be delivering her baby. That's when I decided that if I wanted to have a natural birth, I had to change my gynae or go the midwive route.

Based on what I have read about Midwives Exclusive, I was really impressed and will most likely look at that option when my time comes. Provided there are no complications, I would prefer not to have any medical interventions.

Inca,

Best to check with your medical aid and see what they will cover beforehand so that you don't get nasty surprises. I know there is one medical aid (Perhaps Bonita or Best med - not sure) that covers 100% of midwives fees.

Yes, Dr. Swart is pro-natural as far s I know as all my friends had natural births with him.

Should you use Midwives exclusives you will have to use one of their suggested back-up gynies (not Dr. Swart) should a complication arise during pregnancy or birth. I saw their back up gynie only once at 38 weeks to meet her and never again since the birth went smoothly.

I think it all depends how determined you are to have a natural birth, especially a "gentle birth" with minimal interventions (if no special circumstances are present of course). Using a doctor as your main care provider in my opinion will increase your chance of having interventions (even a pro-natural doctor). Using a Midwife is your best bet to have as little as possible interventions in my opinion.

In the end it is what makes the mom the most comfortable that will determine in most cases the satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the birth outcome, did you feel safe with the care providers that you chose and did you feel you were well informed during the birthing process of the risks involved/details of procedures should a medical intervention become needed. Moms who feel that they lost all power/control when doctors/care providers had to use medical interventions without talking/explaining to them beforehand often feel unhappy about their birthing outcome if things didn't go as planned in my experience. Obviously in some extreme rare emergencies there is no time for talking and explaining and action needs to be taken ASAP to avoid serious further complications for mom and baby.

If you take a look at the c-section rate in Private hospitals in South Africa it must be around 80%. Therefore your chances of having a c-section even if you wanted to go natural means that most doctors at private hospitals will also have a relatively high c-section rate. If you are determined to have a natural birth it would be best to choose a careprovider that can give you statistics to your ratio of natural births and c-sections for their patients as this will give you a true indication of your likelyhood of having a gentle natural birth.

This is just my take an experience of birth in South Africa.

Hi ladies,

I'm with Dr Mouton at Femina clinic. He will be delivering my third baby next month. I have not have any issues with him or the hospital. I'm having a csection.

All the best!

Oh Wow! Thanks so much Gloeiwurmpie on all the useful information. I didn't know that medical aid wouldn't pay 100% of the midwives. Is Dr Swart pro natural birth?