Reply to Medstar WHC vs GW vs Sibley vs other?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At 27 weeks it’s getting later in your pregnancy so switching practices is probably becoming less of an option, if not an impossibility. What are your concerns specifically?

WHC and GW are very similar urban teaching hospitals with similar patient demographics, facilities, and same level NICUs. I believe both are level 1 trauma centers. Main reason that is good is in case you need a blood transfusion or your delivery goes terribly—they are best prepared to care for you. Both have hospital based midwife practices that have positively influenced OB practices. At WHC they offer nitrous for pain relief in labor. At GW they do not. GW has more liberal policies for eating and drinking in labor than WHC. They use and teach forceps at GW, and are in of a very small number of teaching hospitals still doing that (forceps come with greater risks to the mother than vacuum and many hospitals favor vacuum over them for operative delivery). I am not sure about forceps use at WHC. The facilities at both are not cushy. There will be a broad range of women on the flooor in labor and delivery and postpartum—different races, ethnicities, income levels.

Sibley is a community non-teaching hospital known for a more cushy experience, a higher c section rate (largely due to patient demographics), and more older/affluent/whiter clientele. They redid their rooms a few years ago and they are supposed to be very nice. People joke about their smoothie cart. They have a lower grade NICU and are not a level 1 trauma center. They are not a teaching hospital so residents and student will not be involved in your care. Search past posts for specifics—plenty of feedback on all places.

General feeling on DCUM is that Sibley offers a cushier experience but[b] the downside is that they may not be fully able to care for you or your baby in the event that things go very, very badly during your birth. Though that is very very unlikely, it’s not impossible. [/b]

This doula also offers a helpful overview to all hospitals.

http://www.tarabetholson.com/hospitals

[/quote]
That feeling is kinda wrong and misleading. Sibley's NICU can care for babies from 34 weeks gestation on. Any NICU can care for the vast majority of problems a baby could be born with. What they may not be equipped to deal with are extremely rare congenital defects and extreme prematurity. But even so, worst case scenario, they would be able to stabilize the baby and transport them to children's.

It's so odd how people on this forum constantly perpetuate this myth on here, both about the NICU and this anxiety that something catastrophic could happen to the baby. The risk is low for a high-risk pregnancy; for a low-risk pregnancy it's minuscule.[/quote]

NICU level isn't just about preterm care. Many of the 34-weekers who end up in the NICU are feeders and growers, and just need to be monitored for a bit for growth. Sibley can do that. What sibley cannot do is care for a neonate who requires mechanical ventilation- for instance, if a baby had a bad meconium aspiration and had to be intubated and put on a ventilator, they would need to be transferred to a level 3 or level 4 NICU that can handle ventilator support.[/quote]
Again...an exceedingly rare complication unless there was some other risk factor.[/quote]

Actually, meconium aspiration is not something that is exceedingly rare or only seen in a high risk pregnancy. It is seen more in patients who go past their due date, but can happen to anyone. I'm a 32 year old physician with no health problems and no complications in pregnancy and my DS came out blue and not breathing due to meconium aspiration. He was born at 40 weeks 2 days. While not common these things do happen[/quote]

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