I had an excellent experience with GW; comanages care between midwives and OBs. I’m back for my second and using the OBs/MFM. It’s been great so far.

For GW, the only docs that deliver there are part of GW MFA. No private practices have privileges. I think that's the same at WHC. While both hospitals also have midwifery practices, they are separate from the OBs. So if you decide to go with the GW OBs, you'll never have an appointment with a midwife, and the odds of a midwife delivering you are very very low (like, it would be the absolute last resort because every single OB and OB resident are in other deliveries).

Anonymous wrote:OP here: thanks so much. It's very helpful to get a sense of places. Sounds like GW or WHC would work well for us. I'll check out the recommendations people made of doctors/practices that deliver those places, but additional recommendations of doctors/practices would be great. Especially if they have early morning hours and are convenient to downtown. I prefer a doctor to a MW practice.

WHC is a pretty awful facility, FYI. GW is probably your best bet.

OP here: thanks so much. It's very helpful to get a sense of places. Sounds like GW or WHC would work well for us. I'll check out the recommendations people made of doctors/practices that deliver those places, but additional recommendations of doctors/practices would be great. Especially if they have early morning hours and are convenient to downtown. I prefer a doctor to a MW practice.

I had a great experience at Sibley, especially with their special care nursery where my baby spent 3 weeks. I used Bloom OBGYN, which I liked a lot and which would also be convenient to Woodley Park. Three doctors is a nice number because you get to know them all and one will definitely deliver for you.

I delivered at Sibley with Dr. Schichor at Capital Women’s Care K street. She was fabulous and very supportive of my birth decisions.

My baby was born at 34 weeks and ended up in their NICU. It’s small but the care was really great and the doctors and nurses were wonderful. My baby ended up being transferred to Georgetown NICU. The process was traumatic for me as a mother but it went very smoothly and I felt everybody communicated things very well. It actually made my discharge much easier to handle as I wasn’t leaving a baby behind. I wouldn’t hesitate to deliver there again.

I delivered at Sibley with Reiter Hill, and everything was fine. RH is a big practice, which some people don't like, but I felt like the doctors are really experienced and pretty chill. If you need a lot of hand-holding, it might not be for you, but I liked their approach. Being a big practice, they also did their sonograms in-house, which was convenient.

Sibley was fine--I had no complications--and the L&D nurses were quite supportive of my desire to avoid an epidural. I found them to be really helpful and reasonable.

For DC proper:

If you want posh - Club Sib with a megapractice like Reiter Hill
If you want midwives - GW or WHC (I love the WHC midwives and delivered with them)
If you want access to a high-level NICU - Georgetown is the highest level (IV), followed by GW and WHC (Level 3b)
If you want to be next to a children's hospital - WHC (connected to Children's National via tunnel)
If you want decent food options - GW or Georgetown

Anonymous wrote:
Sibley actually does not have a NICU, which is a defined medical term. It has a "Special Care Nursery." Feel free to google yourself if you do not believe me. It is not the same thing as a NICU in terms of the interventions they can perform and the education/training level of the staff and it's why they can't take pre-32 week babies (and, in fact, will transfer babies born after 32 weeks that have special needs or that are unusually small). The transfer to Georgetown can be a problem if you don't like religious restrictions. I don't want to get into a debate here, but you may not want to unexpectedly deliver a pre-32 weeker at Georgetown if you don't share that hospital's religious convictions.

Special Care Nursery is just a friendlier way of saying "Level II NICU that can initiate PPV but for not more than 24 hours." Sibley's SCN is staffed by the same neonatologists who attend at Georgetown's NICU. It doesn't have the same subspeciality coverage. though, and can't provide more exotic respiratory support (NO, HFOV) that a pre-32-weeker might need.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Highly recommend finding a doctor that delivers at Sibley. It’s a community hospital that specializes in labor and delivery. The hospital was just rebuilt so everything is nice and new. And yes, contrary to another poster, it does have a NICU. I know because my first kid spent two weeks there. Their NICU takes babies born at 32 weeks or later. Any baby born before 32 weeks will be transferred to Georgetown. I wouldn’t want to have delivered at Georgetown for anything. You don’t want a huge teaching hospital to give birth. Way too chaotic.

I delivered at a huge teaching hospital and it was FINE. There were a lot of people suddenly in the rooms for the acutal moment of delivery (fellow, attending, probably an R1 somewhere in the background, I couldn't tell, and the nurses) but before and after it was pretty quiet.

Sibley actually does not have a NICU, which is a defined medical term. It has a "Special Care Nursery." Feel free to google yourself if you do not believe me. It is not the same thing as a NICU in terms of the interventions they can perform and the education/training level of the staff and it's why they can't take pre-32 week babies (and, in fact, will transfer babies born after 32 weeks that have special needs or that are unusually small). The transfer to Georgetown can be a problem if you don't like religious restrictions. I don't want to get into a debate here, but you may not want to unexpectedly deliver a pre-32 weeker at Georgetown if you don't share that hospital's religious convictions.

^^ I delivered w/ Dr. Lesko at GW and she was more into natural birth/avoiding intervention than I was. I was extremely happy with the experience.

I would never deliver at Sibley because it doesn't have a real NICU (and won't even take babies born pre-32 weeks, which left a friend scrambling). I'm told it's a much cushier post-delivery experience than GW, however, so it really just depends on your risk tolerance.

GW's midwife practice sounds like it might be in line with what you want and, because it's linked to GW's normal MFA practice, it's very easy to switch to an OB or MFM if you unexpectedly need one.

Anonymous wrote:Highly recommend finding a doctor that delivers at Sibley. It’s a community hospital that specializes in labor and delivery. The hospital was just rebuilt so everything is nice and new. And yes, contrary to another poster, it does have a NICU. I know because my first kid spent two weeks there. Their NICU takes babies born at 32 weeks or later. Any baby born before 32 weeks will be transferred to Georgetown. I wouldn’t want to have delivered at Georgetown for anything. You don’t want a huge teaching hospital to give birth. Way too chaotic.

I delivered at a huge teaching hospital and it was FINE. There were a lot of people suddenly in the rooms for the acutal moment of delivery (fellow, attending, probably an R1 somewhere in the background, I couldn't tell, and the nurses) but before and after it was pretty quiet.

I would say WHC for their midwife practice but that might be far for you. Georgetown would probably make more sense geographically. They have a better NICU than Sibley.

I went to Capital Women's Care downtown on K St and delivered with them at Sibley last year. From my understanding, c-sections in this area are high in general. So keep that in mind. I had a good OB and birth experience. I cycled through all of the doctor's at CWC and ended up being induced at 41 weeks. I labored as long as I could without intervention but after 10 hours asked for an epidural. The process was quick and my doctor was supportive of my decision. I delivered vaginally.

Sibley has a nursery and my baby went there the first night so I could get some rest. The rooms are nice and the L&D unit is brand new. There isn't a smoothie cart, but that would be nice! From my understanding, Sibley has a low level NICU, so if there are serious complications your baby may have to go somewhere else. There were no complications for me or my baby so I don't have much info about it.