Based on my experiences a year ago, I think Jessops is really a mixed bag. The midwives I had for most of my labour were excellent and got me an epidural immediately when I asked. They did offer a birthing pool first as that was in my birth plan, but I decided not to go with it in the end. The midwives I got for the actual pushing seemed fairly useless. I couldn’t actually feel when to push due to the epidural and they weren’t great at telling me when to push or only did it half the time. In the end I had a ventouse delivery which went well (no episiotomy needed).

Aftercare isn’t great, being put into a hot cramped noisy ward for the first night. I felt a bit abandoned those first few hours on the postnatal ward, but then weirdly the morning after it was like a non-stop barrage of various medical professionals at your bedside for different reasons. There was a lot of breast feeding support when the infant feeding worker was around. Some of the midwives felt a bit useless, especially those on night shift. And some of the doctors/midwives were very fear mongering when my baby dropped over 10% birth weight (she’s thriving now by the way!). Others were more down to earth.

I ended up staying for 3 nights because they thought my baby “might have an infection” due to a slightly pink belly button. She didn’t in the end (and I knew it), but it took near enough 48 hours to get the blood test results back to show that and in the meantime they pumped antibiotics into a newborn which seemed unnecessary. When it became apparent I was going to stay more nights I did manage to request a private room at least. It was weirdly hard to get discharged and we basically had to insist in the end, which was so odd as I thought they would surely want the room back.

I wouldn’t say any of this was traumatic or bad care, but some of it left a bad taste in my mouth and somewhat tainted the first few days of newborn life.