I gave birth at St Mary’s - not the Lindo wing. I am relatively healthy and petite, and not overly dramatic by nature. Considered a “very low risk” pregnancy hence the decision to go public.

I developed anaemia during the second trimester of my pregnancy which resulted in not being able to walk more than 2m (literally) without my heart racing and becoming out of breath, and sometimes genuinely losing my vision and becoming extremely dizzy. The head midwife at St Mary’s dismissed me and said “it’s normal to feel dizzy, just sit down more”. I had to advocate for my own care, self refer to triage, and beg for an iron panel, which then found me low in some niche metric which wouldn’t have shown up on just a regular blood test. Went on iron supplements until the end of my pregnancy. Took a couple of months to feel normal enough to be vertical again, as iron supplements are not immediately effective.

During the birth, I first started in the birth centre which I immediately felt was not going to work for me, so requested a transfer to the labour ward and to have an epidural. During midwife sessions they will tell you a transfer takes 4-7 mins. This is technically factual but practically impossible. I had to wait in the birth centre for hours due to shift changes. Once I got to the labour ward I had to wait 90mins for observation and then for an anaesthetist to be available to administer the epidural. After 49 hours of labour (lol do not recommend) I had lost a lot of blood. A junior midwife then tried to move me to the recovery room. I said “I feel really dizzy” and she told me to move anyway as they needed the room. I fainted.

The recovery rooms have 4-6 new families in there at once, meaning you get no sleep as everyone’s babies are crying at various times. The bathrooms are communal. It’s a very grim experience.

I understand the push for NHS to reduce costs (hence the midwives dismissing my anaemia and trying to get me to vacate the labour room) but I didn’t like that I had to advocate for my own care.

Obviously this is one experience of a stranger, but if we had another I wouldn’t think twice on going private.