A guide to maternity at Kingston, St. George's, Chelsea & Westminster, St Thomas’ and St. Helier hospitals

The first thing to be clear on is that it is your choice which hospital in South West London you want to be linked to receive maternity care and birth your baby (if, indeed, any at all!). Birth Rights is an amazing charity to keep up to date with your rights in birth and this link explains you can refer yourself to any hospital you want: click here to find out more.

Once this article has helped you make your mind up, you can complete a self referral form for Kingston, St George’s, Chelsea and Westminster, St Thomas’ & St Helier online. Just click on the hospital of your choice and it will take you to the correct page. There is no need to visit your GP first.

As a doula I spend time regularly at all these South West London hospitals and so here are some of my favourite things about them to help you decide:

Kingston Maternity

Kingston delivery suite, birth centre and home birth teams all have their own Instagram accounts so it is easy to get information about birth outcomes in each location (they vary quite a lot!), and read birth stories and see up to date photos. The overall maternity culture does stand out at Kingston, with the midwives consistently seeming happy and well supported.

In my experience staffing of the midwife led birth centre and home birth teams is reliable.

There are also a good number of single rooms on their postnatal ward, particularly for mama’s who have had a caesarean birth, and this can really help.

The staff take a special interest in biomechanics and have produced this really helpful leaflet, which shows their motivation to support physiological birth if this is what you want.

St George’s Maternity

St George’s is the largest hospital in South West London and as such it has some amazing facilities in terms of fetal medicine and NICU for specialist care both before and after the baby is born.

The early pregnancy unit at St George’s operates on a walk in basis so if you have any concerns early on, or you are not sure when you might have conceived, you can head there without needing to see your GP first which can be really helpful.

St George’s are also good at offering tours of their birth centre which are not always easy to book elsewhere although the birth centre isn’t always open so that may not be as advantageous as it seems!

St George’s also facilitated a maternal assisted caesarean recently if that is something you might be interested in then message me for more information.

Chelsea and Westminster Maternity

The birth centre at Chelsea and Westminster is top notch, and if you choose to you can asked to be placed under one of their continuity of care teams (just ring up the birth centre yourself and request it). This means you will have all your appointments on the birth centre with the staff there and this familiarity can really help when the time comes to have your baby.

The hospital is modern and the facilities for intrapartum (in labour) care are too.

St Thomas’ Maternity

St Thomas’ is a large teaching hospital, like St. George’s, with all the specialist facilities to go with that. This probably shouldn’t swing it for you but the views from maternity on the 7^th floor are amazing! You can give birth with a view of the London Eye.

The rooms on the labour ward and birth centre are lovely and big with plenty of room to move around. And one of the consultant midwives Julie Frolich is amazing. There are great staff everywhere, but she deserves a mention!

St. Helier Maternity

St. Helier is often the lesser known of maternity choices in South West London and this means you can benefit from a more relaxed atmosphere and less busy antenatal clinics and facilities when you are in labour. The birth centre have an active Instagram account which gives you an insight into their approach to birth.

As well as the upsides, here are some of what I view as the downsides of each hospital:

Kingston Maternity

It’s hard to think of any major downsides of Kingston apart from the parking which is limited and crowded (but better than the more central London hospitals!). And although it is very busy, it is only a small hospital, and doesn’t have the amenities of others in terms of food outlets etc.

There is a high level of intervention on their delivery suite, but this is comparable to the other local hospitals too.

St George’s Maternity

If you read the CQC report above you will see that St George’s has some issues at the moment particularly with staffing. This is reflected in the availability of the Carmen Suite (midwife led unit) and home birth team. If neither of these options are available to you then to access a birth pool you would be relying on a single option as they have recently installed one on the labour ward. Some families report lack of staff on the postnatal ward can mean they feel unsupported at this stage of their journey.

As a doula my least favourite thing about St George’s is that some of the labour ward rooms are not en suite! If you are having a caesarean or want an epidural this will not be an issue as you will have a catheter, but if you were hoping for a more active birth a toilet can be really helpful in labour (it is nicknamed the “dilation station”!) and having to walk across the corridor to a shared facility is not appealing.

Chelsea and Westminster Maternity

Similar to Kingston, no immediate obvious downsides spring to mind with Chelsea and Westminster if the location really works for you. It is the other side of the river and therefore traffic can be hideous particularly in rush hour. It also has very limited parking so most people will get a taxi there.

Some women find the postnatal ward crowded and a lack of private rooms means you are often on a bay, although this is common to most hospitals.

St Thomas’ Maternity

St Thomas’ services cover a wide area, and it’s the furthest from South West London boroughs, so consider carefully whether the location really works for you. Being in central London you enter the congestion zone to get there and it is not easy to park. If you are having a planned birth this may well be ok but think about it carefully if you are planning to head to the hospital in labour.

Another thing I am not so keen on at St Thomas’s is on their “home from home” (midwife led) unit the main rooms are more like labour ward rooms with a bed as the focal point. To access the birth pools and more active birth equipment you have to go into another room which has no windows. So you could end up being in three rooms before you actually birth your baby: triage, a room on the ward, and a pool room!

The final thing about St Thomas’ is for some reason it is unbelievably hot. Consistently.

St. Helier Maternity

St Helier unfortunately suffers from the same issue as St George’s with a lack of en suite rooms on the labour ward. The birth centre rooms do all have their own bathrooms.

St Helier has the least specialised facilities of all the hospitals in this article which will be no issue at all for a healthy mum and baby, but may be good to know if you are anticipating a more complicated journey.

The antenatal and postnatal wards are also quite old and can be hot and stuffy too. As above, there are not many private rooms.

I hope some of the above will help you decide which hospital to choose for you maternity journey, but I want to end by saying how you prepare, and the support you have around you, is by far the most important thing! This is also the element you are most in control of which will hopefully reassure you.

Kingston, St George’s, Chelsea & Westminster, St Thomas’ and St Helier all have far more in common than they do differences in terms of staff (some you will gel with, some you won’t), standard guidelines & policies, high rates of induction and unplanned caesarean births etc.

The most important thing is engaging with your own pregnancy and birth, working out what you want, and then making the best choices for you in terms of making that happen. I am obviously biased, but a birth doula can massively help you with this. Find out more about my birth doula services here.