UK mummies - what happens if you have a poorly baby at a hospital without a NICU?

[amelia26]

I hope it's okay to ask this here. I'm 20 weeks pregnant with my second and the hospital I am booked into has a SCBU but no NICU.

We know the baby has some issues with her heart. There's a good chance she will be fine and not need intervention. But it puts her at high risk of a number of other problems. They are scanning me closely but we won't know for sure until after birth - she will need scans immediately.

My worry is if she does have serious problems they might be too serious for SCBU. I assume in that case she would get transferred?
I'm worried if I have to have a section I won't be able to go with her?

I've no idea how it all works though. Has anyone been through this?

 

[Twinmum87]

Most likely you will be sent to deliver else where. When I started contracting at 23+6 weeks, even thou the hospital I was at did have a nicu, there was 1 better in the city so I was taken there until the contraction thankfully stopped. When I went into labour the nicu and scbu were full at my hospital so the original plan was to send me to another hospital that had space in scbu as they were very unlikely to need intensive care being 34 weekers but i was dilating too fast to risk being put into the ambulance and the magnesium drip failed to stop my labour so I had my c section there and they arranged for 2 incubaitors to be brought over from the hospital they were to be transferred to. I had to wait down in recovery. My girl was stable first so they brought her down to see me at 7 hr old so I could have a quick hold and meet her before being transferred. Once she was settled the ambulance crew came back for my boy and he was off the oxygen by then, again they brought him down so I saw him for the first time at 9hr 20 mins old. They told me I couldn't be transferred just yet and had to wait until morning. (they were born at 7:18pm so their transfers were middle of the night. I followed at 10am and went down to scbu to see them soon as i got there.

 

[LaughOutLoud]

Hiya, my baby was born with a life threatning heart condition. We didnt know of her heart defect till after she came out and things got pretty serious pretty quickly. I did have a c-section as she was already sdtruggling in labour and when she started to deteriote, she needed surgery asap. They tried to do it at the hospital where i gave birth but they didnt have a NICU there so they were not successful. Finally the ambulance and amazing people from the heart hospital came and took her away to the heart specialist hospital where they operated on her. The hgospital i gave birth at just didnt have the facilities my baby needed at the time and so IF we knew of her heart condition before birth, then we would have had to give birth elsewhere where that care would have been available.

What im saying is, dont risk your babies life if it will have a heart condition becuase having gone that road I wouldnt wish it on anyone. I wish her issues were detected prior to birth where we could have planned for her care because heart babies need specialist care.

Also because I had a c-section, the hospital wouldnt let me follow my baby. We were both at separate hospitals until i was discharged 2 days later.

If you have any Q's, youre free to PM me x

 

[amelia26]

Thank you for your replies.

Twinmum - that sounds awful being separated like that.

LaughOutLoud - your situation is exactly what I am scared of. How terrible for you to have to go through that and what a shock it must have been.

As it stands, the abnormalities they KNOW she has shouldn't need any treatment. But patients with these abnormalities often have other associated problems - which include a range of other heart defects, problems with the gut, spleen and liver.

They did very detailed scans after finding the initial problem and found nothing further. I will have further scans throughout pregnancy.

So the hope is that baby wouldn't need NICU, or even SCBU. But I am very aware that scans can't find everything - as happened in your case and I am increasingly feeling it's not worth the risk not having a NICU.

I would rather have the baby at King's, where I have all the scans. This is the same trust as my hospital but out of area and they don't take out of area women.

There's one hospital in area with a NICU - where I had my son. The idea if going back there feels me with dread as I was treated so badly and they failed to pick up on my son's condition.

I think I need to talk to someone about the possibility of having the baby at King's, even if the initial answer is no.

There's always the possibility of course that she would be transferred from King's to the Evelina or Great Ormond St anyway so it might make no difference.

(My son was transferred from local hospital to Great Ormond st but he was 3 weeks old by then)