Queanbeyan Hospital Maternity?

I know this is obviously an old post, but this is the first site that comes up when you google reviews of Qbn Hospital. All I have to say is they were AMAZING from the very first appointment to the in home visits! If I suddenly had to move to Perth, I would travel to have my baby in Qbn! Every midwife was knowledgeable and super sweet. All of them are trained to help establish breastfeeding. It’s harder than it looks and not all midwives are trained to help! Many people have to go see specialists after discharge from the hospital or simply told to formula feed as its ‘easier’ (it is easier, for the first week. Then it’s a lot harder!) I cannot rate Queanbeyan Hospital highly enough and I can’t ever thank them for all of their help!

Even the cafeteria staff were amazing!

While not related to childbirth I’ve only been to Qbn hospital once and never again!
The Doctor I saw there was an idiot. He mentioned a womans name who I’d never heard of before and said she was related to me, and her surname is totally different to mine! Them wrote a prescription for me and put the wrong address on it. When I told him its the wrong address he said “It’s the correct address, you know where you live” To which I replied, “I sure do know where I live and it’s not there,as there’s no such place in Qbn.”

You may have already made your decision, but:
I had my first baby at Qbn in January. I transferred from TCH when I still didn’t have a place in the birth centre at 27 weeks.
I will go back to Qbn if I have another baby – I left it late to get to the hospital (things proceeded v quickly) but for the couple of hours I was there before delivery it was great. They have baths there and I was able to labour and deliver my baby in bath. Whether you can actually deliver in the bath may depend on your doctor – mine didn’t arrive in time so it was a non-issue!
My partner didn’t stay over night (we live 5 mins drive away) but he would have been welcome to and many other partners were there overnight the whole time I was there. I had a room to myself – you can be admitted as a private patient if you have basic hospital cover, and not have any gap or out of pocket expenses. I stayed 5 days. I was nudged to leave on day 4 but my doctor sorted that out and said I wasn’t going till day 5 – by which time I was ready. There was a midwife with lactation expertise on the staff and maybe that would have been enough with a straightforward feeding experience but we had extensive problems & conflicting advice, and no milk in for 5 days, and I will see the private lactation consultant that I saw subsequently, if I have another baby. I don’t know what the midwives’ attitude towards doulas is but they seemed pretty relaxed and I don’t imagine would object or be huffy.
I saw Dr Davis and was very happy with him but he’s very hard to get in to and usually running very late because he’s up at the hospital most mornings.

It’s not true that the maternity ward is closed without an OB on duty. Your GP-OB will attend the birth, if a C-sect is required, the on-call OB (Dr Mutton or Dr Arnellin) will be called. If there is no OB on call available you will be transported via ambulance to Canberra Hosp (7 minutes). Also if you want a VBAC and there is no OB on call you have to go to Canberra Hosp.

For 20 hours of my 21 hour labour it was only me and the mws 🙂

astromonkey is 19 mths now and we had him in qbyn – it was brilliant and i, the dad stayed as i was keen but they encourage it as well – stayed five nights n the end, no push out the door (in fact perhaps the opposite) and we had some lactation issues (having had a doula at the birth, you’re all brilliant) but found that was the one thing they might get better at. but if you plan ahead and contact one who could come in after the birth to provide advice, the midwives at qbyn would be very supportive – they are that!

i can’t recommend the experience and facilities enough. neither can astress… and astromonkey has turned out pretty good, so he also gives it the thumbs up. 🙂

Yogie said :

georgesgenitals said :

We needed emergency surgery, and they had everything on hand ready to go.
We didn’t need a lactation specialist, but the midwives helped us to get started breastfeeding.

We needed surgery? We got started breastfeeding?

Was the surgery and lactation a joint experience? I suspect the scars and sore nipples were only on one of you.

I know parenting is a bonding experience but really?!

I think a growing number of couples consider both the process of birth and the parenting journey a shared experience and using the term ‘we’ simply indicates an empathetic and highly supportive partner -which is a fantastic thing for any new mother.

The new QBN hospital is great. We were in there 15months ago, and there was only 1 other mother in there. As a private patient in a public hospital, they let us stay for 4 days before we all got cabin fever and decided to go home. I have nothing but praise for the hospital. The midwives are great in the lead up to the birth, great at the hospital, and then midwives run weekly mothers groups in Qbn, Bungendore and no doubt other places I am not aware of.

And as the hospital is only 2 yrs old, everything is brand spankers.
If you are lucky to book in Dr Peter Davis he is an amazing guy.

In case its not clear – I reckon QBN maternity is the best kept secret around.

My Obs about three years ago told me that whilst he didn’t practice at Qbyn, he did get called there a lot as they were frequently without a doctor. If they don’t have a doctor they have to close the ward.

Have heard that midwives don’t like having doulas around. Never really understood the need for someone other than the father of the child? Having said that, my husband watched the Friday night football whilst I lay incapacitated with an epidural. My tip – if you have an epidural, make sure you get the tv remote first.

D2 said :

What’s a doula?

kind of like a professional birth partner. We had Margie Perkins with us for our birth and I could not recommend her highly enough
http://www.findadoula.com.au/doula.php?doula=211

Went to John James and then Qbn 2 years later. I actually found the support staff at QBN better, but then to be fair it was at different times of the year and no-one was raring to bugger off to enjoy their Christmas. I was also surprised at the support and options offered at QBN before the birth, it actually seemed alot broader than JJ. I cannot comment on the after support as I left half hour after giving birth, but I suppose it depends on what your requirements are. The entire experience was probably better at QBN, they seemed to be justifiably proud of their birthing unit This was 7 years ago, it may have changed.