Pregnancy and childbirth in the UK - our experience

Heath care

The health care during your pregnancy is free under the NHS – National Health Service. You will regularly (but not too often) see a midwife, who will do an interview, check your blood pressure, test your urine sample, measure your bump and a few times refer you to get your basic blood tests. If everything seems fine, you will most probably not even see a doctor for the whole pregnancy. The frequency of midwife appointments increases towards the end of the pregnancy. Note that you are not examined gynecologically during your appointments.

Scans are done twice – around week 12 and half-way through your pregnancy.

If you have pregnancy experiences from another country, you will notice some tests that are routinely offered to pregnant women there, might not be offered here, which is due to costs they would create for the NHS. One of them is GBS, for which pregnant women in most European countries are routinely tested towards the end of their pregnancy. You can arrange to have some of these additional tests in private care, but you will need to research yourself, as the midwife will only inform you of the standard care offered under NHS.

Having had my first pregnancy in Poland, where you are regularly examined by a gynaecologist, I decided to see a gynaecologist in private once every trimester, for a consultation which included a scan. I also did a couple of additional blood tests as recommended by this doctor. This is however not a usual thing for British women to do and I did it because I just felt safer following a bit more robust pregnancy care which I knew from my home country. The one in Britain is much more relaxed, with pregnancy treated as a very natural state that does not require much medical attention. In Poland, on the other hand, pregnant women are usually over-examined in my opinion. I suppose the best approach would be to balance these two styles somewhere in the middle, personally I’m not a fan of either of them.

Work and start of maternity leave

You will continue working as usual during your pregnancy and get paid time off work for your antenatal appointments. If you need some time off towards the end of your pregnancy, you can plan to start your maternity leave before your due date (11 weeks before the expected week of childbirth at the earliest), or use your annual leave entitlement. I stopped working a month before my planned delivery date.

Birth

One of the appointments with your midwife towards the end of your pregnancy will be to discuss your birth plan and pain relief methods. If you have had a straightforward pregnancy without complications, like mine was, then you are most likely to give birth in a midwifery-led unit (or have a home birth if you want to – I would never decide for it, so I haven’t explored the topic, but it is offered to you as one of the options and apparently quite popular!). However, if you declare that you’d like to receive epidural, like I did, you will be directed to a different hospital department with a more specialist doctor care.
I noticed that there is also a lot of pressure to deliver naturally, and a caesarean is offered for medical reasons only and rather as the last resort. Labour induction is offered ten days after your due date at the earliest, to let the natural labour begin. Mine started nine days after the due date (the longest nine days in my life), while I already had an appointment booked for induction on the following day.

My overall experience with the childbirth in Liverpool Women’s Hospital was positive, however I need to note that I didn’t receive the requested epidural, due to ‘all anaesthesiologists being currently in the theatres for emergencies’. Luckily, it was quite a quick delivery and I managed without it. I appreciated the atmosphere of intimacy and respect for our privacy during the labour, with one midwife who accompanied us all the time and other staff only coming to support when needed (after knocking on the door and asking if they can come in). At the final delivery stage there was a doctor too, as the midwife was worried about a slowing baby heartrate, but I don’t think he would have been there otherwise. The baby was handled to me and put on my chest straight after the delivery, before any further checks or procedures were done. 

Postnatal support

Here is the part I was really impressed with. All the health support you need for you and your baby literally comes to your home – one midwife to check on you and another one to check on the baby, followed by a child’s health advisor, several times in the first weeks following the birth. I wanted to breastfeed and an advisor from a Liverpool Bambi group visited me already on the first day at home, as well as provided further support with breastfeeding technique after my daughter’s tongue-tie removal procedure. Overall, I felt there were people I could talk to if I needed any baby care advice, and I was also happy that I didn’t have to visit a health practice with the baby until she was 8 weeks old and received her first vaccinations.