Having a baby in the South Bay Area

[Sobranna]

Well, shoot. I feel totally comfortable with the hospitals here where we live and could totally find a good nurse-midwife for delivering Baby, who's coming in December. But DH got an internship, which means I need to figure all this stuff out for the South Bay Area. He's working right in San Jose, and we'd like to be close enough for him to take public transportation, but I also wouldn't rule out picking an area based on good hospitals/prenatal care.

So what I'm asking: can you give me some thoughts about the hospitals in the area? My dream is to do a midwife-attended hospital birth, but given our insurance, I think I may have to go with an OB this time. So any thoughts about area OB's or midwives? We're on the Beech Street insurance network if that helps ....

Thanks, mamas! This is my first, so I really appreciate any tips you can give me!

[Mother Cake]

Bay Area Birth Info, for starters. Meet BABI 2010 is on May 15th--there will be lots of South Bay birth resource people there.

Valley Med has the lowest C-section rate (about 20%) of the non-Kaiser hospitals.

I know of two sets of hosp. CNM's. Altos Oaks Medical Group has 3 CNM's on staff--they attend births at El Camino in Mountain View. Cedar OB/GYN has CNM's on her staff as well, but apparently the OB is not that great--see yelp review--they attend births at O'Conner and Good Sam.

Sorry I can't give you more info--I'm more in the home-birth loop, myself.

[MamieCole]

Valley Med does have the lowest c-section rate, which is why we chose it as our back-up hospital for DS2's planned VBAC home birth. I ended up needing a transfer and a c-section and the doctors at Valley Med were fine.

However, the postpartum care was horrendous. It was the most stressful, awful few days of my life. There are no private rooms, they are usually filled to capacity and there are tvs for both beds, but no private speakers. I got to enjoy listening to the Jerry Springer Show and MMA fighting turned up to full volume the first full day of my son's life. The nurses were overwhelmingly rude, incompetent and uncaring. I had to push the call button at least 3 times each time I needed assistance. The longest I waited was 45 minutes, the shortest was 10. They have a policy about making you keep the door to your room open, which means you have to listen to the CONSTANT sounds of multiple babies crying for hours on end in the nursery, around the clock. I wished there was some way I could have helped those poor babies. I just wanted to scream..."Someone pick up that baby and hold him!" There are hospital-wide and maternity specific intercom announcements constantly. The food was disgusting. I could go on, but I won't. It was just torture.

Sorry I don't have any personal experience with other local hospitals. I have heard pretty good things about Good Sam and O'Connor. The Kaiser hospitals have pretty low c-section rates as well.

If you decide to have a homebirth, please feel free to pm me for the name of my midwife. She is awesome.

[RockStarMom]

I would absolutely stay away from Kaiser.

[Sobranna]

Thanks so much for your input, ladies. I feel so overwhelmed with all of the things there are to learn about and decide! I wish I were moving one month earlier--that Meet BABI convention sounds like it would have been perfect. But it's all good information that will help so much!

[Amoreena]

south bay of LA?
south bay of SF?
south bay of SD?

[Chamomile Girl]

Originally Posted by Amoreena

south bay of LA?
south bay of SF?
south bay of SD?

She said San Jose thus Bay Area.

I'm not much help as I had my baby in Petaluma, but I have heard that both Blossom Birth Center (Palo Alto) and Harmony Birth Center (Campbell) have good overall resources you can tap into. Both have great websites, and I'll bet they could help you find a more natural OB if that is what you need.

[MarfanMom]

I'm due about the same time you are! I'm delivering at Stanford/Lucille Packard Children's Hospital (Palo Alto). I've heard good things about it and know they are breastfeeding friendly (like, they don't give free formula samples). I'm in their high-risk division which has a higher c-section rate, but they've promised to help me with a VBAC and are doula friendly, so I assume their low-risk division has fewer c-sections. So far I've been pretty happy with the practice.

[rightkindofme]

I delivered at Vally Med in San Jose as a transferred homebirth. I had a private room and my daughter roomed in with me and my husband was allowed to stay the whole time. I had a *wonderful* experience given how hostile I was towards dealing with a hospital. I had probably two nurses who were kind of icki but when I told them off (I'm not shy) I never had a problem again.

I found kind of an even mix of people who were very 'medical' and people who were very pro-homebirth and supportive of me having as non-interventionist of an experience as possible. When I told people I was not interested in vaxxing/eye goo/that I wanted the placenta/etc they was only the slightest pause before I got exactly what I wanted.

According to my midwife the reason it is so non-pushy is they are a county hospital and have to take everyone. They have a much higher rate of patients who can't pay for all the bells and whistles so they don't push for them. I was thrilled.

[MamieCole]

Originally Posted by rightkindofme

I delivered at Vally Med in San Jose as a transferred homebirth. I had a private room and my daughter roomed in with me and my husband was allowed to stay the whole time.

How long ago was this? My son was born there 6 months ago and not only were there no private rooms, NO ONE was allowed to stay overnight with me. H1N1 was also a concern of the hospital at the time, so no one under the age of 12 was allowed to visit at all. Which meant I was not able to see my 3yo for 4 days.

You might want to call and find out whether they have changed their policies if those things are important to you if you are planning to ever use them as a backup again. (Or maybe I just got screwed?) But I walked that maternity ward for days and there were no private rooms. Just FYI.

[rightkindofme]

My daughter turned two yesterday. I would be surprised if they turned the room I was in into a joint room because there wasn't physically space for two beds.

Just went and checked their website and now they don't allow any visitors overnight. Well. I guess I just won't transfer this time.

[momto1+1]

I'm currently seeing the CNM's at Altos Oaks and will deliver at El Camino hospital in August. The midwives are wonderful, IMO!! If you are interested in meeting them they do a Meet the Midwives Tea at the YMCA right across from the hospital. It's the second Sunday of every month from 5:30 to 7:30. I would recommend stopping by!

ETA: here is the link to the office's website: Altos Oaks Medical Group