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South Carolina Babies
Giving birth in Columbia?
Hi ladies! I am not yet pregnant (currently TTC), but I am already researching my birthing options in the Columbia area. Does anyone have any experience giving birth at any of the local hospitals? If so, how was it?
I am looking for a hospital that is baby and mother friendly (will allow me to have a natural birth if I choose, I won't be tethered to the bed with continuous fetal monitoring, inductions/c-sections are not forced, etc.).
I am also looking into Covenant Birthing Center if anyone has any experience with them.
Thanks!
Breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, cloth diapering, natural birthing mama to my baby girl born 6/2010
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Re: Giving birth in Columbia?
I wanted something similar so I switched (at 31 weeks!) from Columbia Women's Healthcare at Baptist to Providence Northeast. It's a great maternity ward! Very baby- and mother-friendly. They have a smaller unit with all private rooms, personal waiting rooms in each room, and everything you need for a natural birth. My OB was Dr. Tom Austin; fabulous doctor! Not only very skilled and knowledgeable, but great patient care and bedside manner. His partner, Dr. Addy is good, too, but not as much of a "rock star" (as DH refers to him
) as Dr. Austin. 
Not as personable.
Dr. Austin also does his own ultrasounds, which I liked; at my former practice the doctor never really mentioned the ultrasounds to me so it was great to have the OB doing them himself, answering our questions, etc. (He is very patient with answering whatever questions you may have, and really treats his patients/families with respect.) He and the nurses were all really great about trying to follow my birth plan as much as possible. With twins especially, most doctors tend to be VERY high-intervention, but Dr. Austin was willing to work with me where he felt it would not put me or the babies at risk, e.g. letting me deliver in my room rather than in the OR (which is standard with twins), although he had the OR team prepped and ready to go, waiting in the hallway just in case. I asked a local doula about him and she had a LOT of good things to say about both PNE as a hospital, and Dr. Austin in particular, based on clients she had worked with there.
From what I've heard, Lexington Medical Center and PNE are the only two really "natural-birth-friendly" hospitals in Columbia. I don't know anything about Covenant Birthing Center though.
Thank you so much from your input!
Just based on their websites, I was leaning toward either PNE or LexMed. The PNE website doesn't have a ton on info on it, so I am happy to hear your first-hand experience. It sounds like the doctors really tried to work with you when a lot of doctors wouldn't have due to the twin pregnancy.
Thanks so much for the info on Providence and the 2 drs.
I'm new in town (such is military life) and 5 weeks, due March 2nd, 2010.
I had to blindly pick a doctor from a list of approved physicians and went with Providence and Dr. Addy/Austin.
Since I didnt know who to pick, I went with a Catholic faith based place and it's great to hear how knowledgeable and friendly they are.
Thanks again for all the info! It calmed a lot of my fears of hoping the new dr would measure up to my last OB.
I'm guessing you already had your twins, so CONGRATS!
I'm way late on responding to this, so i hope you see it. I delivered my girls at Baptist and my boy at Lexington Medical Center. I had a c-section with both, so I don't have any experience with the natural birth, but I do want to say that I had a much better experience at Baptist. My experience wasn't necessarily bad at LMC, just better at Baptist. I just felt like the nurses cared more and took better care of me there.
Although I have to throw out there that my boy was in the special care nursery for a week, so I didn't have him in the room with me, so maybe thats why the nurses didn't seem to do as much for me. I kinda felt like maybe they would be a little more sensitive to my needs since I was an emotional trainwreck not being able to hold my baby or have him in the room with me, but really they just did the bare minimum to get by. I guess they were busy taking care of all the women with babies in their room. Although, maybe I was spoiled at baptist because I had 2 babies and so they really showered me with extra attention. LOL! I guess I'm not much help, am I?!
Good luck!
I'm not sure if you you'er still watching this thread, but I must tell you that I had my first baby last year at Covenant Birth Center and it was AMAZING!
We moved to Cola last summer and went to a big obgyn practice - and hated it. They gave me to understand that I should just let them give me the "right birth" - and that freaked me out. They assured me that I would probably "have to have" pitocin and they would certainly give me an epidural - in answer to my questions "how does your practice handle a desire for a med-free birth?" Hated them. Their C-section rate was way too high once we looked into it.
Went to Lisa Byrd at Covenant and got amazing prenatal care (hour-long appointments, complete care, excellent assistants and a truly attentive midwife).
The birth itself was incredible. I had a midwife, two assistant midwives and a nurse practitioner and felt totally safe at all times (plus, it's 3 minutes from Lexington Hospital and they are very clear about how quickly they will transfer you if you need it).
My husband and I plan to go their again if we have another baby. You really should just go and make an appointment for a tour - they'll be happy just to chat with you. It's wonderful!
Yes, I am still watching this thread! Thanks for the response! I am leaning toward Convenant Birth Center right now, but I am not sure if my insurance will cover it. Would you mind telling me which OB/GYN practice you went to that you didn't like?
Thanks again!
I'd like to hear more experiences if anyone has them!
Dr Filler at Women Physicians Associates behaved very badly to us. The practice has some great docs, but only the doc on call delivers your baby and I couldn't bear the thought that she might be the one on call when we went in. I did not like Filler one bit and did not trust her to listen to me when I was in labor, so we went to Covenant and never regretted it for one second.
Any anxiety about who delivered my baby was too much, so no matter who you choose make sure that you really trust them and your labor and delivery will be much less scary!
Oh my goodness. I am so glad to see your post because I was just looking into making an appointment with Women's Physician Associates. I hope you are still reading this post because I would love to know, if you will share, exactly what happened with Dr. Filler. I have a very specific birth plan and I EXPECT that to be followed during delivery.
When you went to Covenant, did you go to the appointments with her preferred OB or did you go to your own OB? I was curious to know the attitude of her OB that she sends her "clients" to. I have looked into Covenant, but have felt very apprehensive about that decision. I have certain beliefs and procedures that I want to opt out of, and I am afraid I may sign the contract, attend appointments and then the time may come where she says, "Sorry, I just can't attend to you because you want permit to such and such."
I am trying to find a place that is going to allow me to birth naturally and also respect my wishes for prenatal care as well. Anyone have suggestions on this, LET ME KNOW!
I wouldn't recommend Women's Physician Associates either. I had a VERY bad experience that caused panic with my husband and I and we ended up going to a fertility specialist who said that the doctor's tests were completely invalid. I spent a lot of money there for tests that were run incorrectly (while I was on birth control), and they were unsympathetic to the situation. It was such a large practice that I felt like cattle moving through the different waiting areas.
I now go to Carolina Women's Physicians in the Lexington Medical Park and love it there. Lexington Medical Center, in West Columbia, S.C was voted the Best Place to Have a Baby? by readers of Palmetto Parent.
When I was looking to switch OBs, I called around to a bunch of different practices. A friend of mine recommended Women's Physician's Associates, but I found out she wasn't interested in natural childbirth so she couldn't tell me how open to that they'd be. When I called, I wasn't that happy with their answers to my questions either. Plus from what I've heard, the nurses are almost more important than the dr in terms of your actual birth experience, since they're the ones who will be with you most of the time, and the nurses at Richland and Baptist don't tend to be very natural childbirth-friendly from what I've heard and tend to resist anything on your birth plan that is outside of how they are used to operating. A good friend of mine did manage to have a med-free childbirth at 42 weeks at Richland, but she had a doula and she and her husband were VERY well-prepared. (She said the medical team was actually really impressed b/c they don't see people do a full med-free birth very often, especially with a long labor like she had.)
Right now I am planning a birth at Covenant Birth Center. She requires you to have 2 prenatal appointments with her preferred OB (1st appointment and at 36 weeks) to verify that you are fit for an out of hospital birth, but the rest of the prenatal care is with her. If you set up a consultation with her, you can discuss all your preferences/beliefs at that time. If she is not willing (or legally able) to go along with what you want, you will find out then and only be out the $50 for the consultation. DH and I both felt that the consultation fee would have been worth it even if we had decided to not move forward with Covenant.