Illinois Babies
Experiences at Northwestern Memorial Hospital
What experiences has anybody had delivering at Northwestern?
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What experiences has anybody had delivering at Northwestern?
Re: Experiences at Northwestern Memorial Hospital
I had a preemie born at 33 weeks as Prentice (Northwestern's Women's Hospital). Even though I didn't have a typical delivery, I can say that my experience there was fabulous. It is definitely a highly respected hospital. If you are in the city and have the option to choose Prentice for your delivery hospital, I highly recommend it.
They have a level III NICU (hopefully you won't need it) which is great. All rooms are private and beautiful
I felt a lot of pressure to just get the epidural quickly, let them break my water, was given picocin, and get the baby out. I honestly am still upset about how my delivery went (and the fact that my Dr. stripped my membranes - thereby inducing labor - because she was going to be on vacation the next week and she wanted me to have the baby that night because she was on call). She told me what she had done after the fact.
Facilities at Prentice are beautiful. Nurses were OK, one was helpful out of 3 and I had to sometime call for my pain meds because no one was checking in on me or watching the time.
Good luck wherever you go!
They saved my life! No Joke.
I was very happy with having my son at Prentice.
My son's first apgar was only a 2- there was a flurry of doctors and stuff going on right after he was born to make sure that he was okay (he was, just stunned). We had great nurses and I lucked out that my doctor was on call the day I delivered. I had to call for pain meds- but I expected to have to do that so it didn't bug me. I also liked that all of the nurses have training in breastfeeding and were very helpful with questions, concerns and initial problems we had.
The facilities are beautiful. I liked that I was in the same room for labor & delivery. And the view of the lake didn't hurt either.
I do think they are used to most women getting epidurals- so they do offer to put in a request for one when you are in triage. That being said I wanted an epidural- if I wanted to go natural, I probably would've found another hospital that had more natural births, etc.
Wherever you go- you need to make sure that you speak up. It is your body and your baby.
Nice advertisement. Consider yourself reported.
On the actual topic...my experience at Prentice was fantastic. I had an emergency induction due to a low fetal heart rate. My baby went into fetal distress about 4 hours in, and they were able to manage and care for me and my daughter to avoid a c-section (they do NOT encourage c-sections, as the poster above would have you believe) and to have a healthy vaginal birth.
On top of that, the facilities are very nice, with private rooms, flat-screen tvs, and internet connections. My nurses were wonderful and incredibly helpful to this first-time mom. Highly recommended.
I had a great experience at NM. I wanted a natural birth, but ended up with a c-section. But I had a super quick, easy recovery. The nurses were great - my L&D nurse was the sweetest, most caring woman EVER! She tried so hard to help me have a natural birth, but DD was sunny side up and had a huge head. She was a lactation consultant too and had us BF'ing right away. We had some latch problems later and the lactation consultant who came to our room was a beeotch - the nurses were more helpful. The TVs, food, nice rooms, free wireless internet, etc. all that is nice and makes your stay comfortable but don't pick based on that - pick a Dr or midwife you like and deliver where they deliver.
Regarding Rush - I have a friend who works at Rush and decided to deliver at NM. Imagine explaining that at work!
I had DS at Prentice last spring and overall the experience was OK. The delivery experinece was great but the post partum care left A LOT to be desired (see below for details). We LOVED the delivery room nurses. Once we moved to the postpartum floor the experience changed to OK. Overall knowing I was in a top-rate medical facility was the most comforting as I knew any complications would be taken care of on-site. I'll be going back for #2 in the fall.
We got to the room at 3am and went straight to sleep and had DS back in the room to try to nurse at 5a. The nurse said I should try breastfeeding and she'd be back in 10mins. to check on us. An HOUR later DS wouldn't wake up and the nurse came back and said we had to have a blood glucose test and if it was low then he'd have to have a bottle. Since I was adament about BF this didn't go over well with us. She didn't offer to help me with the breastfeeding (they're all trained to help new moms). Fortunately all of this occurred around a shift change we had a new nurse who worked with me a bit to get DS to breastfeed and eventually he latched on and was eating a little by mid-day. My other complaint is that other than taking out the trash in the room, no one ever came in to mop or sweep the floor and after being there a day it was pretty gross.