Pregnancy and birth

[Meike]

Hello,

my husband, my 1 year old doughter and I are moving to Singapore in february.
Can anybody tell me a good paediatrician and (since I am pregnant) a gynaecologist???
Furthermore I would like to have some informations about "birth in Singapore". Whats usual? Which hospital is recommendable? Is it usual to have a midwife? Where can I get more informations about that?

Thanks!

[**StReSsEd**]

For your unborn child:

a few hospitals for u to choose from with variety price range at differrent location.

Mount Alvernia Hospital (highly recommended by ME)
http://www.mtalvernia-hospital.org/womenchildren.html
East Shore Hospital
http://www.eastshore.com.sg/
KK Hospital (most common hospital for delivery)
http://www.kkh.com.sg
Mount Elizabeth Hospital
http://www.mountelizabeth.com.sg/

Each hospital has a number of gynae either you pick one of them or you can go through yellow pages to pick one.
My gynae Dr Loke Kah Leong delivered 2 babies for me and ratings for him.. A++ http://www.drloke.com.sg/

As for your daughter, i can only recomend my children's PD.

The paediatric & Family Medical Centre
Address : Blk 139 Tampines St 11 #01-52 Singapore 521139 Telephone : 6783 8743

Hope you'll find the above information useful.. Good Luck[/url]

[Meike]

Thanks for this really usefull information

Can you also tell me something about the "procedures" during delivery?
Is it kind of natural, what means, that they support you in everything you need? Is it quiet and a relaxing atmosphere? Is there a midwife, who looks after you during delivery (thats normal in Germany)? Is the gynaeologist there all the time or only at the end?

Do you know, if I can go home a few hours after delivery, if everything is ok with me and the baby?

Thanks for your help!

[**StReSsEd**]

When you're having your constant contraction of 10 mins interval (signs of labour), for my case.. I'll give the doc a call (24hrs) on his mobile or pager after which doc will give you a green light to proceed to hospital.

For Mount Alvernia, KKH and Thomson (not very sure about the other hospital, u may want to check their website) you will be sent to the delivery suite after being admitted where you'll stay throughout labour process. (One mother per suite) There'll be a TV in the suite, usually 1 or 2 nurses will be around to help you throughout the labour. Of course your hubby will be allowed to stay in the suite with you.

Gynae will come by and check on your progress then they'll leave. They'll only be back after receiving calls from nurse when you're in the last stage of labour. The nurses will not be in the room all the time but they'll come by once in a while to check on your progress.

After baby has arrived, they'll try to latch on baby unless you wanted baby to take formula milk. Then you'll proceed to the ward and baby to the nursery. Usually without any complication, mummy and baby will be allowed to go home on the 3rd day. I've never tried asking for early discharge so I won't be able to help you on that. But you can try asking your gynae when you've arrived in Singapore..

[Patrick777]

We've just gone through it all as Expat and the whole thing is a bit of a nightmare to be honest ...

The service as a rule is good but somethings aren't as good as you'd think we went Mount Elizabeth and everything was fine but it was only to the standard of a normal none private UK hospital with a few little extras. They are all clean and no issues and all the care is good!

We arrived with 6-8 weeks before the birth so we were a little rushed in our choice it would have been nice to have had longer to look around!

Go round them all and have a good look, apparently if anything complicated happens you will be transferred to the KKK hospital as that seems to have more equipment.

A few things to note ...

The gyne's come in at the last moment and steal the glory! 8) The popular ones can charge as much as 1800 for a normal delivery cheaper ones start at around 600-800 sing.

Most Gynes do packages starting relativley early in the pregnancy and it covers you for all the scans etc, without this they may charge between 80-100 per consulation and 50 dollars per scan. They love scanning and it not uncommon to scan everyweek if you don't say anything.

If you can neg the delivery cost in your package do so with relocation package etc. We were lucky we had a 2 night stay and with a natural birth with a few stiches it was just over 4,500. We used Dolly Wee and other than her stitches we are happy a little undecided about that at the moment! I spoke to a taxi driver who had a 4 week premature baby and had a bill of 36k due to being in the high depandancy ward etc. I know that's extreme but I hated not knowing what the cost would be I set aside 12k which is slightly over the top for a expensive emergency CS.

Gynaes are like salespeople and you will have loads of choice etc! It can be xpensive to meet them all at 10 sing a pop but you need to be happy.

A good website for info and it has a forum for anything and everything for babies.

[Patrick777]

It seems the thing has a blocker stopping you from putting web site addresses in ...

www then that is followed by . and then it's dot com!

[sundaymorningstaple]

Let's see now:

http://www.kkh.com.sg/

Seems to working fine. You must be doing something wrong. Go back and edit your message to see if it will work now.

sms

[Patrick777]

seach for .

[Patrick777]

seems like they want to block the site I want to reference

Add one letter to the following .

for example if I put a it means b, z is a
www.hcazax.com

[Patrick777]

doh it should have been

www.hcnazax.com

[hlitan]

Hi Meika,

Welcome to Singapore!

I delivered both of my children in East Shore Hospital. There are a few hospitals like Mount Elizabeth (Orchard) and Glenagles (Tanglin area). Another popular hospital will be Thomson Medical Centre.
The service at East Shore is excellent.

Regards,
Irene

[Meike]

Hi Irene,

thanks for the informations. I will check it out once we arrived in Singapore at 24. february!

Another question:

Do you know a good and friendly pediatric in the near of Woodlands??

Thank you for your help javascript:emoticon(':)')
Smile

Regards Meike

[Ma'am]

The standard of medical care here is very good. However there is a definite trend to fast, high-intervention labor - the only way to avoid this is to choose your OB carefully. Both TC Chang and Paul Tseng are used and recommended extensively with-in the expat comunity - they are very open to birth plans, doulas and natural, low-intervention births. Yet they are both extremely competent when any difficulties arise. I've delivered with TC and most of my friends had deliveries with either him or Paul Tseng - and we all had positive experiences.

I strongly recommend that you get a doula though. The experience is more doctor led here as opposed to having a midwife with you at all times and you wont necessarily see your doctor that much for the actual labor until the very end. I had a doula the first time (from Birth & Beyond - as the previous poster said they are very good) which I will do with my second. She was a qualified French midwife who had been in Sinagapore for many years. She stayed with my husband and I throughout the labor and was able to help with the communication between hospital staff and my husband and I. You are in a foreign country - no matter how good the nursing staff are (and I had no complaints) they will be in and out the whole time, communication may not be that good and you will sometimes be left feeling quite lost. Having a doula will side-step all of those issues and they are there to help you and your partner - not to take over. They simply guide you through everything. We had a great relationship with her and she helped me to have a drug free birth. My husband was a very important part of that process but we both seriously doubt I would have done it without her.

My doula has since left Singapore but TC has a British midwife working for him as a doula - I am using her for my second child. Even though I've been through it all before I've heard so many dreadful stories (first-hand accounts) of mums being left on their own, forced into unwanted and uneccessary procedures for the 'ease' of it and not knowing what was going on because no one bothered to answer their questions - there is no way I would give birth with out one. Dr Tseng will recommend many good doulas as well - most are connected to either B&B or Mother and Child. Like B&B, Mother and Child does some fantastic pre and post natal classes on breast-feeding, baby care, excercise, ante-natal etc. They also have a very good breast-feeding consultant if you face difficulties later on.

Sorry this has turned into an epic response - I hope it helps and good luck!

[Meike]

Thank you so much for the really helpful informations. You answerd a lot of my questions and I am relieved to hear that you had a natural, low-intervention birth.
Did I understad it right, that the doula attend you through pregnancy?

[Ma'am]

I see the one I'm using for this birth everytime I go to the doctor (she is based with him) but the 'service' includes contact in the last week of the pregnancy (or more if you are over-due) and a check-up at home during the week after the birth. Once you go into labor you call her and she will come to your home and stay with you until you go to hospital. She will stay with you in the delivery room until the baby is born. For my first birth my doula came around early in the morning (about 4am), we all piled into a cab once my contractions were close enough together to go to the hospital and she then stayed until about half an hour after my baby was born. If you are having a fast labor they may end up meeting you at the hospital - I'm half expecting that to happen with this one as my first was quite fast.

The service may differ slightly from doula to doula but will be essentially the same. Just make sure she is a qualified midwife in her own county and that both you and your husband feel comfortable with her.