Birthplace Review - A Premium Birthing Experience

This is a review of Birthplace Hospital (http://www.thebirthplace.com/).

I consulted with Dr. Pratibha Narayan in Birthplace Hospital Gachchibowli during my pregnancy. And delivered a baby boy in Birthplace Hospital Banjara Hills under her observation. I opted for a delivery package in Birthplace. I will give the complete experience 4.5 stars. Here is my review on the whole process i.e. pre-delivery consultation along with delivery package experience.

Please feel free to drop your comments in case you have any doubts or queries, I will try my best to reply them.

Pre-delivery Consultation

I started going to Birthplace from my 7^th week of pregnancy, I consulted Dr. Pratibha there. In the very first consultation, the very first thing Dr. Pratibha said was –

Pregnancy is not a disease so don’t take it like that.

This was very different from what I have heard about other doctors from other people. Given that I have very little trust on the need of tests and medicines doctors prescribe, Birthplace was a comforting experience.

No waiting time

Waiting time for consultation is almost NIL in Birthplace. During all my visits I had to wait for 15 mins only once, that too because Dr. Pratibha got busy in some emergency. In rest of the visits, I never had to wait.

Scanning Experience

For scan, I saw Dr. Gauri there. Scanning experiences with Dr. Gauri were very good. She insists of having at least one family member while doing scan. At times, my husband and mother were there, together. She does scan along with explaining baby movements and baby organ development. They have something called 4D scan facility integrated with their scans. You can see your baby’s face using this 4D scan, here is how the 4D scan image looks like -

No pushing for unnecessary tests

During my second scan which happened at 16 weeks I think (I forgot exact week count), I was advised to go through few more tests to ascertain couple of genetic disorders and fetal anomalies like down-syndrome etc. But we were not willing to go through those tests, we had my own reasons for this decision. They respected our decision and did not force us to go through those tests.

Delivery Experience

Prompt response

My water broke in the morning and we reached to the hospital around 9 am. As soon as we entered in the hospital and informed reception about my condition, the reception lady called for wheelchair. Then I got into the wheelchair and they escorted me to one of the delivery rooms. There they tested whether water actually broke. On positive confirmation I was sent for scan. During scan, the Dr. (I forgot her name) informed me that my water level dropped to critical level (5% I think, anything below 10% is considered not good). Till that time I was not getting labor pains.

In next 10 minutes Dr. Pratibha visited me and informed that I need to go through emergency c-section as inducing labor might take time and waiting might harm the baby as water level is critically low. At 11 am they started preparing for the c-section and baby was out at 1 pm.

Overall, the process was really fast and the Dr. kept us informed about what is happening and why it’s happening. Their staff took care of everything including taking me to scan, changing clothes etc. My family had to worry about nothing.

Also, my husband was with me during the c-section. He witnessed everything live and it was an amazing experience for him as well.

First Breast feeding experience

Post operation I was shifted to the ICU for couple of hours. At around 2 pm one nurse came with my baby and informed me that I need to breastfeed the baby. Given that I was under the effect of anesthesia, she herself took care of feeding the baby using my milk. It was amazing experience seeing the baby feeding for the very first time. The nurse was very trained and expert in breast feeding.

Amazing Room

Later around 4 pm I was shifted out of ICU to the regular room. The room was very different than a regular hospital room. It has got a bed for mother, small bed for the baby and sofa cum bed for the attendant along with other furniture like table and cupboards. The bathroom was quite big and it had towel, bathing kit etc. It also had tissues which they kept refilling on regular intervals. The bathroom was very clean. Overall, the room was like a proper hotel room with mother and baby beds.

 

There was no limit to number of people who can visit us, this was also a delight because normally hospitals allow only one or two people in the room at once.

Set of clothes and Diapers

There was one pack of diapers, one pack of wet tissues available in the room. One petroleum jelly was also there. These are very basic things which are needed for the infants and we often forget to pack them. It was great relief seeing these things already available in the room.

Well trained Nurses

The pediatrician informed us that baby needs to be feeded in every 2 hours for initial 10 days. To my surprise the nurses came at regular interval of 2 hours for helping in feeding. Given that I was totally new to the concept of feeding, they helped me by explaining tips and tricks of the feeding. They also helped me in learning changing diaper of the baby, giving sponge bath to the baby etc.

Child Vaccination

Child vaccination was also part of the package, three vaccines were given to the baby – BCG, OPV, Hep B1.

Surprise Gifts

The management will keep you surprised by giving surprise gifts when you are least expecting it. I am not disclosing what those surprises are so that you can experience then by yourself.

Family Photo shoot

They also do a family photoshoot as a part of package itself. A well trained photographer came on the 3^rd day and took our photos. I am still waiting for the soft copy of the pics but it felt good to have a photoshoot with newborn baby.

Few Tips

If you are going for Birthplace then following tips might help you -

Tips about Pre-delivery Consultation

• In Gachibowli, consultation timings are in the evening, the doctors come for 2-3 hours. So most of the times it’s tough to find an available slot for the same day. So please try to book a slot one or two days in advance. If you are going to Banjara hills then I think finding a slot is not a problem I think.
• They have corporate discount in delivery packages for few IT companies so do ask for the same. Based on my understanding, they give 20k discount to Microsoft and TCS people. Also, once you book delivery package there, you can avail 10% discount in each lab investigation. So better to book for the package early as it will save you lots of money in lab investigations.

Tips about Delivery Admission 

• They provide only one set of baby clothes on the very first day baby is born, this includes one baby towel and one baby cloth . For rest two days you have to arrange baby clothes by yourself. So please make sure to pack at least two set of clothes and at least two towels. Few babies have a habit of scratching themselves so pack one or two set of mittens as well.

• Similarly for mother, they provide dress only for one day. So please make sure to pack dress for mother as well for at least two days. Remember that mother needs to feed the baby post birth, so mother’s dress should be convenient enough to help in feeding. There are various feeding gowns available in market, you can choose and buy them based on your preference.

• They provide daily three times food that is included in the package itself – breakfast, lunch and dinner.  They do not have in-house pantry or canteen available, so they order food from a nearby veg restaurant called Basil. I found that food to be very average quality, it’s good for a normal person but it’s not that suitable for a mother who got c-section done one or two days before. Even for a mother who got normal delivery done, the food is not that suitable. So please make sure to pre-arrange food like daliya, khichdi etc based on your food preference. However they provide complementary coconut water and tetra pack juices which can happily be consumed by the mother. 

You can order these infant tshirts from Amazon, I have bought these and I can say that they are very good for infants. These tshirts have buttons in front so its easier to put them on to the baby. 

Here is the Amazon link to order baby towels (and hooded blanket), these are the ones which I recommend based on my experience - hooded blanket and towel combo.

Here is the Amazon link to buy mittens, booty and cap set, these are the ones which I bought.

Also, here is the Amazon link to buy Maternity top.

Why Birthplace doesn't deserve 5 stars?

Although my experience with Birthplace was awesome but there were few glitches too which, if improved, will make the complete experience better.

• The discharge experience was not that smooth. We were supposed to be discharged on Thursday morning post Doctor visit. In her visit, the doctor told that I am fit to be discharged. But then there was no update from the hospital management side. My husband has to call the reception and asked to initiate the process. He did that at around 11 am. There was no update since then. After several reminders, the discharge process was completed around 4 pm. 
• From billing point of view, the bill was around 1.7k more than the package we opted for. When my husband asked for the reason, they did not had proper explanation. The reception people did not have much idea about the tests against which extra bill has been added so they asked to talk to the nurses. The nurses had no idea about the package thing so they reverted us back to the reception. Overall, we were not satisfied with the explanation given. Since it was not that big amount we decided to let it go and did the payment.
• Post discharge follow-up was not that good. At the day of discharge Dr. Pratibha asked me to meet after one week. My one week was completing on Thursday but on Thursday Dr. Pratibha is not available in Gachibowli so I tried booking an appointment for Friday but all slots we full, same was the story for Saturday. I got worried as I was under assumption I need to get my stiches removed on Thursday itself so I asked for an alternative doctor. Birthplace front desk suggested Dr. Shilpi. When I met Dr. Shilpi she informed me that stitches are dissoluble ones so no need to remove them explicitly. She said they always use dissoluble type of stitches only. She asked me to consult with Dr. Pratibha anyways within next one week. If I would have known that my stitches need not to be removed explicitly then I would not have been worried about meeting Dr. on the very scheduled day. Ideally this fact should have been mentioned during discharge itself.
• Though family photo shoot came as a surprise to us, we are still waiting for the photos. While photo shoot the photographer informed me that the photos will be emailed to us. We waited for more than one week, then I emailed Birthplace about the same. They called me and informed that photos are ready in CD and I need to collect them from Banjara Hills Birthplace front desk. This was little disappointing as we thought we will get them in the email. We are still not getting the time to go to Banjara Hills and collect the CD so we are still waiting for the photos.
• Though the nurses are very well trained and professional but sometimes when I asked for a nurse and the nurse is busy catering other babies or mothers, they used to forget my request. I had to call multiple times to get the nurse. This could have been improved by keeping track of all the requests.

Please drop your comments below in case you have queries about Birthplace Hospital, I will try my best to help you with the answers.