Giving Birth at Alta Bates
Hi Everyone,
I was wondering if those who have given birth at Alta Bates recently could share their experience there. I will most likely need a c-section and my preliminary research is showing service is lacking there, perhaps because they will be closing? If so, I am looking at CPMC and John Muir or any other non-Kaiser suggestions, as I have Blue Shield insurance.
Thanks! I'm due in February and will be a first time Mom.
Sep 8, 2016
Parent Replies
I had a c-section at Alta Bates in March, and it was a great experience. (My first was breech, also a c-section, and this was my second birth). The nursing staff were great, from checking in with labor and delivery to the post surgery care. I feel a little guilty about how easy everything was ... really great care. I don't know where you live, but Alta Bates is really he only place in the "inner" East Bay for c-section delivery if you don't have Kaiser, and I can't imagine driving into the city to deliver. Also: I think the grand plan is to eventually, in the next several years, to move the staff for labor and delivery from Alta Bates to another Sutter hospital (Summit). The staff would be the same. Really, the only bad thing about the whole experience was dealing with the terrible parking garage.
Good luck.
It's been a few years since I delivered at Alta Bates. But, I wanted to share that I had a very positive experience with Alta Bates. I gave birth twice there as a surrogate and I found them to be wonderful managing our less than typical situation, which included same sex parents, court ordered instructions about filing the birth certificate and child custody. We had great experiences both times! Good luck to you and your family.
I just had my first baby at Alta Bates a few weeks ago, and while our experience was difficult (unexpected induction and extremely LONG labor), we have nothing but praise for the L&D team. We were in L&D for 3 and a half days, interacted with 4 or 5 different doctors and probably 10+ nurses, and aside from 1 or 2 nurses whose bedside manner was somewhat lacking, we were very impressed. The team worked very hard to keep us informed of our options as our situation changed; they did everything they could to accommodate us and preserve the last shreds of our birth plan; and they were uniformly caring and kind. We did not have a great experience with postpartum nurses (bad and somewhat patronizing communication about our concerns around procedures/protocols for our baby's care) but that was probably due at least in part to how sleep-deprived and raw we were from our birth experience. Happy to go into more detail if you want -- contact me.
I had a good experience at Alta Bates 2.5 years ago. The nurses in both L&D and the post-delivery unit were so great that I wrote a letter to management about it. My daughter had to spend 48 hours in the NICU as well and the staff there were also fantastic, except for one nurse I didn't like - but that's life. Overall a great experience and I have no reservations about the plan to deliver my second child there this January.