Hi,

Has any pregnant mum traveled back to Australia to have their baby or simply had it here. If you've had it here, did you have problems getting Aussie Citizen for your new baby? Just need some advice as I know the hospital system here for pregnant woman is different to Australia and I had my first in Australia and would like some feedback if it is worth traveling back to Australia to have my 2nd child.
Cheers!!

From most reports if you would like to have the option of receiving pain relief during the birth, as well as the option of staying in the hospital for more than 8 hours, then I would go back to Oz!

I think the current expert on this is Supasuze who chose door #2 last year:
http://supasuze.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/t...-midwife-mafia/

From what I've seen the Dutch are very focussed on a 'natural' birthing process, preferably in the home with a midwife, while in Australia you're much more likely to be drugged, gassed and sliced open.

Hi, thanks for the info. I already have a child and I gave birth in Australia and it was fantastic. I was not pushed into anything I didn't want and had a 100% natural birth. I am just concerned about all the red tape stuff over here and having a baby here, how it will impact on citizenship etc. Cheers!!

Hi

Assuming you are legal and have healthcare there is no problem with 'red tape'. I'm an australian citizen, had a baby in Amsterdam in 2006....as far as I recall, all children born to an australian citizen parent are automatically eligible for australian citizenship, wherever they are born. You do have to actively go through the application process for both citizenship and passport (it takes a couple of months) and beware that you have both in place before attempting to fly baby home to show to grandma. Call the friendly people at the Aust Embassy for details. You have to register the birth with the gemeente as well, for the NL authorities, within a couple of days, but that is an easy quick process.

Sterkte met je bevalling!

Hi,
Thank you for the feedback. I read up about it on the Australian Embassy website. It sounds pretty straight forward. Which hospital did you give birth in? The VU? Was it good? I am also comparing the hospitals here, I guess we are pretty spoiled with the private system in OZ as I had my own obstetrician etc. But that is not the case here. Anyway, thanks heaps for the feedback!

No problem. Yes - we had the birth at VU in Amsterdam, even though we were supposed to be at OLV in Oost. It was one of those rare days when all the babies are born simultaneously, so when we had to suddenly get to the hospital, there was no room at OLV. So be prepared to go with the flow. The OLV is very highly regarded but on the other hand we had a fantastic experience at VU and everything was fine in the end. I will never forget the doctor, at the critical moment, telling my wife in no uncertain terms...kom op meid, laat je man los, pak je benen en DUWEN!

The private Aust system may be good but I think the dutch midwife and kraambezorg service sytem is world-class. It allowed us to be home within 4 hours with a professional support network at our disposal for the next week or so. The chees-heads really are very sensible and pragmatic I think.

all the best.

Agree with Webdev. If you are after a natural birth at home, be it in bed or in a birthing pool, then NL is the place to be as it is the norm. It's also fantastic to have midwives and kraamzorgs looking after you without having to leave the house!

Of course, some people have horror stories but my wife and I thought the system here was fantastic, so much so that we will not return to Oz until we are sure we are not having any more kids...

(Our visit to St Lukas Andreas when the baby almost came too early was also very pleasant, if that helps, especially as we don't speak much Dutch...)

Phew!! Thanks for this information as I've heard so many horror stories and my sister here experienced some drama's herself so it made me really think about traveling back to OZ when I am pregnant. The positive feedback is great. Your Dutch is great by the way! Ik denk dat je het hier zo leuk vind dat je nooit naar Australie zou terugkeren!! Groetjes!

G

It is nice with the kraamzorg I guess and my first baby was premature, so as you can imagine I am very nervous about the 2nd, plus not being able to get an obstetrician over here will be a bit hard as I felt so much at ease knowing I could call my Dr whenever I was concerned. My sister gave birth here and the midwifes treated her really bad. She lost her baby and they basically left her with it for 4 weeks and said eventually it will fall out. Then when she fell pregnant again, she had really bad pains like contractions and she called the midwife and she told her, it was 4am and she was not coming over that if she is nervous to go to the hospital instead. It was pretty bad, so I am doing all my research in advance. At least I know there are some out there that are nice. Thanks for the feedback. Really appreciate it. Cheers. G

Hi golinm,
I'm Aussie and had my baby here last October. I had brilliant midwives - a practice with three women who were great the whole way through. We had no choice about a homebirth because of my age (38), so we were going to have the bub at the hospital anyway. It turned out a bit different than expected - instead of the all natural birth I was planning for, I ended up having a caesar under general because I got sick and the baby got distressed during labour. It was disappointing, but we were VERY well taken care of. The staff at MMC Veldhoven were wonderful - very reassuring and calm during what was a pretty torrid experience. I didn't have to beg for pain relief, they offered it to me (I think they could see I was a bit under the weather after 25 hours of labour ). They took good care of the baby during the first 24 hours after he was born, too.

The after care was great too. We stayed in hospital for a couple of days after the birth, and then were cared for at home by the kraamzorg. I agree with whoever it was that said NL is worldclass for after birth care. As well as the kraamzorg, we were visited by the midwives, the doctor, the person who tested the baby's hearing, and a lactation consultant. It was brilliant! And so wonderful a) not to have to lift a finger for the first few days, and to have someone to show me how to look after the baby.

Regarding registering the baby for citizenship purposes, I haven't done the Aussie side of it yet but my husband took care of the Dutch side (he's the Dutch one), and that was pretty easy. He registered the birth in Veldhoven, and then a few days later we got our papers from Valkenswaard (the gemeentes organise the transfer of paperwork themselves). We were planning to fly to Aus in December so had to move pretty fast to get a Dutch passport for the baby - he had his passport photo at 13 days, and a week later he received his own passport (no more putting the baby on a parent's passport these days). It's valid for five years, which should be interesting if we want to travel back to Aus when he's a toddler and his passport photo is of a newborn

About the Aus side of the paperwork, the Embassy advised me to wait until we'd returned to NL after our holiday, as if we applied for the baby's citizenship papers it would mean he was not allowed to travel on his Dutch passport (all returning Aussies have to travel on their Aussie documents, apparently), even if he hadn't received his Aus papers yet. You'll need to bear this in mind if your bub is going to have dual citizenship and you plan to travel back to Aus.


Hope all this helps! As someone else said, there are horror stories around the place but they're by no means the rule. Good luck!

Camilla

One thing that interests me is whether the dutch authorities will allow someone who has Dutch nationality/passport through birthright being allowed to take up a 2nd one without losing it?

Hi Camilla,

Thank you for your message. Sounds like you had a pretty hectic time, but it all went well in the end. It's good to hear some nice stories. I had my first almost 2 years ago at the SAN hospital in Sydney and that was fantastic. I had a premature baby and I was basically in hospital from week 32. Bub came at week 35 and 3 days. They really looked after me and I got so nervous when I heard all the stories here and thought what if I were to have a premie baby again. I had the obstetrician from 6 weeks into the pregnancy until she was born. When I went into labor I was so nervous but as soon as I heard my Dr. voice I was calm. So hearing that the midwifes take care of you here, makes me very nervous, but I guess they know what they are doing. My husband and I are both Aussie, so the baby will be Aussie too. We will not stay here forever so no point in getting Dutch citizenship, plus I don't know if that is even allowed as we are not Dutch. Thanks heaps for the feedback. Really do appreciate it.

As far as I know, dual nationality is not a problem here unless the other nationality is an EU one. You aren't allowed to hold two EU nationalities I think.

*musical interlude sponsored by Google*

Hmmm. I just found this: The Netherlands in Australia - Dual citizenship, which makes it seem a bit uncertain. I think I will contact the Australian Embassy to ask what the deal is from the Australian side - maybe they will also be able to advise on the situation from the NL point of view.

Golinm, glad to help! The midwives do seem to know what they're doing, and mine were very prompt about handing over my care to the gynaecologist when problems arose. I'm pretty sure you can ask to be put under the care of a gynaecologist as well as the midwives from the word go, especially given your previous experience with a premmie. You may find that the midwives are still involved in your care (e.g. monthly check-ups), but that's a good thing, because they're generally local to you and therefore easily accessible if you have a question or a concern. They also help you get organised for all the standard blood tests and ultrasounds, and they receive the results of these and keep records of progress, etc.

Camilla

If you have any medical problems or have had problems during previous births, you are not "allowed" to give birth at home in Holland and you will most likely not go to a midwife for your periodical check-ups but to a gynacologist at a nearby hospital instead and you can expect to give birth at the hospital too.

I guess it depends on why you were admitted at 32 weeks, but if you are at a higher risk for complications any midwife will refer you to a gynaecologist.

choose a midwife who can come to the hospital with you if needed - mine wasnt able to as we elected a hospital outside of her 'area' - so we got the hosptial midwife and she was a witch, decided that I was not to ask to see the doctor until 'she' decided it was necessary, but she didnt check my progress well enough to see that it was going much too fast. By the time she realised, I was fully dlilated (within 1.5 hours) and it was too late to give me anything to slow the contractions or painkillers. I got nothing till the spinal aneasthetic for the cesearian, and the pain was much worse than a normal labour because there were no gaps between contractions and the cervix was getting fairly traumatised. i think she had decided that I was just being weak or something regarding labour pains, but having experienced a 'normal' labour I knew that this one wasnt going well. Biggest problem - a midwife who didnt listen. All the nursing staff expressed their sympathies regarding the rapid labour afterwards.

Also regarding the follow up care - some lovely nurses and caring staff but too many people saying 'je moet dit doen' and none of them saying the same thing. If I hadnt already had the experience of breastfeeding my first child I swear I would have given up on this one after the second day, everyone had to have their ten cents worth and getting involved, the breast-feeding didnt go right till we were hme on our own and left in peace to get on with it.

Our kraamzorg was great, we had a lovely young woman who was very sweet and not at all the bossy man/women of the hospital ~~Also had the peace of mind that if we didnt like the kraamzorg worker appointed we could tell the company and they would send someone else. The only thing missing was we had asked for someone who could speak a bit of english because my mum was here too, and she didnt, but she was so sweet she tried really hard so i am not complaining

My main advice is to choose your own midwife and dont be afraid to check out as many as you need to find just the right one - mine were great only they couldnt come to the hospital in the end... And be prepared to be assertive with all the 'helpful advice' you are likely to recieve from people who assume they know best what you need.