Zedd

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I feel I must apologise in advance in case I'm being totally inept but I can't find information about how to apply for a dropped kerb anywhere on the Southwark Council website. Can anyone help, or at least tell me which department I need to phone if there is indeed nothing on the website? PS. I did do a search on here but can't find anything relevant either...

I've been following this thread with interest and I'm pleased to see that the excellent reputation that Kings has seems to be deserved contrary to my own experience. I gave birth at kings in october last year so a relatively recent experience. I had a complicated birth in the end and I agree that once things get "serious" the standard of care is excellent. Unfortunately, my experience for most of my labour was far less positive. It is a VERY long story but amongst other things we experienced rude, unhelpful staff; agency midwives who sent my partner to speak to doctors and demand their attention as the midwives felt they were not being listened to; a 2 hour wait for a doctor/ operating theatre while in the second stage of labour (incidentally I was told to "stop pushing" as the midwife was concerned about my heart-rate... is this even possible...?!?!); a doctor and midwife arguing in front of me about whether the baby was back-to-back (she was). They just seemed too busy and/ or understaffed and I feel this impacted massively on the standard of care I received. Once on the post-natal ward (and while this is not a nice place I'm not sure there is anything the NHS can do about the fact that 5 babies on one ward do not co-ordinate their feeding times!) I met 2 other women who had difficult experiences although at different ends of the spectrum. One woman had been induced and as it was her second she was very aware when things started to progress very quickly. SHe attempted to alert the midwives to this but was told that it was too soon for the labour to have progressed significantly so she should have a bath to help with the pain. She gave birth in the bath half an hour later, on her own. The other mum was scheduled for a planned C-section due to a breech baby. She went into spontaneous labour but had to wait for an operating theatre/ doctors for 6 hours. The baby then had to be pushed back up in order to be delivered by C-section. Finally, another friend (NCT) had to deliver a breech baby naturally as there were no operating theatres/ doctors available when she went into spontaneous labour. All of the bad stories I have heard seem to revolve around Kings just being too busy/ understaffed. Perhaps it is a victim of its own success?

hmmm not sure its heated enough (or at all) BUT... re the lack of tolerance for children in British society, I was in a department store cafe earlier this week where I headed in order to have a cup of tea and feed my 4 month old. I bought said cup of tea and I wheeled the buggy into a space between 2 tables. At the next table were two women that I would estimate were in their early 70s. They looked at me and my daughter as though we had just pooed on their table. Not sure what possessed me but I apologised (?!?) and assured them that we would not disturb their lunch. Why??? Why did I do that?!? It was a department store cafe on a weekday afternoon. Anyway, to cut a short story long, 40 minutes later my daughter became excited and squealed a couple of times. At this point one of the women turned and said "Oh but you've been so good. Don't spoil it now." Did I mention that my daughter is 4 months old? She wasn't being good or bad, she was being A BABY...! Anyway, my point is that I have only relatively recently joined the ranks of parenthood and I am by no means of the opinion that babies/ buggies etc entitle me to some sort of privileged treatment but this is only the latest experience that I have had that suggests that in this country some people have strange expectations of how babies should behave. Weird. Is this really only a British "thing"?