Birth experience in Swiss hospitals/clinics -advice/tips/stories?

Family, Education, Health and Pets
41
You should pay the bills and claim the money from your insurer. Normally you have 30 days to pay them and if you send them to your insurer without delay you may get the money before payment is due. Normally the bill comes with a special copy for your insurer.

42
Congratulations!!!

For the big bills like the hospital stay when giving birth the insurance company is billed directly by the hospital. You get the bill only for the extras that are not covered such as telephone.

43
May I ask at which hospital you are giving birth? We are planning to go to La Tour, and were told that they do not do the walking epidural (ambulatory). They only have one anesthesiologist who is trained in the procedure, so maybe if he is on duty when you are there he could do it, but if he goes off duty you're out of luck...

Also, if anyone else is considering La Tour in the next year and a half, the hospital is undergoing construction and they have been relocated to a temporary area. Their delivery rooms seem quite nice except that they have no water baths (after construction all rooms will have them), and the area does have a temporary look. The rooms have exercise balls, reclining chairs for the coach, desk, CD player, etc. They have one Maya stool for giving birth, but I was told that few doctors actually use it (and apparently no doctors practice birth in water, even when available).

But also due to construction they essentially have no private rooms for after delivery, so partners are not allowed to stay overnight with the mom and baby. You are allowed to keep the baby with you at all times if you wish. All rooms are max 2 beds, though (but small, add 2 baby beds and there's no more room).

The hospital allows you to eat and drink during labor (until you have an epidural or other anaesthesia) if your doctor's okay with it. Epidural rate for first-time moms is 80%, C-section rate around 30% (but with some inflation due to moms who specifically request one).

44
AIUI, if you take the premium cover (i.e. the private room version) then there is a 12 month lockout for pregnancy / birth. You should still be covered under the basic insurance though.

FWIW we have basic-only insurance and our son was born at the Frauenklinik in Basel. The level of care and attention both before and after the birth was excellent; and today we have a healthy 5.5-month-old to show for it.

Cheers,

Nick

45
Sorry could not give reply earlier. Have given birth to a beautiful baby daughter on 26th september and have got back from the hospital only recently and am still recovering.

I gave birth in HUG as my insurance did not cover the private hospitals. Just to give an idea to other expectant mothers. The experience was mixed both good and bad. I started labour pains naturally and called up the emergency no. and went to the hospital when they asked me to.

I was given epidural on request after about 5 hrs. of labour when I was moved to the delivery room from the labour room, by a very good anaesthetist who was on duty that night and it took away all my pain( which was really unbearable by that time). The put a catheter and gave me a button to press everytime I felt that the pain was unbearable that would deliver a fresh load of pain killers. I even managed to sleep in that period it was so effective!! But then my labour got stagnanted and I had to undergo a caesarean after another 8 hrs.

The mid-wifes and the doctors on duty were very good till the recovery room. But obviously the staff in the post natal ward were not as good as they do have a lot of patients. Some days the mid-wifes on duty were very very good and somedays they were extar-ordinarily bad.All in all it was not a bad experience. But a word of caution although I guess there is no scientific proof, I wonder that supressing the pain thru an epidural hinders with the chances of having a normal labour. Although technically it shouldn't ! Just thought that you may want to consider this point and discuss witrh your doctor.

But then the pains were enough to make it partly bad.[quote=oneoverbeta;112573]May I ask at which hospital you are giving birth? We are planning to go to La Tour, and were told that they do not do the walking epidural (ambulatory). They only have one anesthesiologist who is trained in the procedure, so maybe if he is on duty when you are there he could do it, but if he goes off duty you're out of luck...

46
My doctor told me that if you request an upgrade on your insurance to full private before you are 9 weeks pregnant then they have to allow you to give birth privately....

Though I have had 2 kids - one in the UK and one here - and even though here was basic as I arrived pregnant it was much nicer than the UK

47
Here in Kt. Zug there are only 2 hospital choices- Kantonspital or Hirslanden. The way it works- depending on one's OB/GYN is where one delivers. I got lucky because my OB/GYN works for Hirslanden Klinik and I have basic coverage. One doesnt need private insurance to deliver in a private hospital as long as 1- it's within the caton and 2- they have enough open beds or 3- one is willing to pay the cost of an UPGRADE (half P or full P).I chose the half private because it allowed me to request my doctor to be there (basic one gets which ever DR. that is on duty)

The actually stay was great! Food was excellent. Nurses were 95% good. It was nice to give him up the 1st night since I was awake for 2 days straight with labor. I stayed a week after having a natural birth.

Must say after hearing about my sister in law's birth/hospital stay in the states, I'm happy to have given birth here

48
Anyone has a suggestion which hospital to go with twins in zurich or winterthur area?

thanks a lot,

Viktoria

49
I delivered in Wetzikon which wasnt bad but they arent big on pain killers or for that matter anything except natural birth . My best friend went to Hirslanden and they do there everything you want within reason of course . If I had to do it again Hislanden definitely !

50
thanks mamacass,

but it's a private hospital, right? i have basic health coverage. any idea for public one?

51
Again, I'll just say that wherever you go, make sure that you and your partner both understand the language of the medical folks (midwife, nurse, doctor, whatever) who are helping you. We ran into some troubles and I almost lost my mind! All is well with our now 2 year old, but I still have flashbacks!

52
I think certain health insurances allow you to bump up your coverage for the birth. I normally have half-private but paid the extra for full-private for the birth of my son.

I was also at Hirslanden and would really recommend it. I'm crap with pain so just got them to top me up with whatever they had - couldn't see a reason for heroics when there was a tempting epidural on offer .

53
so you do think that there is a big difference between private and public hospitals? besides privaterooms or being with couple of other mothers?

thanks

54
One quick comment to make:

My wife planned with the midwife to use the birthing bath thingy but when it came down to it, it was otherwise engaged.

The lesson being, plan all you like but the little bugger may have his or her own ideas as to timing and so on. So I wouldn'tget hung up on one way/style/time/place etc too much.

The important thing is the parenting afterwards.

55
Again my experience on this is that you plan a single private room and the reality is that the hospital only has three of them and they are all taken so you end up sharing with some poor woman that had a c-section in the middle of the night and when she's trying to rest you're friends are visiting and vice versa.

When I saw the nurses about it they just said "don't worry, we're only charging you for the shared room, you're not losing any money" which of course wasn't the point. I found the chief administrators office and gave her a fairly full and frank opinion of the quality of the hospital and it turned out that there were single rooms but the nurses hadn't done their jobs properly and cleaned them yet. Obviously a bollocking later and it was done. Dads, remember, its your job to be the bad guy so Mum's get their luxury.

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

56
Its a legal thing, you have about ten weeks from conception to change your level of coverage as long as its the same provider (I believe - check for yourself)

57
We managed to do it the week after my ante-natel weekend course when I was 35 weeks pregnant with no problems.

Apparently I could have bumped up the coverage from the delivery room, had I changed my mind at that point and some apparently do if they go through a difficult birth and would prefer their own room.

58
i 100% agree with that.

the only reason i am asking about choosing a hospital because i am expecting twins, and hear and read nothing but how many more complications it means comparing with singletons. so i'd like to find a facility which is experienced to help delivering twins.

thanks,Viktoria

59
Thats interesting Sandgrounder - lots of people on here say that there is a limit of 9 or 10 weeks from conception beyond which you can no longer have a private birth under the insurance policy - and would have to pay up to 25k CHF for the privilege - are you saying that at any time before birth you can increase the cover by increasing your premiums? if so, how much? bit worried about this as we are 12 weeks pregnant and will not be moving to CH until say 20 weeks...

60
I'm with Progres insurance and, after we had the antenatel weekend and visited the hospital at 35 weeks, I had a panic and said I wanted to upgrade from half to full private. Our insurance did it with no problems and just billed us for the difference. Can't remember how much it was, my husband sorted it all out as I was in no fit state to panic, speak German and rehash my insurance.

Another mum-to-be was with us on the course at a similar point in pregnancy and she did the same. She was with KBV.

The only thing I can think about the previous posts and the 10 week limit-thing is if you are trying to upgrade from basic to private. Maybe that is more of a problem.