Cabrini Maternity

"We had the worst possible experience having our first baby here at Cabrini. Our obstetrician was absolutely Amazing and so were the beautiful midwives on the ward post birth. But unfortunately our baby girl had to go to special care and it was awful! I cant put into words how traumatizing and stressful it was to have our daughter in their special care nursery. Some of the nurses were extremely old school, so we had numerous disagreements on their extremely outdated/unscientific ways. Having a baby in special care is stressful enough let alone having to come up against old fashioned staff on a daily basis and asserting our wants for our daughter. We called RWH to ask if we could get transferred back to them (our daughter was taken to NICU there for the first week of her life then transferred back to Cabrini for the remaining 7 weeks) as we were in such shock at the stark difference between our experience there and Cabrini, it was like chalk and cheese. The service and support was outstanding at Royal Women's but you can't transfer back to a public hospital unfortunately once discharged. We even went so far as to print out the studies done by Monash and Royal women's hospital on the importance of skin to skin etc to show them. We were made to feel guilty on a daily basis for wanting to hold our baby girl hence me printing out the studies for them to read (even though it's not rocket science to know that babies need to be held close to their mothers) It is because of this place that we weren't able to establish breastfeeding even to this day (5 Months PP) as they didn't believe in skin to skin, and they weren't set up for privacy. You had to share a whole open room with the other parents and their bubs which was awful. Apparently they have had many complaints about it over the years and its been on their list to 'upgrade' but obviously ít has never been done. A family friend who is a NICU nurse at RWH told us that based on what we were experiencing we should actually report Cabrini for giving outdated and unscientific information that is detrimental to the health of our daughter and to forming a healthy attachment bond. Our experience was so bad that we were going to pay $3000 out of pocket to transfer her to Frances Perry where they were heavily supportive of breastfeeding and are up to date with the latest research on the importance of skin to skin contact. Especially for babies that are born prem like ours was. But due to our daughters fragile condition at that time it was advised we don't move her. Hopefully none of you reading this will have your baby have to go to special care but we didn't think we would either. So on the slight chance you might I would recommend having your baby at any other hospital in Melbourne but Cabrini. Unfortunately we will never forget the stress, trauma and anxiety we had to deal with at this hospital and for creating such bad memories you don't expect having your first baby that is meant to be an exciting and joyous time. We hope we can save you the same by deterring you from choosing here to have your babies just incase you were to have your bub taken to their special care unit. Sorry to write such a negative post for those reading but its the truth :("

"I've had a few sessions now with Dr Jolie Lawrence and I couldn't be happier. She is a compassionate, kind, intuitive paeditrician. She recommends evidence-based strategies after spending the time to understand your concerns and your baby's history. She is also very validating, and has a great sense of humour. I'm very grateful for her knowledge and skills. Krystel"

"Our experience with Cabrini Maternity was wonderful. From the birth, all the way through to the support we received from the Midwives and Nurses in our stay afterwards - everyone was supportive, attentive and caring. Thank you from a super happy first time mum and dad."

"Good private hospital. Parking is quite bad though even for taxis and ambulances. They have a non rebateable fee for attending the Emergency Department."

"I had my first baby there and I just loved it. I felt well and didn't fell stress or anything thanks to the staff and nurses. the prenatal classes were very good. I highly recommend this hospital at least for the maternity part."