ChristianaCare Maternity

"My wife delivered here with her first child today and the care was top notch. The nursing staff were attentive and had wonderful bedside manner. We wanted a natural birth and they were respectful with all our wishes and didnt push anything on us we did not want. The midwife Amber was awesome. We definitely recommend them for childbirth."

"Edit 7/24- I talked to patient relations regarding the lack of communication with their induction process. They will discuss the breakdown and work on fixing the text system. Their induction process is HORRIBLE. So cold and impersonal. The lack of communication is disgraceful. All you get is a generic text about your scheduled induction. Then no call no text no communication when you get bumped. I’ve been bumped twice now. I understand other cases take priority and that birth can be/is unpredictable but the lack of communication is despicable. Everything else was phenomenal!!! Wonderful nurses in l&d and postpartum. It’s a clean and beautiful facility. Make sure you ASK for more supplies ie diapers and wipes (for both mom and baby), formula if needed, blankets, etc. they don’t provide a huge supply but if you ask most nurses will get it by the pack. Some were a little stingy and only gave a few diapers at a time. Just wait for shift change and ask again. Also I was NOT impressed with their lactation consultant KATE. Check out balanced breast feeding in Wilmington- they’re phenomenal and some insurance will cover in full."

"Please do not deliver here. Please. They absolutely ruined my birth experience, -and completely traumatized me, to the point where I will never again give birth in a hospital, I haven’t even sought ANY medical treatment since my stay here because I’m scared I’ll be treated the same way. I gave birth during Covid, so I spent the entire 9 months of my pregnancy routinely calling all hospitals and checking their policies, as I wanted my partner to be able to stay with me and my son. I chose not to go to my local hospital because Christiana continuously lied to me telling me their policy was that my partner could stay the whole time, I was told this up until I was admitted. I literally asked before being admitted, because if not I planned to go to another hospital. I was told an hour after giving birth, when I could no longer leave, that this was not the case. Then, after only being there a few hours, already given an epidural and put on pitocin, 6cm dialated, they started harassing me to allow them to break my water. Phrasing it to my partner as if it was necessary or the right thing to do, and I was convinced to do so. First I asked, is there any possibly effects to my son, and was told that nothing bad would happen. Come to find out, since I wasn’t dialated enough, the pitocin was making my uterus which now had no amniotic fluid in it, contract to the point that my sons umbilical cord was being compressed and his heart rate was dropping fast. I then had no option but to allow them to insert a saline catheter into my uterus. Then, a constant cycle of starting and stopping pitocin, as if they had no idea what to do with me. Keep in mind this was pretty much all done by nurses, we saw a doctor for maybe 30-40 minutes total of the 24 hours I was in labor here. The doctor didn’t even help DELIVER MY BABY! My BOYFRIEND had to hold my legs in the air as a nurse told me when to push. Never again, worst experience of my life. Now, I have a past history of drug use (years ago as a teenager, I’m now 21) , and despite the fact that it was years ago and have turned my life completely around, I was treated horribly. I was accused of having withdrawal symptoms, despite the fact that I haven’t used actual drugs in years. My son was kept for observation, where a doctor who had no experience in my sons “condition”, tried to tell us that due to my medication, he’d need to be given morphine, the “withdrawal symptoms” she was referring to, were normal newborn characteristics, such as sneezing and waking up anything less than 4 hours after the time he fell asleep! She told us that him peeing through his diaper, because it was originally mistaken for sweat, was a sure fire sign that my son needed to be medicated. Another doctor examined him and told us this was absolutely not the case. My son was in PERFECT health. He was treated horribly, I was treated horribly. After being lied to about the policy, they let us stay for 2 days, and transferred my son to the pediatric unit for a “mandatory observation period” where me and my partner were told that only one of us could stay with my son at a time. We had to choose between leaving my 2 day old son without his mother who was breastfeeding him, or having me stay with him without his father while I was near passing out from exhaustion due to hospital employees coming in even more regularly than the 4 hour intervals that they were supposed to, and waking both of us up each time. The majority of hospital staff didn’t care, and the ones who did admitted that we were being treated horribly but that due to policies, there was nothing they could do to help, in fear of retaliation. I left this hospital with every intention of suing, for the absolute medical NEGLECT and abuse me and my sweet, perfect, innocent son were subjected to. But due to the stress and PTSD caused by this whole experience, I couldn’t even bare to relive the experience and deal with having to constantly retell my experience. My son was born in January, it has taken me until now, July, to even gain the ability to tell it here."

"I moved and will be driving the full hour to deliver here again with my next child (god willing) because I had the best experience with my 1 baby here! I came in with preterm labor and for being an extremely scary situation, delivering a premature baby, the staff and hospital setup made it so comforting for me. From triage to the high risk delivery room to nicu I have NOTHING but amazing things to say. All doctors and nurses were incredible."

"I had a good experience with Christiana Care. There were two things only that set me back a bit but other than that they took care of my family. From the time I arrived and my child’s birth it was a 3 hour span on May 5th. I’ll start with they were overcrowded and one nurse told me they were trying to find me a room. While I was in the check in room I was told I might have to give birth in there and by then I was 5cm dilated. I was begging for the epidural by then because my contractions were back to back. When they finally did find me a room it was in the high risk area because nothing else was available. The room was big and it was quiet. But by the time the anesthesiologist arrived and put in my epidural it was too late. That is my second complaint. He stabbed me with the needle 3 times trying to get it right and told me I had a curvature to my spine which I do not. I’ve had my spine checked after a car crash injury in the past. That being said the epidural had no time to start and I dilated quickly to 10 and had a natural unmedicated birth that I was not prepared for. The nurses and midwife in the room were excellent even though they were short staffed do to the overcrowding of births that day. I did have to hold up my own legs while giving birth which I didn’t do with my first child so I’m unaware if that was normal procedure for this hospital. The best care came during postpartum. The room was very nice and the nurses took very good care of myself and my newborn. Even my husband was pleased with my postpartum care. They knew I had a very fast and abrupt delivery and always made sure I and my daughter felt safe, comfortable, and looked after properly. Shannon was my favorite nurse by far. She even sent us a card in the mail from the hospital with my daughters footprints. I loved it."