It seems that any new expectant mother I meet will ask me about my birthing experience, particularly if they reside in Hong Kong.  I feel like I’ve told this story a million times and well, since some do ask and I do have pictures, I’m posting it here.  I will talk about costs, experience and drop in some pics (obviously not the ones where I look half myself).  In all fairness, this post is really focused on the private system in Hong Kong.  I personally haven’t gone through the public system, but I will make some mentions here because my sister has and friends have, so I will try to be as objective as possible when making comparisons.

 

Canossa Hospital (Caritas) is located in Central, Hong Kong.  It’s a private hospital that is probably not the cheapest, but not the most expensive.

 

For starters, if you’re giving birth to a baby in Hong Kong - BOOK EARLY!! Regardless of whether you’re going public or private, you have to book.  At the current time of this post, the Hong Kong Hospital Authority has closed public registration for expectant mothers to their hospitals (for non-residents) and my sister (who is expecting early October) only managed to secure 1 private hospital (Matilda).  During my pregnancy with Victoria, I booked about 7 months in advance and only secured 1 hospital (Canossa).  Sanitorium was fully booked very early on (part of the problem is the volume of mainland woman who are giving birth in Hong Kong).

 

Pre Birth

Your ob/gyn is usually the one giving birth to your baby if you’re going private.  They may recommend their resident hospital.  I would give them a birth plan (what type of birth, what kind of room - private, semi or ward, etc) ahead of time so that their “team” - like the anesthesiologist, is expecting you.

 

Do a hospital visit.  At least this way you’ll know where the main entrance is.  Take a look at the rooms physically.  Looking at pictures on the web won’t cut it because the stays at private hospitals are a minimum of 3 days and if you can’t live in the room, you’re not maximizing your value of stay.  For some hospitals, your visit is important because it means registering and leaving them money - yes! YOUR DEPOSIT!  At Canossa, the deposit was HKD $20,000 at least one month before your expected due date (EDD) or else you won’t get a spot.  At Matilda, they don’t require a deposit.

 

The Birth

Victoria’s birth was actually induced.  I was having “mild” contractions in the middle of the night of Feb 15.  They were coming at a rate of about 30 seconds every 2 minutes (sounds pretty close eh?).  We hop into a cab and make our way to the hospital (traffic-free).  Because you’re registered, getting checked in is easy.  A nurse checks my contractions (yup, every 2 minutes - but damn I wasn’t feeling anything) and then gets me prepped into the labour room.   The first thing I do when I realize I’m going into the labour room is request an epidural.  Here’s my take - I’m not getting a reward for going without and today’s technology enables women to have these luxuries, so why suffer unnecessarily?  I don’t want bragging rights and yes, there are risks, but giving birth in itself is a risk.  Yes, included (for free) with the epidural is vomit.  It happened both times for me.

 

The waiting time is the worst (not for me obviously, since I’m on a bed and warm and snuggly), but for Dennis.  He sits on this hard chair at 3 AM trying to sleep, which he still manages to pull off as I hear him snoring.  I think at one point he gets bored or pissed off that he goes home to get some food, his PSP, my NDS and our phone chargers.

 

In the early morning, my doctor comes in since he’s doing a scheduled C-section.  I’m only 3 cm dilated, my epidural has worn off and I’m feeling nothing (yah, no pain at all, although my contractions are still going on).  So I ask if I can go home.  Obviously not!  It’s then my doctor makes the call to induce the birth and at 11 AM or so, he comes back to break the water and deliver Victoria.

 

It was an easy birth.  Victoria came in at 5 pounds and 10 ounces.  1 stitch for the episiotomy and the rest is history.  The nurses were super nice.  It could be because my Cantonese is so broken that they felt sorry for me. 

 

Post Birth

They will take the baby away for her first bath.  At a private hospital, everything is pretty much done for you.  There is a nursery, so the baby resides there (unless you’re in a private room, then they baby can bunk with you).  They will provide the clothing, the booties, the wraps, the blankets, the diapers, works.  So you basically, get rolled into your room (I went semi-private) where you can rest.  The hospital also provides (as part of your package) disposable underwear, maternity pads, cotton pads for breastfeeding cleaning, squirt bottle, and bed protection sheets.

 

Breastfeeding

Feeding times are preset and they don’t push you to breastfeed, but there is a lactation nurse around the clock who can provide assistance.  Breastfeeding is becoming more common in Hong Kong, but it’s still not as popular as in Canada (where Vanessa was born).  They will bring the baby to you for the first day to breastfeed, but then afterwards, you have to retrieve the baby yourself.  It is recommended to feed in their feeding room, but I had visitors during those times and so I would feed in my bed while my guests were around.  This is so my guests could actually see and hold the baby (though they highly frown on that), but yah, rebel I am.  They are also VERY good with following your feeding orders.  Originally, I was exclusive breast (that meant, no sugared water or formula) and they followed that to a par.  On the second day, I decided to supplement formula after breastfeeding (since my milk hadn’t come in yet) as to prevent jaundice (once the liver kicks into gear digesting food, it reduces the chances of jaundice - so breastfed babies don’t really get food until your milk comes in). 

 

So basically, I stayed 3 days and the whole time, there is someone looking after your kid.  You can visit your kid anytime and they very strict with who carries the kid out (only the mom) and they will check your wrist ID with the baby’s.

 

The facilities

I stayed in a semi-private room.  My roomie was Singaporean, so we got along perfectly.  The room is pretty large with one sofa for each side and one hospital bed.  There are your usual curtains that provide privacy and two sinks (although at one end of the room) for each person.  There is a “water lady” who will refill your hot and cold drinking water and cleaning people who come in regularly to clear out the trash or collect food trays and stuff.

 

The washrooms are adequate and I did manage to shower and wash my hair while I was there (yes yes, dismissing Chinese traditions of not washing your hair, I couldn’t deal with dirty hair).  They can provide towels.  After the first day, they recommend you change out of their hospital gowns and into your own sleep wear.  The best is something that can button down in the front and is long.

 

The food though is pretty good.  Selection is great and they offer 3 choices for each meal (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner).  

 

The best thing about having a nursery is that you sleep in peace.  My recovery with Victoria was so much faster than Vanessa because of those solid hours of sleep - you’re only really woken to feed (on request).  The funny thing was, at the 4AM feeding, I was the ONLY mother there in the whole delivery ward - which meant, every other baby was getting supplements and that also meant every other mother was getting a solid 8 hours of sleep (at least!!).

 

The only hitch to this experience is that the rooms aren’t locked.  Unless you’re in a private room (you need a keypad entry), the room is open to basically anyone.  It was on the third day during a feeding session (both myself and my roomie were out) that someone had come into our room and stolen my wallet and my roomie’s phone.  OK, they do provide a safe (which I obviously didn’t use), but being Canadian and entirely trusting, I left my purse at my bedside and for the brief 15 minutes that the room was vacant, someone came in and swiped our stuff.  We reported it to the police, but in the end, there wasn’t much they could do.  So folks, lock it ALL up!

 

Baby Checks

There are a few tests that you can do for your baby (which are optional).  There’s a the hearing test, which you must have in written permission to do and can be done within 24 hours.  We also scheduled an ultra-sound on Victoria’s heart by a paediatric cardiologist because she had a heart murmur at birth.  It was a Sunday night, so our reluctant specialist still came in (at great costs) for 30 minutes to do the scan (ask me specifically for details on this, Dennis was ready to knock out the doctor because his attitude was so poor - but for professional sake, I won’t name names).

Cost

Hospital Service Charge  $25,825

Ob/Gyn Delivery Fee $24,000

Anesthiologist Fee $7,000

Paediactric Cardiologist Fee $6,000

Total $62,825

 

This cost is only the cost of the delivery.  The hospital service charge includes the room, use of equipment (ie: epidural, dressings, gowns, ultrasound).  The additional costs, like the ones you have to pay to see your ob/gyn is on top of this.  So basically to have a baby in Hong Kong can cost you an arm and a leg, especially if you go private.