delivery

Maternity package rates at Bumrungrad (Bangkok) and St Luke’s hospital (Manila)

28 September 2013 by Nathalie Abejero 4 Comments

As of this writing, the exchange rate is 30 Baht=US $1. So a normal delivery package at Bumgrungrad is US $1,196, while a C-section birth is US $3100. I was quite impressed with my experience at Samitivej hospital for our first child’s birth in 2011. I imagine the facilities in Bumrungrad, which is considered a higher-class (5star) facility, must be better.

In comparison, when we had our daughter in March this year in St Luke’s Hospital (Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Manila) the quote for a C-section delivery is PHP155,000-185,000 (US $3789-$4512) for 4-5 days’ hospitalization including delivery, recovery and nursery room charges, medicines and supplies used in the delivery room, hospitalization expenses (private room) and professional fees (OB-gyne, Pedia, Anesthesiologist). St Luke’s BGC is a similarly-billed 5star medical tourist hospital in Manila.

CAM01239 — This ad was posted in the elevators.

CAM01244.ped — Pediatric department lounge area, complete with a small play space.

Other posts on this topic:

Having a baby in Manila vs. Having a baby in Bangkok (for expatriates) Aug 10, 2013

Bumrungrad Hospital in pictures Aug 10, 2013

Giving birth in Manila vs Giving birth in Bangkok Jun 16, 2013

Living in Phnom Penh, Having a baby in Bangkok Feb 20, 2011

Chlong tonle – the other side of the river is so far for some women in Cambodia

10 April 2012 by Nathalie Abejero 1 Comment

A woman died today after giving birth to a healthy baby boy. We came to the health facility and saw her just in time to see the life fade from her eyes after hemorrhaging in the ward where there were four midwives and an obstetrician on duty. Only one staff was attending to the patient at the time of death – a student midwife. The student claimed she told the staff, but they were busy with other patients. The staff corroborated this. The fact that there was no prioritization for the emergency case is testament to how dysfunctional the health sector still is, and how poor the capacity of health staff are that this is allowed to happen. There won’t be a maternal audit, or changes to standard operating procedures, because this facility is not directly supported by a donor and the Ministry of Health is too poorly resourced and managed to do anything about just one case.

The term for childbirth in Khmer is chlong tonle, which literally means “crossing the river”; it’s dangerous and you don’t know if you’ll make it across. Death always leaves you stunned. It’s staggering when you see a case that was entirely preventable.

Read this related post written two years later on the silent courage of mothers in rural Cambodia.

a nursing mom at work

15 September 2011 by Nathalie Abejero 1 Comment

Having a baby is a life changer, and thankfully our life outside the US has been good for us. The social culture in SE Asia and my profession are both supportive of young families. Staff and diners here don’t cringe when we walk into a restaurant or food shop; instead they fight over who gets to hold the baby while we eat, and he’s returned to us with the bill. Second, we’re lucky that my employer is so supportive of new mothers. There’s a nursery at the office so nursing moms to bring our babies to work. My colleagues help make sure that I can pump on the days I don’t bring the baby by scheduling me into the meeting rooms. I have an unofficial flex time. And on travels I can bring the baby (and his nanny) with me.

My current work has to do with quality improvement of health facilities in USAID-supported provinces. Two of the three people on my team have young babies, and we bring them along with us to the health centers. Since my husband does freelance and can work anywhere there’s an internet connection, he often joins us on my work trips.

One of the areas my team is working on is improvement of labor and delivery procedures. We’ve watched several deliveries lately – an endlessly fascinating miracle to me. It brings me back to the time my son became real to me, a little someone in my arms… Check these photos out. The baby is 2.5kg.

Living in Phnom Penh, Having a baby in Bangkok

20 February 2011 by Nathalie Abejero 4 Comments

Photo by Keith A Kelly

CHOOSING THE HOSPITAL

We work and live in Phnom Penh, and wouldn’t feel comfortable with the specialists / facilities here in case of complications during delivery. The nearest city with internationally accredited care is Bangkok, so there we went at 35 weeks 6 days gestation, the latest we’re allowed to board a Thai Airways flight (with a fit-to-fly certificate from the doc).

Most of Bangkok’s well-known private facilities have high quality patient-oriented care and great customer service. They have translators, can take care of extending visas, take the baby’s passport photo (this isn’t easy so do get this done at the hospital!), get the birth certificate officially translated and documented at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and liaise on documentations necessary to register the birth at your particular embassy etc. Many people go to Bumrungrad Hospital; read this post and follow the link to her birth story at Bumrungrad here. This hospital is located in the neighborhood of Sukhumvit where many Arab nationals live, so the third spoken language is Arabic.

The delivery packages she quoted for Bumrungrad are comparable to those at Samitivej:

Natural birth/Water birth (3 days admission) 55,000Baht / US$1800 on exchange rate 30Baht=US$1
Natural birth with Epidural (3days admission) 68,000 Baht / US$2267
C-section (4days admission) 78,000Baht / US$2600

So I’d heard there is a ~90% c-section rate in private hospitals in Bangkok..? At any rate it’s high, but that’s due to a lot of other factors (including the Asian quest for luck, leading parents to schedule c-sections on the most propitious time and date for birth). [Read more…] about Living in Phnom Penh, Having a baby in Bangkok

The gestational journey ends

18 January 2010 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Thank you, everyone, for sharing advice, for the visits, calls and gifts, and all the well wishes! We’re still catching up with baby and sleep so for now, just a quick update :-)

Tristan Quinn Abejero Kelly — 2 days old

Above is his first passport photo, taken by the hospital’s photographer at about a day old.

We flew to Bangkok at 35 weeks, since the airlines don’t let you travel any later into the pregnancy than that as a precaution against having to deal with a woman in labor on board. Other mothers in Phnom Penh have driven either down to the border at Koh Kong (via a road that goes off the grid for a solid hour, as of 2010), or else up north through Poipet into Aranyaprathet, Thailand, and then bus/train it to Bangkok. But I just didn’t think I could handle that! The road to Poipet border crossing has much improved since I’ve been through it last, but decreasing the number of uncertainties while I’m heavily pregnant is a good thing!

My first groggy thought after waking up out of anesthesia and meeting our son was a dismal, “they mixed ours up with this cross-eyed Chinese baby”, but Hubby reassured me that from the time they took him out the Chinese-looking baby hasn’t left his sight. The baby’s filling out his features now, so my mixup worries are going away :-)

We had an unplanned c-section. First contractions were at 8am and by 1030am when we arrived at the hospital I was already 6cm. Between the pelvic girdle problem I’ve been having in the last trimester and the contractions, there was no respite from the pain so I asked for an epidural. Three hours later I was fully dilated but he wasn’t coming down fast enough and his vital signs were rapidly dropping, so I was wheeled into the OR. Apparently the cord had wrapped around his neck and arm, and he was losing oxygen rapidly. WHEW!

He came with big lungs and a small stomach – they say this is normal :-\ Thankfully he doesn’t use his lung power much :-) except when he’s getting his BCG shot :-(

Here he is in his bassinet :-)