Welcome to the Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit, we hope that your time in our care will be as happy and as comfortable as possible.
The Lister’s Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit opened in October 2011 and sees over 5,500 babies born every year. Our aim is to assist you to have a safe pregnancy and a healthy happy baby.
Organising your pregnancy care early has benefits for you and your baby. To do this, please download a referral form and send it back to us at earlybirdbooking.enh-tr@nhs.net . Once we receive this form we will send you your appointment to see a midwife within 10 working days.
Screening leaflet
Before you come to your first appointment, it is important that you read the screening leaflet as this contains information about screening tests which are available to you during your pregnancy. The midwife will discuss this further when you come for your first appointment.
Your antenatal care
In this part of our website, we’ve provided you with the following information: about your antenatal care:
- Antenatal care
- Health and wellbeing in pregnancy
- Birth choices
- Community midwives
- Events and tours
- Antenatal classes
Labour and birth
As you prepare for your labour and the birth of your baby, we’ve brought together a range of information that we hope you’ll find helpful:
- About labour
- Preparation for labour
- Encouraging labour over 37 weeks
- When to come into hospital
- Breast feeding
- Birth afterthoughts
Our facilities
In considering the facilities we have to offer here in the Lister’s Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit, these pages have been set up to help you understand them:
- Staying in hospital
- Midwife-led unit
- Consultant-led unit
- Gloucester ward
- Dacre ward
- Amenity rooms
- Day assessment unit/triage
- Specialist services
Here at the Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit, our team provides some specialist services for pregnant women and their babies:
- Fetal medicine
- Neonatal care
- Multiple pregnancy service
- Enhanced maternity services
- Our enhanced maternity service
Welcome to the Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage. We are proud to offer women and their families a range of enhanced maternity services, delivered by our experienced and compassionate midwives. The services we provide are in addition to those everyone is offered through the NHS.
Our services
- Scans
- Hypnobirthing
- Active birth workshop
- Post-date complementary therapy clinic
- Non-invasive prenatal testing
You can choose to have your baby at home, in our midwife-led unit, or in the consultant-led unit that provides care for women with more complicated pregnancies.
Currently we have five birthing pools in the maternity unit that may be used for labour and/or birth, including one in our consultant-led unit.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidelines
To keep the women in our care and staff safe, there are restrictions on who can attend our maternity unit:
- One named birthing partner is allowed to attend throughout the birthing process, including labour.
- The named birthing partner can also attend all other assessments which are undertaken in an individual room on the consultant-led unit (CLU) or midwifery-led unit (MLU). This person cannot be swapped.
- Women can be accompanied by a nominated partner or chosen support for all scans and prenatal appointments.
- Women can be accompanied by one nominated birth partner when admitted to the Dacre ward at Lister Hospital’s Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit for an elective caesarean section, or when admitted for induction of labour up until 9:00pm in the evening.
- Women can be joined on the antenatal (Dacre) and postnatal (Gloucester) wards at Lister Hospital’s Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit by one nominated birth partner, who will be given a specified visiting slot of at least an hour.
No one else, including children, is able to attend at any time, until further notice.
You can read more information on our COVID-19 maternity restrictions page which explains in what settings your nominated partner can attend, and dates for any further easing of restrictions.
You can also find out more about our COVID-19 maternity restrictions by reading our frequently asked questions page. You may need to refresh the page to see the latest information.
If you have read these, but have further questions which haven’t been answered – please contact your community midwife.
Feedback
We have had positive feedback from mothers using the services, including from one mother:
“From the moment I was admitted until the time that my baby and I were discharged, the staff at Lister hospital were absolutely amazing. The midwives that assisted me in particular were wonderful, professional and extremely supportive.”
If you would like to give birth at the Diamond Jubilee Maternity Unit or would like some help to choose where to give birth, take a look at our virtual tour. You can also book directly with us by using the Early Bird Referral booking form.
Maternity and Perinatal Audit
The Trust is taking part in the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA). The aim of the NMPA is to study how mothers and babies are cared for in maternity units across England, Scotland and Wales. It will make it easier for units to monitor the care they provide. The audit will include information about all mothers who have a baby after 1 April 2014.
Click here to read the NMPA leaflet or visit www.maternityaudit.org.uk
National safety thermometer audit programme
The hospital and community midwifery teams participate in the national safety thermometer audit programme. This is a snapshot audit carried out on one day each month looking at harms within maternity care. This data helps us to continually review and improve our services. Click here to view our maternity safety thermometer data.
Lister Maternity Voices
The Lister Maternity Voices group listen to, and seek out, the voices of women, families and carers using maternity services, enabling people from diverse communities to have a voice. The group includes a combination of service users, hospital staff, commissioning groups, GPs and volunteers and they hold regular meetings locally. Visit their Facebook page to find out more.
