Ob/hospital Recommendations

Dr. Zaft is great. She is now based out of Owings Mills but is worth the trip. She has her hospital priveleges at Sinai.

Check out Special Beginnings. http://specialbeginnings.reachlocal.net/

It's a bit of a hike for you, but they are very laid back. You can chose to birth in the center or in the hospital. Good luck.

St Joesph's was AWESOME!!!! I saw Dr Meera Rawtani. ###-###-####. Her staff was wonderful, she was excellent and St Joeseph's was a truely wonderful place to have our 2nd baby, who btw was just born this past feb. Sonograms were done at the hospital with state of the art equiptment. Everyone was wonderful there....I had my 1st child at GBMC, which was nice, but NOTHING compared to St Joeseph's. Good luck and hope you find a good Doctor and hospital.

I delivered at Franklin Square in Rossville 3 years ago and it was a great experience (other than the need for a C-section). I had a doula and felt I had the freedom to choose how I wanted things. My OB was in Bel Air (Drs London and Tran at Women's Care OBGYN, and they affiliated with that hospital). Good luck

I delivered at Franklin Square Hospital, and found it to be really nice. The labor/delivery nurses were wonderful - the postpartum nurses were just okay. And the lactation consultants were great. I would, and plan to have our second there. My doctor just moved away, but I go to see her partner now, and he's wonderful - Dr. James Thompson (search through Franklin Square OB/GYNs). His office is in White Marsh near the Avenue. While he didn't deliver us, I was very comfortable with him during my prenatal visits, and he actually 'turned' our little girl at 37 weeks since she was breeched. Many of my friends have him as their doctor, and the practice came highly recommended. I only chose his partner at first since she was a female doc.
Best of luck!

St Joes and GBMC are really nice and I have a lot of friends that speak highly about Franklin Square. I was supposed to go to GBMC but then my doc switched his privledges to St Joes 2 weeks before my delivery. I had no time for a tour. My first time there was not great, but my second was. good luck in your choice.

I had my daughter at St. Agnes Hospital. I knew how great thier NICU was from my niece being in there. When my little girl decided to come a few weeks early, my OB was on vacation. The on-call OB was at another hospital delivering another baby. Dr. Androde, who has an office at St. Agnes was there. I was lucky that he was. It turned out that my little girl was stuck and they had to use forceps to get her out. It turned out that Dr. Androde was one of the most skilled doctors in forcep deliveries. I was lucky. My little was not harmed at all. No bruising and no redness. I was not harmed either. I would suggest him and St. Agnes.

Then going to a hospital at all isn't going to work for you. That's just their policies these days, unfortunately. I had my first son at Mercy downtown, and had a forced emergency c-section, that to this day I don't think was necessary. For my second son I went to Franklin Square, on the recommendations of many others, took their birthing classes, which taught you techniques to deal with labor, and then was forced into a bed strapped to a monitor, unable to do any of those techniques, just like you said. Their excuse that time? I was high risk, since I was going for a VBAC. Good news, I got my VBAC, and didn't have another painful traumatizing cesarean. Bad news, it was still a birthing experience that was far from what I wanted. If you want to have a labor where you are in control, you are going to have to do midwives or a birthing center, or something like that. I'm not really sure where to recommend you go, but, if you go onto the Yahoo Group BaltAp (short for Baltimore Attachment Parenting) I KNOW that the very knowledgeable ladies there can help you find something. A lot of them have used birthing centers, or even had assisted home births, so they should give you some good resources to look into. Good luck!