Childbirth in Poland - can you please tell your experience?

My husband received an job opportunity that requires us to move to Poland , we are planned to be based in Krakow, and we will probably have Lux Med insurance.

The thing is that we found out i am pregnant, which is great news, however I'm trying to understand how its like to give birth in Poland. From what i've read so far- it happens only in govermant hospitals and it doesn't really matter if you have private insurance or not, you need to bribe everybody from the doorman to the doctors, and if you don't know polish, well.. its not good.

I couldn't find any info from the last years and I read these stuff at threads from 2008-2009. is it still like that?
can my husband be with me during labor, can you please tell about your experience?

Obviously its a serious consideration, and in a way the decision whether take the job or not will very much depend on that..
Please help us with as much information as possible, thank you!

Hi there, congratulations! First of all. Well going to Poland and having your baby there hopefully will be not the disaster zone the NHS is. My wife is also pregnant at the moment and she is returning to live full time in Poland and have the baby there, we are going to use SwissMed or Medicom not sure which yet.

Don't be freaked out by the 'bribery' thing, it is completely overblown, yes gifts and tips will go along way, but they do in any country. The chances are your medical team will speak English. Going private will take away many of the stresses, you don't need to bride a private doctor, he is already wealthy, private room, more attentive care etc. I am so happy my kid is going to be born in Poland.

At the end of the day, your kid might decided to arrive when you are in the cinema, the middle of the street and then well the whole stress becomes irrelevant.

My advice, don't worry yourself too much, just concentrate on helping your man pursue his career and you staying healthy and being happy and positive.

Go private if you can.

Good luck :)

I am American and have given birth to two babies here in Poland, but quite far from Krakow. I am up north closer to Bialystok. I had a great experience. I would highly suggest getting in to the doc as soon as you can so you can get to know them and also tour the hospital.

My OB was the OBGYN hospital director, we did give him an envelope after but it was not implied that we needed to. I also took prenatal classes from a midwife that works in the hospital so I already knew her.

I ended up with a c-section after 13 hours laboring and it all went great. Hubby needed to translate for me in the operating room, so they allowed hi in. But that is not normal as far as I know here, he was not allowed in for my second child's c-section, but I was ok and my Polish was pretty good by then.

When I was laboring he was in the room with me all the time. We took the only private room in the OB section and payed a whopping 250zl for the whole week. I think it would do you well to get in and make a list of all teh questions that you have and do it as soon as possible.

Is your husband Polish? Do either of you speak Polish? There is quite a large expat community down and I know several in that area that home school, they might be able to help you out by figuring out which doctors speak English well, which hospitals work well with expats etc

Also I read this ladies blog and she has a 3 part blog about having a baby in Poland. I think (not sure) that she is ibn Krakow, so maybe you can contact her for help!

kielbasastories.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-you-wanna-have-baby-in-poland.html

Hey Bina,
I must say it's not too bad to give birth in Poland. I gave birth in Gdansk two months ago.
I had the Lux Med insurance for pregnancy checking, they are fine.
I did a hospital tour and finally chose the public hospital instead of the private one, because the private one has private rooms that look newer and more nurse to care, but except that there's no obvious advantage.

I gave the hospital my birth plan, and they did follow it.
About bribing, I heard some people doing it but it's fine if you don't. I didn't, the doctor and nurse is fine, most of them are quite friendly. They speak English, some speak better than others, but usually at least enough to communicate the basic things.

After giving birth its a little bit difficult, because in this hospital mostly there are 4 woman in a room with toilet outside, I'm lucky enough to be in a room with only two and attached bathroom, but my husband are not allowed to spend the night there. If you go to private hospital, probably you can enjoy better room and more care after giving birth.

Every hospital is different, you might want to do a hospital tour to choose the one you like, it's important to know:
Which position you can use to give birth?
Is it possible to give birth in the water?
Etc

Anyway I think giving birth in poland is fine, good luck!

Merged: Cost of childbirth at Centrum Damiana?

Does anybody know how much it costs to give birth at Centrum Damiana?

it was around 11 000 PLN ...5 years ago

school 400,00 zł
regular birth 4520,00 zł
c section with 4 days hospital 6940,00 zł
single room hospital 350,00 zł
double 300,00 zł
damian.com.pl/polski/cennik/pol.asp

I can say that there are many hospitals in Poland which are good to give birth in it. I was for a very long time looking for clinics to deal there with gynecological problems after the first pregnancy. I found a great place in the capital of Poland, I mean Warsaw, which called Amercian Clinic . There are great doctors, who speaks in many languages and they have great attitude to patients. Because of them, I don't have any problems right now and I hope, that in a short time, I could get pregnat again.

Merged:

childbirth in Poland

As far as I understood, childbirth in a public hospital in Poland is free of charge if we have NFZ insurance.
In the case of a foreigner who doesn't have NFZ, we can use a private hospital and pay for it.
Unfortunately, a private hospital is quite far from the place we live.
Is it possible to go to the public hospital without NFZ (pay by ourselves)?
If possible, does anyone know how much does it cost (approximately), for example for normal delivery?
Thanks!