Experiences of Child Birth at Easton Hospital or St. Lukes (bethelhem) (Freemansburg: home, offer)

[EnigmaR]

We are debating to choose obgyn assosciated with Easton hospital (2 miles from my place) or with st.lukes-bethelhem (17 miles away). Can you please post any experiences or recommendations with things to consider for selecting hospital for our first child

[karen_s]

While I do not normally recommend Easton Hospital due to its for-profit status and larger than normal use of agency nurses who are clueless, I will say that my second son was born there and Dr. Christopher Mann is tops. He is a caring and compassionate physician whom I would definitely recommend highly. Some of the nurses were fairly unhelpful in regard to my not wanting pain medication and kept offering it (grrr, I almost caved in), but they were nice to me and my little guy. I had baby #2 at Easton, so I didn't need too much help from them. I did have a billing issue with one physician who saw my baby, but the hospital intervened and it was eventually resolved. The unit at Easton is nice and I had a spacious private room the whole time. I never sent my son to the nursery, preferring to room in with him 24/7 to get a great start with nursing.

I have no experience with St. Luke's OB unit, sorry. I went on to have my third baby at home with a midwife. However, if I absolutely had to have a hospital birth again, I would see either Dr. Mann or Dr. Christine Potterjones (who has an office in the Lehigh Valley Hospital building at Freemansburg and Route 33 but delivers babies at Lehigh Valley Hospital).

Dr. Potterjones is a family physician who delivers babies and is a wonderful woman! You could consider Lehigh Valley Hospital - it is probably just as close or closer time-wise to you as St. Luke's, as the Cedar Crest site with the OB unit is right off of I-78.

Hope that helps!