Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford's Main Facility

This review is for the OB/prenatal care services at Stanford. For many reasons, I would no longer be a patient here if it was not too late to arrange other care. Good news for them, I no longer have a choice but to deliver here so they will get my insurance money regardless of whether I am happy with my care or not at this point - which I am sure they know, which is why the patient experience gets worse and worse as you get further in your pregnancy. Don't let yourself become trapped in the same situation.

This office is extremely disorganized and the staff do not communicate with each other. In addition, your care will be pretty much in your own hands. Appointments are spent with each provider - because you will not see the same one after your first few visits most of the time - reviewing your chart and then rewriting it to suit their own style, so have fun going over information you already provided them again and again. They really don't make an attempt to offer you any medical guidance throughout the pregnancy and just tell you every symptom you have is normal without offering any tips or potential medications and strategies to deal with them. The staff and providers offer very little information proactively, such as what to expect at your next appointment or in the next few weeks of your pregnancy, and don't even really ask questions about your pregnancy aside from a general "how it's going" to see if there may be anything of concern going on. For example, I was sent to the wrong location for my glucose test and had to ask for the hospital's pre-registration paperwork and find and register for the hospital orientation myself.

They also prioritize new patients over existing patients. This may seem great when you first come to them, but you will not appreciate it when they repeatedly cancel and reschedule your appointments later on in your pregnancy. I have had to reschedule multiple appointments made weeks in advance on short notice because the provider suddenly decided not to have a clinic that day or to see other types of patients that day, but when I arrived late for one appointment due to traffic from an accident on my way in - yet within their grace period, according to the person on the phone who I talked to when I proactively called to advise them I was running late - they first refused to see me then acted like it would be doing me a favor to see me after seeing the new patient they had squeezed in that morning extremely close to my original scheduled time, which had been set more than a month in advance. Normally, the staff members refuse to budge from the office's policies, which can come off as rude and unhelpful but I had previously accepted as the way things had to be in a large hospital system. However, it appears these policies don't mean anything when they actually are in favor of the patient.

Don't trust these people with your care. It may start off well but I promise you that by your third trimester you will wish you had chosen a different OB office.

I was amazed by the kindness of the parking lot worker at 730 Welch Rd. At the Lucile Packard children's hospital. I had an appointment today at 7:45 am and the parking lot was full. The employee was so kind to move his car so I could parked on his spot. Thank you so much for your kindness!

Stay away!! All these reviews are right. I have been going here for my OB/GYN appointments. My OB is OK but the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital establishment itself and the doctors there are arrogant, stuck up, and are after your insurance money and will refer unnecessary procedures and exams that are not needed and may even be harmful to you or your baby. They are a research institute after all and will go very far to get the research they want even if it is not in your best interest or needed.

The PDC perinatal diagnostic center is the worst.. the sonographers are fake nice and the doctors are not willing to take the time to do a thorough exam and will make you come back over and over again.

They will worry you and give you anxiety. Especially Erica Wu, she is very new and does not know how to do her job properly.

Update- May 2018
After a nightmare experience, in which Stanford Lucile Packard Children's Hospital was a key player in the mismanagement and misdiagnosis of my daughter's condition, we have finally found learned doctors at a different hospital. My daughter has had a rare form of Epilepsy deep in the brain all this time! This type of Epilepsy does not show on an EEG (and it is all over the medical literature that this is a known fact). Why did Stanford tell my poor child she was making it up and it was all in her head? Your guess is as good as mine. If I had listened to Stanford, she would have gone untreated and ended up with brain damage. I highly caution any parents dealing with pediatric neurology issues to go elsewhere (not Lucile Packard). By the way, I never heard back from any of the characters at Stanford who said they cared about our patient experience and our concerns.

If you were to go to a third world hospital you'd get better care. The doctors screwed up an otherwise typical procedure on my son, couldn't manage his pain/nausea, didn't ever call us back after numerous calls to the hospital post-surgery, prescribed counter-acting medicines and, finally, scheduled a spinal tap that we were told wasn't really necessary.

I guess i should have known this was going to be a bad experience after two of my friends died there b/c the doctors didn't know what they were doing. One person died giving birth (and this was in a first world??) and the other being misdiagnosed with a brain aneurysm.

Anyway, avoid at all cost.

I absolutely would not deliver here if I had the choice! This hospital/stanford are terrible when it comes to giving birth. And I don't mean my experience personally was bad, it was bad to the point where I don't even want other children.
The nurses are a 50/50, I had a couple I absolutely loved but the rest were terrible beyond just a lack of bedside manner.

If you want to be ignored for hours while in labor, want to share a room with a random family after giving birth despite being told you have a private room, want to be kept up all night by late visitors of other families, want no lactation consultant even when you request one, or want to feel like just another number than this is absolutely the place to go!

I personally would had preferred a more caring staff to help relax me rather than be told can you hold off on your pushing because your doctor isn't quite ready yet. That was fun! So was being completely stressed out by the room situation after the fact. Go to a place with ACTUAL guaranteed private rooms, that is one thing I cannot stress enough! As a new mom I had no idea that sharing was actually not so common. For such a nice place, and nice sized bill, I felt as if I should had at least enjoyed some of the time since it was supposed to be the happiest day of my life getting my new bundle but clearly it wasn't.

If you go here, good luck. Be prepared to wait days on end for crappy service and staff not listening to your requests. I literally only had one simple request which they ignored, and no I wasn't a "I want the lights dimmed, this song playing, etc kind of girl".

Ultimately I have a happy, healthy child, but I would never deliver here again if I can even get over my experience for that to be an option.

I have been going to my OB since October 2015 I'm due in two weeks April 2016, for the last month or so I haven't seen my OB but actual delivery doc. A different one every week. Which is frustrating bc I have no bound , connection one which would be nice to have with a doc , being my first baby and all. Aside from that these diff. Docs have been more imformative with me than my actual OB. They actually tell me whats going with my ultra sound results my test results ect. Rather than just sitting down asking me if i had any questions.

The whole time I was with my OB its been very unsatisfying, I basically had Google, ask my friends the ones who are going through their pregnancy or friends who had babies question my Ob didnt talk kuch she just asked if i had any questions to finish our 10 min session (after waiting for like 20 to see her). I always had a list of questions to ask and even with that I wasn't given information I wanted or rather I left with more questions. Basically I didn't know what was going on to ask specific questions so I would call or wait till we meet again.

Front desk has always been nice over the phone n in person (except this one girl who speaks louder than anyone in the room when asking something she looks at me confused and like I'm dumb sigh) but anyways, the nurses over the phone they gave me more information and detailed explanation on stuff than my OB. (Yeast infection information during pregnancy tmi, information such as my window to getting a trimester ultra sound, blood test, symptoms, up coming shots I needed bc of my blood, my belly being so small, my fluid levels being low and my babies stomach and head size, What to do after birth appointments, and give me handouts and not go over them)

I just wanted to feel more of a doc patient connection to ease my worryness esp with my anxiety, my husband being deployed and me being alone with our first baby. I will def. Look into a midwife next time or a different hospital.

I highly recommend staying away from Stanford. We were considering going there for a second opinion. My daughter is currently going though chemo. We sent over an MRI. Keep in mind she was not even seen there. We received a bill for close to $4000 for them just to look at an MRI. When you look at the bill, it almost looks like she had the MRI done there. What a rip off. So upsetting to be going though what we are right now and have to deal with being over charged by $4000. This is why our medical expenses are out of control. Fraud if you ask me. I have been promised a call back several times from a billing manager but have yet to receive one. The BEST DECISION my wife and I made was to take our daughter to UCSF Oakland. They have been great.

The good: These doctors are amazing and you just know you will be receiving the best care technology has to offer.

The bad: The hours are tough to deal with since everyone else is also working during these hours they are open.

Run away and DO NOT GIVE BIRTH HERE!! I repeat do not!! Even if you'd tatted your prenatal visits, you can easily have your records sent over. Avoid this place!! You have been warned and will regret using a disgraceful place like Stanford to give birth at. If you want to be tortured, given continuous epidural without your knowledge, fellows, students oh and ER docs need to learn and stick their fingers up your vagina. Then be my guest and have fun being a test dummy at a place that can afford marketing at Stanford.