Delivery at MCA- Medical Center of Arlington (TX)

My grand daughter's mom had her "planned" c-section there 2 weeks ago. She even "checked in" on Friday and got her bracelet and did her blood work so IF she went in to labor over the weekend, she could bypass registrations and go straight to labor and delivery. What a great idea!

The whole staff that I met was great! She has not told me she was unhappy with the experience...except for her headache, which was not the staff's fault. She was there from Monday til Thursday because of her c-section. When I went in to visit her with my grand daughter, they were great about talking to her about being a big sister and they seemed very attentive to her mom. Don't know about play areas since she was in school and went to see her mom and sister after school.

I've not ever heard of a bad "delivery" experience at MCA and I have been in that hospital for several different reasons.

You should be pleased and comfortable in this hospital. Enjoy your growing family!

A.-

I had my first child at MCA and we were happy with it. That was almost 5 years ago, though, so things may have changed. I had an overall positive experience there (with the exception of not being happy with my OB). The nurses there were excellent and we especially liked how the baby had its own nurse. I went into pre-term labor and they took good care of getting it stopped and pressuring my insurance to cover what they deemed necessary. They did not give me a hard time about an epidural, in fact, they offered it multiple times before I accepted. I ended up having a c-section and the anestheiologist was exceptional. I felt like both my son and I got exceptional care. They do not have a child's play area that I know of, though. As far as visitor's policies, they seemed to follow the parent's lead. If you wanted them to be strict (so you could have privacy, they didn't mind being the "bad guy.") However, if you wanted them to be easy-going, they allowed that as well. They let our best friends bring their little girl with them (even though I think the policy is no children except family). We delievered in baseball season and even got a cool gift from the Rangers for our son.
I delievered both at MCA and Baylor-Grapevine and, honestly, preferred MCA.

*I saw your other post about going to another hospital when the time comes. I would caution you that your doctor likely doesn't have hospital privledges at both and you will end up with whatever doctor is on-call and not busy with their own patients. That's a gamble I'm not sure I would want to take.

Best of luck!

I delivered at MCA last year and was fairly happy with it. They do not have a children's play area that I saw. My delivery went smoothly although I would say their policies are not natural birth friendly as they insist on an IV and constant fetal monitoring so I wasn't able to walk around and my labor stalled for a bit, which led to pitocin and then an epidural. When I finally caved they did get me one very quickly, and it worked perfectly. The doc that administered the epidural was not on my network but discounted the extra amount when I requested it and ended up being covered as much as if he was in network.
My nurse was excellent during delivery, and they were thorough in my postpartum care, and they let pictures be taken during delivery. Their couch "beds" are horrible according to my husband who ended up buying an airmattress for the next two nights. And there is no DVD player in the postpartum rooms.
In answer to your other question if you aren't registered at a hospital you will have to fill out all the paperwork when you get there, which is the whole point of preregistering, which is to avoid having to do that when you are in labor. And as the other mother mentioned your doctor might not be able to go there and you would have a doctor that had no knowledge of your pregnancy history.