Pregnancy in Nairobi

I think that for peace of mind, you would want to use a private hospital, such as The Nairobi Hospital, Aga Khan, Karen Hospital etc. 

When my Wife was pregnant (approx 5 years ago), The Nairobi Hospital effectively had a 'package price' for a normal birth and aftercare.  I can't remember the exact cost, but even then it was something like Ksh 100 000 - 150 000, a large proportion of which must be deposited, on admission.  i would recommend that the individual hospitals are contacted for prices.

For scans, we went to Acacia Medical Centre, General Accident House, Ralph Bunche Road, Nairobi.  These were paid for on a per scan basis and I cannot recall the cost.  Upper Hill Medical Centre (also on Ralph Bunche Rd) has gynaecology services too, but am unsure about ultrasound.  Again, payments were made on a per consultation basis. 

The costs can soon mount up and we were certainly considering travelling back to the UK, for the later stages of pregnancy and the birth ............. unfortunately we had a miscarriage.

Hi Longonot62,

Thank you for your help.

hi ,

Dr jyoti saha is a good gynecologist in aga khan....room no 328..third floor.

u can contact her and best of luck.
anju

there's a good gynecologist at sarit center 4th floor, shes female  and Indian gynecologist, i once went on top to visit a skin doctor for a regular checkup i saw the indian gynecologist there her private clinic was just next to the skin care doc

Cristine, apply to join KilimaniMums group on Facebook. Plenty of information and very helpful ladies with all kind of advice.
When you get access, first check some old threads - all the doctors and hospitals were discussed if you don't find, then you can ask for help.
all the best!

Thank you Elena P for your advice

Aurélie

[Moderated]

I would not reccommend Dr. Saha of agha khan hospital.

she was my doctor for one year and i must say i am glad i changed her. she always  in a rush to finish with you . Your never made to feel comfortable.

her attention is sometimes not there, one particular time she excused her self to make an urgent call - it turned out that she was talking to someone about renting out on of her properties -

another time i had booked an appointment with her and went early and waited for her to come in that morning.. but to my shock - some asian lady was called ahead of me... i felt that was unfair.


i would recommend  : Dr. Maria Carvalho :



Fertility, Pregnancy and Newborns.
Nairobi.
Aga Khan Hospital, Doctors Plaza, 3rd Fl, Room 310 .
416137 3370 ,411813 0270 ,6272663 020
moc.ihcnanaw@licecc

Thank you for helping safarigal!

Aurélie

The best advice would be.. If you have better options, don't give birth in Kenya. It's like being forced to play russian roulette - with someone else pulling the trigger. Very terrifying ordeal. There was an article in the news just the other day. Don't mean to scare you but be warned.. the rate of negligence and cold-blooded malpractice is shocking and alarming. The big hospitals will milk your insurance with unnecessary "emergency" procedures/operations (putting you or baby at serious risk), "creative" billing etc. The small / private hospitals are just the same doctors from the big hospital doing business on the side. Others are dens of quacks who treat everything (and I mean everything.. headaches, colds, flus, flatulence etc) with antibiotics or anti-malaria..

Thank you for your input ea_expat!

Aurélie

to ea_expat

please stop scaremongering if we are to go into bad treament during pregnancy we could look at the NHS in England where women have complained of having bad experiences.

Kenya is a third world country but there are good hospitals where a woman can give birth safely. My sister gave birth 2weeks ago at Karen hospital and all was well. Baby and mummy are both doing fine.

My advise to the lady expecting is to go to Karen Hospital, pricey but good hospital

Good luck

am badly desperate i got off from depo a year ago and yet
am not conceiving. am worried

need help

Hello swtbaibes and welcome to Expat.com!

How can we help you? Could you please give more details?

Thank you,
Aurélie

Came across this page when i searched for maternity clinics in Nairobi. I will need to do my 20weeks anomaly scan whilst in Nairobi. Wondering if anyone can give me an insight to the cost of a scan?

Thanking you in advance

maybe you try to contact them directly through email
there are 2 best hospitals in Nairobi: AgaKhan and Nairobi Hospital.
if you are on a FB, try Kilimani Mums group, they are very helpful

Maternity care in Kenya is free of charge in public health facilities. These however tend to be understaffed and often lack basic supplies, and as a result quality of care is modest at best.

Most ex-pats will want to opt for the private sector.
Quality of care tends to be much better, but the quality assurance mechanism of the Ministry of Health is weak. While there are some excellent hospitals, there are also some smaller private hospitals that cut corners.

Some excellent but expensive hospitals are: The Nairobi Hospital, The Aga Khan and Karen hospital.
More modest in price is the Mater hospital, and there are many more in this group.
For those on a tight budget the missionary hospitals can be a very good choice. St. Mary's in Langata is good and very cheap, though large and impersonal. Fatima Maternity in Rongai is excellent, has all the facilities, and gives a very personal service.

Scans and blood tests can be done at all these hospitals. Scans are between 1500-5000 Kes, and the full lab work from 1200 to 5000.

As a final option: There are some good, qualified, midwives in Kenya that do home deliveries for uncomplicated pregnancies.

This is for a US Citizen having their baby in Nairobi.

(if the links don't work, google US Embassy Nairobi, click on Report Birth Abroad.)

We had our latest child in March 2014 at Aga Kahn. The process was great.
We saw Dr. Maria Carvalho, loved her. Many of our friends had her and loved her.  She was great with our other kids. Aga Kahn helped us every step of the way. Our insurance covered it all. Even if it didn't, the grand total was around $2000.

FIRST THING YOU DO! (a couple months before the due date, after you've had normal Doc visits.)
Book your appointment with the US Embassy on their website. They ask for the birth date, but we just inserted the due date, because it's just to hold your appointment. You have to keep checking their website every morning. Because a spot will open and be booked in an hour. I'd book it about 3 weeks after your due date, for a couple reasons. 1. In case you deliver late. 2. It takes a couple weeks to get the birth certificate, which is required.
Go here, to book the appointment.  https://evisaforms.state.gov/acs/defaul … ;appcode=1

(Originally, we were scheduled a month after the birth. But we called and said we were from TZ and didn't want to stay in Kenya that long. They moved our appointment to the next available one!)

BIRTH CERTIFICATE: There are two ways to get your birth certificate. One is the normal way, (I don't know about that because we didn't do it.) Two, is the expedited way, which is supposed to cost more, but we're talking a couple bucks and you get your birth certificate in less than two weeks.

Expedited way: You need to tell the nurse that you want to get it yourself. I took the pink form they gave me and went to City Hall. Made some copies across the street,  and went back up to the office. They gave me another form. (I might have had to pay a couple hundred shillings there) I took that to the Bishop Garden House. (it's really hard to find, but it's directly across the street from the Social Security building. Just get there and ask. Everyone around there knows where it is.
That's where you actually get the certificate. Just go to the info desk and they'll instruct you. Come back a couple days later and pay. (annoying I know). Then come back a couple days after that and collect the certificate. The certificate was supposed to be 150/= but they only had me pay 50/=. I don't know why. I paid more in bus fees!

PASSPORT/U.S. DOCUMENTS: Next, go to the Nairobi US Embassy webpage and do all they require to get a passport and report the birth. Fill out their forms and get your babies passport photo taken. (It appears overwhelming, but just make a check list and complete your forms. It's actually very easy.) http://nairobi.usembassy.gov/rbad.html
Go to your scheduled appointment, once you have the birth certificate.
We had our meeting and followed their procedure. (we did not have our original marriage cert with, only a photo copy, and they didn't even care. But try to have the originals just in case. It is a foreign country after all.)
Then in 2.5 weeks we got an email that it was ready. I went back and got it with no problems.

VISA: Now, we are told we need a Kenyan visa stamped in it to go back to TZ, but we aren't sure yet. I'm still looking in to it. If anyone knows, please comment. Otherwise, when I'm finished, I'll post our final answer on the visa.

Hope this helps encourage someone!

If you want to have your baby in Kenya, don't worry! It's affordable and at Aga Kahn, it's quality!

I'm sorry about my last post. I'm trying to post in Kenya. But it shot me to TZ. I'm from TZ, but had our baby in Kenya.

Hello matadams7,

Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us.

I have moved your post on this topic on the Nairobi forum.

Thank you,
Christine
Expat.com team

I have to contradict the person who criticized Dr. Saha. While she is not the warmest of people she is an excellent doctor. She is attentive (gave me her cell number in London while she was on vacation so I could text her with results of a scan) and extremely respectful. She knew that I had a fear of needles and made sure that when I delivered that the hospital felt as home like of an environment as possible. She had the medical equipment tucked away out of sight but still on hand so I could labor in peace. She respected my desire to have a doula and my aunt present and listened to me during every step of my labor. When complications began (meconium and heart rate dropping) she took swift action that prevented a c-section.It turns out that my son's umbilical cord was too short and he couldn't get out of the birth canal without support which resulted in a vacuum delivery. My doula commented that she had never seen such a decisive and in-command doctor and that all the other ob-gyns she'd worked with would have gone straight to a c-section. So while Dr. Saha is not the warm and fuzzy type of doctor she is extremely respectful, cool under pressure, and I would be hard pressed to find a better ob-gyn in Nairobi.