Perinatal Center

This is my first pregnancy. I was referred here for my anatomy scan. This was my first time since I was nine weeks, seeing my baby. The tech Katrina had zero personality. She said "Hi" and walked extremely fast to the room. She said she was going to take pictures of the baby. The room was silent. She started taking pictures and wasn't telling me or my partner what we were supposed to look for. It was very disappointing. I had to keep asking her questions and guessing. "Is that her hand?", "Is that her leg?" "Is that her arm?" and she would just say "yes" and keep moving. I thought this big appointment was going to be exciting. I was really looking forward to it. She flipped the towel onto my stomach for me to wipe the jelly off but didn't say a word. It was the most awkward appointment I've ever been to. The pictures she printed, I can barely tell what I'm looking at. The only good picture we have is of her profile. Extremely disappointing.

I despise having to try to get an appointment at this place. You can't ever get anyone on the phone at Bel Air or Towson. Bel Air has a voice-mail that says "don't leave a message, our voicemail isn't monitored, call back during business hours". But I continuously call during business hours and keep getting the same voicemail. At Towson, it goes straight to voice-mail and they are always "at lunch". This isn't just a one time thing. I have had to schedule here before a few months ago and it was equally bad.

The only reason we’re even dealing with this place is because of the proximity to our house. We’ve been trying to contact this place for 4-5 days and not a single person answers the phone. It goes to voicemail and you’re directed to call back because they don’t check voicemail. One day I tried calling once every 20 minutes and it was as if they turned the phones off. It just goes straight to voicemail and you’re still prompted to call back. I thought this may be a problem that only affects one location, but the others are no better. The only difference is that they claim to be on lunch for hours. Once you finally get through to a receptionist they are rude and talk on the phone as if they were raised with no home training. You trust these people to help you in one of the most vulnerable life events, but you’re repeatedly dismissed. If you’re not going to provide services don’t offer them! Look at the reviews and talk to people who have interacted with this facility, this behavior is not being health with. Management needs to be ripped out of this place and they need to restructure whatever the heck is going on.

The one star review is specifically for one employee, Debbie Shapiro. She is an ultrasound tech at the perinatal center and needs to seriously bone up on her bedside manner. I have had the misfortune of seeing Debbie around 4 or so times during my pregnancy. For background, this is an IVF pregnancy and I have had to go in for more scans than the average pregnancy, in addition to having to go in for bleeding. During said visit, I was incredibly upset as they would not allow my partner into the room due to covid restrictions even though he was allowed to wait in the hall. As I was crying she berated me for wanting him in there and kept reiterating "okay but why are you upset". Until I finally had to explain that this had taken us 4 years to get pregnant and it is a normal human emotion to want your partner with you for upsetting and traumatic events. She still showed zero sympathy. In addition at other appointments, she will not walk you through what she is doing. I am 37 weeks pregnant and had to go for another scan and she started stabbing my stomach with the ultrasound wand and I had to ask her what she was doing "I am trying to wake up the baby". When I told her I had brought a snack for this reason, she shut me down 3x and kept prodding my abdomen which was highly uncomfortable and was not working we sat there for nearly 25 minutes watching the baby not move on the screen until I finally said that I would have some of my snack to get the ball rolling, and low and behold it did. I asked her to check the weight of the baby and she refused. Instead, she asked me what they weighed last time and attempted to do mental math to figure out what they would weigh now. Earlier in my pregnancy, my husband was unable to make a scan and I asked to record part of it and she told me I was not allowed to record anything I have recorded with every other tech except her. She is incredibly stuck in her way, does not seem to care for the patient, and in all honesty, should likely find a career where she is not working with pregnant women. 0/10 would recommend her. If you do end up at the perinatal center, please ask for Angie. She is amazing and is everything that Debbie is not.

I'm a high risk preganancy patient who recently went in for a 7 week ultrasound where no heart beat or fetal pole could be detected. As instructed by my OBGYN who is also a part of the medica team with St Joes, I was asked to schedule a follow up ultrasound within the week following my blood tests. This has all taken place within the last 24 hrs and can be seen in my medical chart which the receptionist starts to read off to me. I called the perinatal center this morning to schedule that ultrasound met by a very rude receptionist who asked me questions like, "why are you scheduling this ultrasound, you were just here" "did we ask you to come back?" After answering her questions her reply was, "that's what I just asked you!" I'm already going through a pretty traumatic experience and to have someone who works for the hospital be completely rude and incompetent does not make me feel easy about going back.

I’ve been warned about how rude this place is, actually I’m so glad I didn’t even get the chance to come in because the front desk woman was the rudest person I have ever spoken with can’t imagine what the rest of the experience would have been

Never had any problems or issues with staff

Pleasant, helpful, always available to answer questions.

Horrific experience