Gloucester or Swindon hospital??

[mrsbeans]

Hi does anyone have experience of either Gloucester or Swindon maternity hospitals?

I am booked to go Gloucester but have heard numerous bad reports, whereas I have heard lots of good things about Swindon.

Gloucester don't do tours so can only go on other people's experiences - any to share :)

I had my dd's in Glos but had ds at home.

With dd1 i was 19 and had no idea what i was doing, they ordered my mum and dh to leave the hospital 15 minutes after dd was born and never asked me if i was ok once over the next 6 hours at which point i asked to go home.

With dd2 (6yrs later) they were more sympathetic to the mums and couldn't help enough with bf but then they also asked me to leave after 24 hours but i dug my heels in and said i was entitled to stay this is my holiday leave me alone.

ue to these experiences i had ds at home and it was the best experience i have ever had.

I had both my Dc at GWH in Swindon, DS very recently, I cannot fault the antenatal care and the care on the labour ward. I felt well looked after and in the later stages of both labours I was not left 'alone' (in terms of a midwife) at any time. I had a student midwife present during both births also which I found a good experience.

I also needed extra consultant care and monitoring in the day assessment unit throughout my pregnancy (DAU towards end of pregnancy) and was extremely impressed with the attitude of the staff.

The only negative I can say is that the post natal ward is very very busy (a bit over-run tbh) and they were very keen to discharge me as soon as possible with DS2, fine in theory as had a nice straightforward birth, but i could have done with a full night in hospital as was totally totally exhausted! having said that the staff maintained a professional and caring attitude, just a shame they were so busy with people in greater need!

Could it be an option to have babay at GWH then book yourself in for a few days postnatal care locally? I know chippenham have an excellent birthing centre and people do transfer there from other hospitals.