Watford general hospital

[Sbd11]

Has anyone had a baby at Watford general recently or in the last year? Stories? I had my scan this week and it was all so disorganised I'm super worried. I want to make the right decision.. :(

Not to scare you but I gave birth there two years ago and it was a fucking shambles. They were totally negligent to me and baby, esp during what ended up being a horrific induction and labour down to their errors, and could have resulted in a very different, awful ending. My midwife for the actual birth was brilliant, but that was the only plus point.
I would tell anyone to avoid like the plague.

My first child was born there 10 years ago. The birth unit was nice but I had to be moved to the main hospital which wasn't a good experience. I was abandoned as a first time mum, nobody helped me with breastfeeding. I lived in Luton at the time and I can only recommend the L&D hospital. Way better experience on the maternity ward.

A friend and family member of mine had their babies there in recent times. Both had really bad experiences. My friend needed counselling after her birth there; she was really traumatised after the events so they offered her counselling sessions.
I've been in the main hospital a few times. I had a pretty horrific facial injury in 2016 and I sat there for 10 hours in A&E... without so much as an ice pack as they'd 'run out'. Just nothing redeeming about that place it seems! :-( If you can get into Lister hospital, definitely go there!

I've never had or heard of anything positive about Watford general. I went to UCLH for my pregnancies.

Just to buck the trend! I had my son there 14 months ago and had a good experience. Started in the birth centre but didn't like the hands-off approach and needed an epidural after excruciating back to back labour. The epidural took a few hours to come (not that I was aware of time) but once it was in I had a midwife with me for the remaining 12 hours of labour. Ended up having forceps as he was tucked up and refused to be pushed out but the surgical team were fantastic and were there in seconds when the midwife lost his heartbeat. He had a suspected infection so was in the special care unit for 12 hours after birth and I found the aftercare pretty good. The facilities are ok, could do with modernising but it was fine. I'm planning on having my second there next year because I feel calmer knowing the hospital and how well they watched out for anything going wrong & how efficiently they acted when they needed to

Thanks everyone! Will have to keep researching on what else my options are but your responses helped! :)

Unfortunately a friend of mine did not have a good experience there. She insisted on not returning in her second pregnancy - I think Barnet or Edgeware was where she ended up?