Not allowed private room

I was put in a private room at around 03.00 in the morning, someone else was moved out in the middle of the night.
My son was born with a hypoplastic left heart and went straight NICU.
Three hours later he was blue lighted to GOSH.
There is no way I could have been on a ward with healthy babies and happy (or not) mummies.

And that is 100% right

I was in a similar situation OP and fixated on how bad it was on the ward. But I left the next day and we went home with a healthy baby. When I look back now I realise I probably had some sort of PTSD after a traumatic birth and unfortunate circumstances. It was manifested in my obsession with how awful the ward was. I felt obliged to tell everyone and I couldn’t get over it.
My advice to you. Accept it happened, it was unfortunate, unpleasant and (I presume) you are all now okay. Don’t let it spoil those first few months like I did OP. If you can’t, then perhaps seek some help for your trauma and I mean that in as kind a way as possible.

Unfortunately my husband was told by the nurses he had to go home at 3 in the morning, he wasn't allowed to be in the recovery ward with me. He would have happily slept in a chair otherwise. It's quite dangerous though letting them drive home after 2 nights of no sleep!

I think your dh should have stayed with you and kipped in the chair, our wouldn’t have felt so alone. Those bays aren’t fun, but having others around is safer for you. When I had my ds in 2022 private rooms were for covid positive patients. Ds was premature and v poorly yet because I was covid negative I was in a bay surrounded by babies, it was miserable

YABU. And also, PMSL at you being “awake for over 15 hours”😂 try about 30 and then see how you feel 🙄

op I just wanted to add as a mother who had a baby who was in nicu I believe you should have had a privet room same as every other mum on this thread and that’s what’s wrong with the nhs. Your feelings are valid please seek help for post birth ptsd which can be real x

What did they say when you walked by the empty rooms and asked them?

What I meant to say we had been up all day as normal and then on top 15 hours of labour where no of us could sleep

@Spamfritterss But, respectfully, so many of us experience exactly the same on top of births not going to plan. It's just how it is. It'd be great if we could all have a private room, I asked myself, none available and so onto the ward I went! There are a million things about maternity care/women's hospital infrastructure that is just backwards.

After my 6th miscarriage, a late one, I came down in a lift with a family with a newborn in a car seat, his mum and dad and what seemed like a thousand 'it's a boy' balloons because that's the way the hospital is laid out.

It's a kicker sometimes when you don't get what you'd like but take comfort in being home now with your husband and your baby. Nothing else, really, matters.

I just think as they are usually quite limited, there is probably always someone who needs one for whatever reason so the midwives should just decide. It could make a big difference to someone's experience during a traumatic time.

Obviously in an ideal world with better post natal care there would a surplus of rooms and then people could pay for them.

Did you ask them why you could no longer have the room you wanted? It looks like you didn’t say anything at all, in which case wouldn’t they assume you were happy where you were?

You may be able to pay for a private room, but women who have had stillbirth or have very poorly babies should have priority.

My DS was born at 26 weeks and obviously was immediately taken to nicu before I even saw him.

I was given a private room for which I am so grateful. Being surrounded by healthy, term babies while my son was fighting for his life would have been too much to bear.

Well the NHS is totally broken

Its not right at all but what did you expect

Also don't agree with paid upgrades

I've had some awful NHS experiences.

They are relying on the OP's DH, other patients and their partners being the eyes to alert the staff if there is an emergency.

YANBU for being upset. I felt really traumatised having to stay in a ward for a week after an emergency CC, whilst feeling very unwell with an infection and trying to look after a newborn. It was so light and noisy, I slept for about 8 hours over the space of 6 nights and my husband couldn't be there to help me look after the baby. It felt so unnatural to be stuck in a room with strangers, unable to leave. I feel choked up remembering how awful it was. I'm sorry you had this experience!

I think it is safer to keep you on a ward if they have any concerns, and let's be honest the NHS is in a state. Sadly it's seems very rare to get the birthing experience you want in a hospital. You could reach out and ask for a debrief if you think it might help?

All I can say is that it does get easier to accept with time. And congratulations on your beautiful baby 🥰

So sorry that you had such a grotty time OP. I think that postnatal wards are sadly often not the calm and therapeutic places they should be. This is far from acceptable, but is too often reality at the moment.
For patients who have had a more difficult or traumatic time and need an extra eye kept on them, a single room wouldn’t be ideal. Even with the curtains drawn round, you are more easily checked on, even if you don’t actually see it. Patients in side rooms are, sadly, so much less ‘visible’ even if unintentional, especially when the ward is very busy or short staffed. It’s so much safer to have patients in the bay.

At our hospital if you require more regular observations you can't go to a private paid for room, so for the first 24 hours after c-section or traumatic birth they require you to be on the ward, if all is OK at that point and you need to stay in they will move you to a private room if requested. It's likely they require to keep a closer eye on you.

Why would a maternity ward be different to the rest of the hospital though? Are you proposing all 200 odd beds in a hospital should be private rooms instead of wards?
Do you understand the sheer scale of infrastructure needed for that compared to ward bays and how much of a time impact that has on care?

So basically, OP is unhappy that she was treated like every other new mother on the busy maternity ward...

BlouseyBrownMalone
As if the OP thought she could just 'demand' a free nhs room and then be pissed of when she didn't get it!
@Spamfritterss
@HorsePeopleAreStablePeople
@Gogogo12345
@21ZIGGY
You people have shocking comprehension skills. The irony of you being outraged.

@BlouseyBrownMalone has said 'as if...'. They were pointing out to people who thought the OP was being entitled in demanding a fee room that she WASN'T doing this.

Why do you think the sentence started 'As if....'.

Never does Mumsnet make me more mad than the bashing and bullying of new mums on these types of threads.

OP, this sounds really difficult and will likely stay with you a long time and need a lot of processing, I hope you will receive the space and kindness to do so.

Postnatal care in this country is appalling, and it sounds like there was zero justification for not allowing you to pay for the private room. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

No wonder maternity services are in the state they are in when you read the comments on here. Sending you lots of love, strength and healing with your new baby.

I actually think British maternity wards are regressive. When we've planned and built new hospitals in the last twenty years even they have not opted for private rooms. Private rooms are the norm in many other Western countries and I think it's appalling we still don't see the value in them as a nation and instead have a put up and shut up mentality cos it's the NHS.

So many women would actively put themselves into debt if they could guarantee a private room - that's how much women want them

While they maybe couldn’t see you at all times, you were surrounded by people which is so much safer in that they obviously deemed you a higher risk. When I was in shared bay of postnatal ward, someone else had a massive haemorrhage, I hate to think if she had been on her own what could have happened,

I did hate the lack of privacy though as you say, I chose a different hospital for my second birth where all the rooms were private.