MNHQ here: have you got strong feelings and personal experience about partners staying overnight on postnatal wards?

Splitting the ward is a good idea but I don't know how well it would work in practice. What if it's 3am and a woman without a partner is brought up to the ward, but the only space is on the women-with-partners 'side'? Does anyone know how this works in hospitals that do this (presumably some do)?

Oh, I'd have much preferred to have my partner there. Of course I would, he's lovely!

What I don't want - and what no woman on a postnatal ward should have to put up with - is sharing a small, crowded room overnight with a bunch of other people's partners who I don't know from Adam and who aren't even patients, at a particularly vulnerable time in my life.

There are enormous amounts of women who don't have a partner and/or their partner cannot be with them.

Restructuring post-natal care to assume that all women have a partner there to provide basic nursing care, then it puts other women and their babies at risk.

Also rapist, child abusers, drug addicts and violent men are fathers too. Just because your husband/partner is a lovely man, you cannot assume that all other new dads are too. Also putting women and their babies at risk.

We aren't saying men's wishes should trump patients' wishes. We're saying banning partners is equally unfair to other women who do want/need somebody to stay with them, and a balance should be struck (ideally by splitting the ward, or providing more side rooms).

There are two groups here and I feel like there is always going to be someone losing out; you will have some women who want privacy, dignity and peace & quiet to recover, and then you will have others that want their partner their for emotional, mental and physical support....whose need/want is more deserving? Should it be that those who want partners get private rooms, and those who want peace and quiet go on a single-sex ward, where no partners are allowed....in that case, everyone would want their partners their and their own room, surely? You have to also think of what is the 'other group' missing out on, or what are the risks.

Sorry, that should have just read "when there are single rooms."

if my DH is allowed to stay, his priority will be me and his newborn child, not leering at other women who have just given birth!

I absolutely agree. Most partners are in no way interested in the other women there.

I had horrific births both times and needed a lot of help. My husband wasn't able to be there to do that so I was forced to rely on overstretched midwives.

What 53rdWay said.

Yes they're different situations, but the common factor is that in both, the person who is the patient should be entitled to privacy, dignity, and a chance to rest and recover. I needed that when recovering from non-birth surgery; I needed that just as much when recovering from an EMCS.

Whether or not this is fair to men is a debate we should have when there are single-sex rooms. When weve got shared wards, it's the patient who needs to come first. The woman in the bed next to me shouldn't have to put up with my husband's wish to be there trumping her needs and rights as a patient.

IMO, not allowing partners to stay just further exasperates the divide between parenting roles; those first few hours/days are left to the mother to deal with, when it should be shared, not just for the benefit of the new mum, but the other parent too...and their child. I think there is also a massive difference between being admitted to hospital for non-birth related issues and being in a single-sex ward and not have partners stay, and having just given birth; they are two very different situations and the support needed is different too.

If saying that the needs of physically and emotionally exhausted women come before the needs of men is misandry then yeah, there's loads on this thread

(It's not, by the way, it's about prioritization and if there's one time in a woman's life she deserves to come before her partner, it's when she has just given birth)

"if my DH is allowed to stay, his priority will be me and his newborn child, not leering at other women who have just given birth!"

Oh, ffs. Nobody has said anything about leering. That's just stupid.

if my DH is allowed to stay, his priority will be me and his newborn child, not leering at other women who have just given birth!

Yes, but:
a) not every man is as nice as your DH;
b) the other women on the ward don't know your DH. To them, he's still a total stranger sharing a room with them all night.

I was admitted overnight on surgical wards several times in the months after my baby was born (for non-birth-related issues). All of them were single-sex wards; none of them allowed visitors to stay overnight. This is done for patient privacy and dignity, and in the knowledge that patients need to rest and recover. Why should patients on the postnatal ward not be entitled to that too?

"Some real misandry on this thread."

No there isn't. There's just the desire of women not to have men they don't know 3 ft away from them when they have just had a baby.

The issue of proper post natal care is an important and serious one. It is very wrong to conflate these two issues.

"I understand why you feel this way, but how does it then work when someone else says "for some women like me who have been victims of abuse it is absolutely essential not to have partners there in order to feel safe"

By having either a private room for each family, as is the case in most civilised countries, or by having one ward with partners and one without so that everyone's needs can be met. As I said in my original post.

I am currently 24+2 and I really want my DH to be able to stay with me after the birth of our first child. I can't imagine being left alone after such an emotionally experience, and want to share as much of those early hours/days with my DH as possible; not have him sent home after only a few hours!!
I am amazed by some of the replies on this thread; so many people are talking about the safety issue and not wanting men looking at them...if my DH is allowed to stay, his priority will be me and his newborn child, not leering at other women who have just given birth!
If my DH isn't allowed to stay overnight, I really worry about the impact this will have on me, I have read so much about useless midwives who don't help or are no where to be found! It worries me the idea of being left alone and needing something/my baby needing something, and having no help or support....surely that is what is most important!?

I'm torn really. The nights I spent on a ward after having my two dc were quite literally the worst of my life. I couldn't sleep, I was beyond exhausted, I felt like I'd been hit by a bus (even though I had relatively straight forward deliveries with just stitches to worry about), I felt alone, distraught, vulnerable etc etc and if my dh was there I could at least have some support, discuss why they are crying, figure out what the hell is going on (even though I was experienced second time around, I got a different baby! 😄)
Having said that it's bad enough sharing your personal space at a very vulnerable time with 3 other people you don't know, lying there in your pants (with massive pad) because it's so bloody hot, with leaky boobs etc without having someone's dp there to make you feel even more uncomfortable.
So on the whole I'm tempted with a home birth with my third just so I can avoid the whole experience altogether!

Some real misandry on this thread.

Happened with my third and it was awful. New parents across the way trying to work out what to do (feed him!!!) rather than calling for help. Constant chat through the night. It could only work with private rooms.

"for some women like me who have been victims of abuse it is absolutely essential to have their partner there in order for them to feel safe"

I understand why you feel this way, but how does it then work when someone else says "for some women like me who have been victims of abuse it is absolutely essential not to have partners there in order to feel safe"?

If hospitals are going to start providing 1:1 care for each patient then it's fine to kick partners out overnight. But realistically they aren't going to do that, so women who have had difficult deliveries or with other medical problems are going to need somebody to stay with them to help look after the baby. Men have paternity leave precisely because women need extra help in the first few weeks. It seems a pretty silly set-up if you have less help in hospital after major surgery than you would have at home.

The PP who rolled her eyes at women being "unable to cope without their partners for a few days" - I'd like to see her change a nappy unaided while paralysed from the chest down.

I guess the other option would be to bring back 1970s-style post-natal nurseries that the babies are kept in and just brought back to the mothers for ten minutes every four hours for feeding, but I can't see that being hugely popular either.

St Thomas' has receptionists policing visitor numbers via a lanyard system (each bed has two lanyards, once they've been handed out no more visitors are allowed in to that bed until the first visitors leave and return the lanyards). Half of the ward is for people with partners staying overnight, half is for people without. Partners cannot use patient showers or toilets (they use the visitor toilets down the hallway), and sleep in a reclining chair by the bedside. It seems to work.

If your baby is in SCBU, you get a side room so you aren't stuck staring at everyone else's healthy babies. And yes, if your baby is in SCBU the parents can stay with them 24/7. I've never known any neonatal unit where this wasn't the case.

As I wrote on your recent thread about postnatal care in general, for some women like me who have been victims of abuse it is absolutely essential to have their partner there in order for them to feel safe. I would have been terrified and traumatised if my husband had been forced to leave me. I think it would be barbaric to consider enforcing that on women who do not want it. It's also very cruel to the fathers to deprive them of the first few hours of their child's life.

The staffing of the wards is also so far below an acceptable level that women who have had C sections get no help reaching and lifting their baby to change, feed or comfort it. Buzzers are not answered for hours at a time. Therefore having someone there to help is absolutely essential, not a 'nice to have'. But even if the staffing issues were resolved, many vulnerable women still need their partners there for emotional support.

Ideally each family should have a private room like they do in most civilised countries, then everybody can choose to have their partner stay, or not. Until then perhaps providing two wards is the best solution, one with partners and one without.

Agree that partners shouldn't be a substitute for proper professional care. Having them there might improve things for some but it would make the situation even worse for others who aren't in a position to have a partner stay - you don't have a partner there when partners are expected to provide support, you don't have someone to go to the already-stretched staff and advocate for you so you're more likely to miss out, and you get to share a ward overnight with a bunch of blokes you don't know. Not fair.

Partners should not be a replacement for proper post natal care, full stop

In a six bed bay, the boyfriend of the very young brand new mum opposite drew the curtains and they then snogged loud and long for most of visiting. Heaven forbid what it would have been like if he had been in overnight as well. Most disturbing. The visiting rules support women to recover in peace.