New campaign to allow partners to stay on maternity wards.

I'm pretty sure that was the exact scenario.

(Sabrina be my guest)

Ooh was that that idiot thread where the bloke wanted his Simba moment where he could take the baby and throw it up in the air while his mother paraded around him wiping his arse while the mother of said baby was left starving in a cave?

if violence is your boundary, it's not high enough

Well said

The sort of dickhead who thinks that his experience of birth is an issue, and who doesn't acknowledge the serious nature of what the woman is doing.

There was a thread about this on MN a few months ago. It was quite - even more shocking a tiny handful (amongst most saying 'don't be crazy man') women saying "don't give it the 'she's pushing it out' thing, it's his big day toooooo!".
Like it was a spat over what colour flowers at a wedding not something which, even if not medicalised, needs close consideration of health, safety, pain management and psychological care.

The feminist dimension is that just because someone has a female body and has just given birth, that doesn't mean they are entitled to less privacy than any other patient.

Yes and those who say it will break down gender roles are missing the point. If a father is already hands on and supportive, he would be whether the first time he does a nappy is 12 hrs or 24 hrs... if he's an entitled arse, he will be at hospital or at home... there will be no 'epiphany' moments.
Additionally, birth and breast feeding are done by the female body: feminism isn't about 'playing down' our health so menz don't feel different (admittedly, it has been misunderstood in the past by some people/the media as this... but no one sensible believes to be a feminist you should 'act like a man' by looking like one and denying your natural bodily functions anymore). We don't think it anti-feminist to require privacy to change a Tampax, Always or Mooncup ... having privacy at a time when we've gone through a female physical process x1000 as intense should be respected.
I suppose if there was a male physical process involving extended discomfort and risk to his penis and anus, and it happened to most men if they wanted something as 'normal' as a family, there would be an equivalent... but there isn't nature hasn't made it an 'equal' scenario so the needs of the genders are different. I once heard the phrase "the one way to ensure inequality is to treat everyone rigidly the same" and I guess this is one of those scenarios where this applies in buckets.

Quangle has nailed it.

AskBasil - I'm going to copy and paste those examples of bad behaviour on MN Campaign thread. I think it's really important that Birthright read that. Hope that's ok with you.

LOL at the indignant question of whether we think fathers might be violent in the post-partum wards.

a) some fathers have been already

b) if violence is your boundary, it's not high enough.

It's not just potential violence. Already in the course of these threads, I've read about men doing the following:

• making shitty remarks to their partners undermining them and criticising them and making them feel shit at the most vulnerable moment of their lives
• wandering into someone else's bay while they're being examined to ask a question about their partner, with no concept of respecting women's personal boundaries
• demanding a blow job
• demanding the woman get out of bed and into the chair so he can sleep on the bed
• nicking the patient's coffee, tea, breakfast etc.
• talking loudly, disturbing patients
• watching TV, listening to radio etc., loudly, disturbing patients
• staring at women trying to establish breastfeeding, creeping them out
• yelling at HCPs
• assaulting HCP's
• bullying women apart from their partners who have just had babies

You know, when men stop being socialised to be such total nobbers, then I'm sure we'll all feel very comfortable with them on the wards. Until then, there's a by no means comprehensive list of what women just don't want to have to deal with after having had a baby.

It's no use saying NAMALT, because as a woman who has just given birth and is feeling more vulnerable than she has ever felt in her whole life in some cases, you only need one of these tossers to be on your ward, to make that post-partum period even more horrific than the NHS has contrived to make it already. And I just don't see why it's in women's interests to promote that.

When I had dd2 the (planned) c section went wrong. 8 years of pain later it's resulted in a hysterectomy.

Day 2 the doctor came round and did babies discharge paperwork - she could go home. Perfectly healthy (gorgeous) formula fed baby - second child and DH and 2 grandparents at home.

I was still unable to move, out of my head on morphine and codine with catheter in.

I asked if my DH could take her home and let me recover in peace - get some sleep and concentrate on myself. I didn't feel safe looking after her - I couldn't lift her properly, I was drugged up.

Oh the fuss - I had a psychologist at my bedside in 30 minutes and was monitored for a year as I was "rejecting my baby" - eh no I was thinking my healthy husband - her father - was in a better position to care for her than I was.

Anyway she wasn't allowed to go home with him - so at night i had to pick up a 2 day old by the babygro head dangling to try to feed her, change her nappy (she ended up with nappy rash as I didn't clean her properly) when I couldn't find a nurse to help.
I remember crying my eyes out when no-one came after about 30 minutes of her screaming and me buzzing as we had run out of milk - she drank 3 bottles which was supposed to last all night in the space of about 2 hours. I couldn't walk the length of the ward to get more - I couldn't even sit up properly.

I wasn't safe to care for her. Her father was. Why on earth wasnt he allowed to care for his child.

There was also the man who shot and killed himself an hour after his wife have birth last year. In the delivery suite. Didn't link to it as I thought it would just lead "oh but that's America and only happened because they have guns". Not that some men can be massive assholes

As an unrelated aside... did you see this article linked to apocolypse's!?
www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/11/bode_miller_custody_battle_new_york_family_court_made_a_terrible_ruling.single.html

Its like there is no sacred place for women, if they choose not to have a man there they will be sued and made to have him there.

Oh, almost inevitably. But what I think is concerning is the attitude that the primacy of women in childbirth can be overridden to allow men to have experiences.

There are no words Apocalypse.

I must wonder if his twattiness was the reason for their break up.

Anyway, here's the charmer's tale:

www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/03/13/fathers_in_the_delivery_room_new_jersey_judge_rules_that_a_mother_can_block.html

Really Apocalypse

What sort of dickhead would do that to the mother of his child.

The sort of dickhead who thinks that his experience of birth is an issue, and who doesn't acknowledge the serious nature of what the woman is doing.

ITA Quangle

Really Apocalypse
What sort of dickhead would do that to the mother of his child.

Just another thought that occured to me amongst the myriad of others on this subject.
There will most likely be women on the ward who have been victims of rape or sexual assualt. They should not have to disclose what they went through in order to get a private room away from strange men if they do not feel safe.

This appears (to me, at least) to have overtones of the same attitude as that guy who sued his ex to force himself to be present at the birth if their child.

Weird that soontobesix can't find one thread on the feminism section to get behind.

Hope you've got 6 sons (or maybe I don't)

oldlady think the problem would be is that most women do try and breastfeed at first and if it was actively encouraged that women hand babies over to their fathers this would be undermined even more than it already is. And women could be pressured in to giving up baby to overbearing families before they are ready "so the families can help"

This is making me quite angry actually. As a patient why would I be expected to deal with anyone else? This should be a private space for mothers and babies to recover. It's not a lifestyle moment it's a medical environment and women are entitled to be patients first and foremost while they are recovery. Not beacons of family friendly and male friendly policies. When I'm bleeding and torn and in shock, I should be the focus, and not be put in the position of having to accommodate other people. If even a mat ward can't be all about women, we really are in a bad way.

Dd1s father would have loved to stay on the ward. I wouldn't have wanted him to. He wasn't a safe person, not to me and most likely not to the other vulnerable women. Whilst I agree that the vast majority of partners are safe, nice people not all are and even one womans safety being compromised is too much, whether they are the partner or not.
More midwives and patient support is whats needed.

When I gave birth to DS2 my ExH insisted on staying. He had also insisted on picking that day to demonstrate to the world that he was a drug addict and disappeared every so often to 'top up'. There was no way I could have said anything and I could see he was making the Midwives uncomfortable, they only ever asked me if I wanted him to stay when he was in the room. It could have ruined my birth experience, but I zoned out and it was fine much better than DS1, but that's another thread

If he had been made to leave, I might have been able to sleep for a while, instead of having a night of no sleep due to him making derogatory comments about my birthing performance, how loose I would now be and other stuff. Luckily we were in a single room, but he would have done the same on a ward.

So, while I understand that for some women, having their DP there all the time would be brilliant and supportive, because of men like my ExH I would have to vote no.