Visitors on post-natal wards - a feminist issue?

SorryauntLydia

You say you were ok being separated from your newborn child in the nice. Even for the nicu they are finding a true patient oriented system is individual rooms or bays with parent rooming in. Babies recover faster when they are with their parents. Babies recover faster when they are in quiet bays or rooms with dim lights and less noise. Architectural design can be used to facilitate care while also providing rest.

Nothing about the old and sadly in many places still in use system was about patient care. It was about staff convenience. .
Instead of little adjustments, women should be fighting to completely up-end the system.

In an ideal world, beside curtains would be wide open all day
No. I wanted privacy with my baby. I didn’t want random women staring at me and trying to speak to me. I certainly didn’t want to get my breast out and try to feed in front of strangers.

It's all very well saying other women could help but that leaves things very much to chance with who is around you
I can tell you for sure that I didn’t give a shit about any of the other women on my ward. I was there for myself and my child, not to be an unpaid carer to a complete stranger. And who wants to be helped by a stranger who hasn’t been DBS checked and god knows what their background or history is. The only appropriate carers are either a family member or qualified nursing staff who’ve undergone relevant safety checks.

Unless there is something wrong with them, babies are not patients. The mother is the patient.

It's interesting reading this as my instinct is completely against allowing partners to stay over on a maternity ward even with single rooms, due to shared facilities such as food, day rooms etc.

But I agree the key is to say, what should postnatal care look like? How can postnatal care of women and of babies, two separate but interdependent patient groups, and the special role of the spouse in the baby and mother's life, be well managed?

This is a feminist issue which in particular negatively affects lower income families/working class women.

Family A: lovely Daddy gets two weeks paid paternity leave from his professional job and with Mummy can afford to pay for any childcare the other children at home might need. He wants to maximise his time with his new baby so wants to stay all night. And he is able and willing to articulate any needs his partner may need. How lovely for family A!

Family B: lovely Daddy works zero hours contract so goes back to work as soon as baby is safely born. He has to be home at night for their other kids. He pops in when he can. Mummy B gets less attention from the nurses because she doesn’t have an able-bodied adult to advocate for her - even if she has greater medical need.

And both these scenarios assume that the Daddy is lovely - whereas many of us have experienced post-natal wards with less than lovely partners present. And the statistics for VAWG prove that there is a risk to vulnerable women from men.

A post-natal ward should be first and foremost a safe space for women and their babies. A good example of how patient-focused they should be is the way in which NICU is run, where the health and safety of the babies is prioritised over everything else. Having experienced this, I can tell you that I was only allowed to be with my baby when the staff deemed me not to be in the way of them providing life-saving care to any of the babies. This is a patient-centric model of care that post-natal women should experience.

It is worrisome that so much of natal and post-natal care is now supposed to centre both the parents. The fact is that being pregnant and giving birth are exclusively female activities and some men just cannot countenance this. As feminists we should be protecting the maternity units as safe spaces for women to give birth and recover - rather than the crucible of fatherhood.

Ah bless Jurgen it’s all about you isn’t it.

Here’s a clue. The mother of your child carried them for 9 months. Pregnancy is natural but so is death. Labour is very painful, if men had to give birth maternity care would be very different.

I panicked reading this because I had such a bad experience the first time ( husband went home, midwives would not help me overnight, even though I had a c section, 50+ hour labour, high blood pressure and emotional trauma. I actually was crying for a lot of the night and the midwife assigned to me said I wasn’t allowed to cry as it would upset her- that was after my baby nearly aspirated on mucous the one time I left him alone to go to the bathroom)

If my partner couldn’t be there I would not have another baby. I’ve had treatment for ptsd and anxiety since the birth caused by the trauma of the birth and after care. His focus was us but being in a bay of 4 was awful. Most of the time all the curtains were shut and there was no nurses station in there anyway. They were sat down the corridor. It felt like a prison tbh. The only time they forced us to open the curtains was when family were visiting the people opposite, so a load of men sat staring at me, not interacting with that mother at all. I shut the curtains and made my partner tell them to stop using the toilet that was just for mums and babies (he used the hospital one outside the ward) but that was intimidating when I felt that vulnerable too, so I do get it. I don’t know what the answer is. Of course everyone wants their own partner there. But perhaps only if the partner is there to help.

I think midwifery services are underfunded and undersupported. The midwives were either totally great or completely heinous bitches who should not have been in the caring profession. And I say that as analysis after the fact. I was institutionalised into be so polite and deferential out of desperation and fear. I still feel sick and vulnerable thinking about it even now. Felt like I was sh** on their shoe most of the time. While they fudged my records to make it look like I was getting medication at the right times and in the right doses. Discharge took 9 hours too.

There is a lot that needs to be fixed in the system but I doubt it will be, and threads like this focusing on the men are a red herring and distract from working towards a real solution.

An organisation like women’s aid could be funded to provide an advocacy service. They would have the skills and experience to be aware of prioritising women’s needs rather than those of the hospital or visitors.

Most people here on FWR take the position that nobody male or male bodied belongs on a single sex, female hospital ward. If you think that then it is very hypocritical to state your own male partner belongs on a postnatal ward.

Women shouldn't have to deal with random men when they're at their most vulnerable.

I stayed during the day, then retired in the evening to the pub to celebrate with friends and family the day my daughter was born. I left them to get a good night's sleep. And two decades later, I still get moaned at for it. Sometimes you just can't win.

The role of mother has been so devalued. Instinctively after a birth (lack of complications permitting) a mother wants to hold, smell, see her baby. It's an exclusive female experience, growing and birthing a baby. And yet we're rail roaded into sharing the experience and the baby from the moment of first breath. Those first few days should be mother centred.
I can't articulate my point properly

The advocate can’t be affiliated with the hospital. Especially in teaching situations, you can’t trust that the least invasive alternative will always be chosen.

all those idiots going on about their sainted partners need to read some of the threads about awful partners. Barging behind curtains when women are naked, moaning about patients in pain making a noise, using patient facilities and being able to listen to health professionals talking about some women’s perinieum.

I don’t consider not having other people’s patient advocate there overnight to be a want. I consider to to be a rule that has been set up across all adult hospital wards because it is shown to be in the best interests of patients as a group.

If women require patient advocates on maternity wards because maternity ward care is far worse than on other wards (which I am not convinced is the case), then either improve maternity care, or increase patient advocacy as a volunteering role.

My husband, my baby, no one else's business.

It is when you're in a public place sharing space with other people.

Where are all the these wonderful partners providing care because nursing staff can’t. It’s a total lie. They aren’t feeding and changing their newborn and they aren’t providing care to their partner. What they are actually doing is making demands from staff, using patient facilities and not caring a fuck about women’s privacy.

When the hell did giving birth become all about the menz and what they want?

It's not all about the mens!
It's all about the women who want their partners there!
The wants of women who don't want men there should trump the wants of women who want their partners there?

My husband, my baby, no one else's business. Swim and roundabouts as I remember the campaign. The husbands 99% of the time aren't the problem. It's the additional "guests", their food smells, noise etc. There's no way I could've done without my husband during my time in hospital with my son. Also, I nearly died. Imagine how he would feel if I had and he wasn't there. Get a hold of yourselves. A feminist issue my arse.

The other downside is that those with wonderful partners are receiving better care than women who may be there alone or with a less wonderful partner.

This care should be being provided by hospital staff, equally. It shouldn't have to rely on the quality of the person a woman may be able to have with her 24/7 if their childcare commitments etc work out.

I suppose the two opposing viewpoints are both selfish - either tell women they can't have their partners there or tell women they have to put up with other women's partners. There's nowhere to compromise.

In matters of consent, no always has to trump yes.

The compromise would be to have two separate units - although again I'd have concerns about how much women would be allowed to make the choice for themselves, particularly the women who most need to. But that's never going to happen on the nhs.

The wants of one person do not trump the needs of other women to feel safe at a time they are at their most vulnerable. Your husband might be a 'godsend' to you, to all the other women he is a stranger, taking up space and resources that are limited.
When the hell did giving birth become all about the menz and what they want? Surely all these 'partners' wandering around, unDBS checked in a healthcare setting is a safeguarding issue? I'm probably wrong about that!
More healthcare assistants, nursing care for post-partum women who need it. Enforced visiting hours, no more of this 'entire family turning up and sitting there all day commenting on everyone else in the ward.' Maternity care is not important because it is a women's thing. If it was men giving birth there is no way the post-natal wards would be in the state they are!

It's all very well saying other women could help

Also, why should other women help? Because it's women's work?