Birth in a time of coronavirus

I'm just astounded that any hospital is encouraging, or even allowing, patients to approach other patients and get close enough to provide breast feeding support. How on earth are they protecting patients from getting infected with COVID19?

That has to be a massive no no from an infection control standpoint?

I've only visited a maternity ward a few times but the ones I've seen are 4 bed rooms (different hospitals) with a few 6 beds. Surely it would be possible to divide postnatal into new mothers that want visitors and those who only want the company of staff and other new mothers? I understand there would be difficulties if the beds approached maximum occupancy but generally, it seems like preferences could be met.

DS was born the week before lockdown but the hospital was very much on high alert and starting to struggle.
^ My experience was nothing like this. Post natal ward was awful, I’m still in counselling and DS is 3 months now. I was stuck in a side room at 11pm (heavily sleep deprived and barely able to move enough to reach the loo) only time I saw a midwife all night was when I rang for one desperate for pain relief. I was broken, cold, scared and left to my own devices.

I was incredibly lucky DH got to stay with me else I couldn’t have managed DS at all. I just cried all night, the bleeding was a nightmare. First thing the next morning they asked if I wanted to stay, I said no (I really wasn’t well enough to leave though) and they happily let me go. It was pretty clear they did not want people staying and were obviously gearing up for CV!

Dc2 was born during the restrictions, I cried all night being away from DP after an emergency c sec. I was shattered after labour then surgery. No one cared or maybe they didnt notice, either way it was nothing like the experience I had at the same hospital with DC1 which was calm and all partners were respectful of noise levels and others

How are women helping other women on the post natal ward?

They surely aren't encouraging patients to get that close to other patients are they?

I totally can get behind this. Allow visiting, but equally visitors shouldn’t be allowed 24/7 and any visitor breaking rules/being disrespectful should be thrown out. The visitors watching Netflix with the volume up - thrown out. The visitors telling woman/babies to be quiet - thrown out.

If you want your partner there 24/7 personally either pay private/have a home birth but don’t inflict your partner on me.

So sorry Hiphopopotamus about your experience. It must have been so difficult for you at this frightening time. Hope that baby Hiphopotamus is now making up for it [flowers

As someone who had their first baby five days ago - bullshit about the postnatal ward. In a time when I felt at my absolute most vulnerable, caring for a baby while recovering from a birth, I felt so unbelievably lonely and isolated. Not being able to have a visitor or have my husband be their with his first child was awful. The lack of privacy on the ward made so much worse as any attempt to complain or close your curtains was met with an ‘it’s fine, there are no men on the ward’. I actually felt like I was in an institution.

The ability to confirm shared reality in women-only groups, and the result that the individual women come out of them much harder to fool, is probably the reason why misogyny has fought women's groups and suppressed them for as long as history.

The tools change, but the goals are the same.

Thank you for sharing this, thought provoking and beautifully written.

That is such a beautiful excerpt. Women only spaces are so powerful in ways which the world we're used to just doesn't understand as power. It gives me hope.