Men on a post natal ward

[RogueV]

The guy in the next bay is pissing me right off.
He just asked the midwife for a bed. Dick.

Why are they allowed to stay anyway? Shouldn’t they be going home?

Sorry just ranting.

Hi all,

We're getting a lot of reports about this thread.

We're going to pause it while we go over everything, and we'll reinstate if we can. Bear with us!

Blanche

One woman could be afraid of hospitals due to previous trauma and hate being alone.

One woman may not speak English and need her husband to translate.

One woman might have a baby in NICU and need the emotional support.

One woman might have a disability and struggle to cope alone after giving birth.

So many reasons a woman might want her partner there, maybe it's you who should have empathy for them.

We're reinstating the thread now - we've deleted a few PAs.

It's a hugely personal and painful subject, and of course it's fine to strongly disagree with each other, but we just ask that TGs are kept in mind when posting.

Thanks all

Weetabixandshreddies - I'm really sorry. I haven't read all your posts and that sounds like a horrendous experience. But if you hadn't had a partner who could have been there, what would have happened? Do you think it's acceptable that another woman and her baby in exactly the same situation would have died because she was a single mother or that her husband couldn't get the time off work or was needed to look after other children at home? I don't believe you do.

So let's fight together for all women to receive great post natal care - not just those of us who have great partners who are able to stay. All women deserve to live and leave the hospital with their babies. All of us.

There's no sovereignty over "bedspace" in an open hospital ward. Not sure why that random made up argument keeps being thrown in.

The thread is like playing chess with pigeons now though, everything worth saying was said pages ago.

There's no sovereignty over the ward either.

@AlexaAmbidextra

"and one morning I called him at 5 to come back as they were going to remove my catheter and I wanted him back with me!

2isabella2. Seriously? You called him in at 5am for this?"

Yes I called him. I'd had a massive bleed caused by a urethral tear. I had a catheter for a couple of days and they delayed removing it in case i couldn't wee and it would have been very painful having it put back in. They came round to give me oramorph before removing it as it was going to hurt and I called him as I was scared, had had close to zero sleep for three days and was emotional!

I spent two nights in hospital getting zero sleep with DC1. DH spent two nights at home getting a full night's sleep and getting stuff ready for us coming home..

I spent a week in hospital with DH to do the bulk of the childcare so I could rest/sleep and recover. As a result we were all able to cope better.

You may prefer your way (I think you're crazy, but each to their own, I'm happy for it to be your choice) but I'm not content to have you decide I can't have what works better for me.

Does you wanting no men trump the 1st time anxious mum who has had a c section really needing her partner there?

If it means that a woman post c-section can't access postnatal care then yes I do and I've been that "1st time anxious mum who has had a c-section".

I have ptsd from being raped. I can't relax around strange men especially when I feel vulnerable, waking up for example and hearing a strange man's voice has me in full on panic mode (sometimes I can't even cope with dh). I just don't feel safe and to be honest, the curtain situation, i.e. just closed all the time would make me feel a 1000x worse as I can't see any threats coming and it's all very well saying there aren't any...unfortunately my brain doesn't work like that at the moment. I would have been discharging myself after both emergency sections had men been allowed to stay with my 1st (despite 75 hours of back labour, failed forceps, a fever, hallucinations, an emergency section, a sick baby in NICU and a psychotic episode) or if I hadn't had a private room with my 2nd.

Removing my own personal experiences, I don't think the bays are big enough to have a bed, a cot and an extra person staying overnight. A friend was talking about someone else's visitor falling through her curtains when she had her dc2 last year...that at 3 am is unacceptable regardless of why (he tripped over a suitcase) recently.

It was nearly twenty years ago now Moaning so it's all a distant memory. Plus thank goodness men weren't allowed to stay anyway.

I have no regrets though, neither does DH.

Dinosaur that sounds horrible. Surely if that has happened to you, you can imagine the trauma around being in hospital alone for women who have had intensely negative experiences there?

I honestly think the only way to meet everyone's needs is private rooms.

It beggars belief how some people think. "This was my view and my experience and my lovely husband so other people must be in the same circumstances". I couldn't imagine being so unfortunate that you have that narrow a view point and think because you wouldn't mind a man hearing about your bleeding or seeing your bum that others shouldn't too.

Private rooms, and far more midwives and staff to take care of the mothers and babies so fathers don’t have to.

Do you think it's acceptable that another woman and her baby in exactly the same situation would have died because she was a single mother or that her husband couldn't get the time off work or was needed to look after other children at home? I don't believe you do.

My husband being there had no bearing on how ill I was. I was diagnosed at a routine antenatal appointment, admitted for 2 weeks and then deteriorated very quickly.

I needed support afterwards - practically because I was initially too ill to go anywhere. My only contact about my baby was my husband. I only got news about him, saw a photo because my husband relayed it to me. Without that link I had no way of knowing how my son was doing. Other post natal women on the ward had their babies with them though. So they got to see their babies, to hold them, to care for them. Flipping your argument - do you think it was acceptable for me to suffer that while other mothers didn't because I couldn't have my husband with me?

Emotionally we needed to be together at that time. We were both in shock. We needed each other to get through it.

Your argument is that I should have suffered through that on my own in order that other women on the ward, who were celebrating a very happy time, could be spared having a man on the ward?

Yes, care needs to be better but even if it happens at some point, it's not going to happen anytime soon.

No amount of nursing care could have made that any better for me. How were they ever going to have enough staff to go up and down 4 flights to check on my baby for me when I wanted or to take me down to him and bring me back whenever I wanted?

I didn't want to see or gear other babies. I didn't want to see or hear other women and their visitors celebrating, cuddling babies, enjoying that time. I had to put up with it though didn't I? Would you argue that I had the right to ban it all because it affected, and still does affect me?

All women deserve to live and leave the hospital with their babies. All of us.

Yes they do. That's why I've spent the intervening years volunteering for a charity that does just that. What about other posters on here? Seems to me, all they want is to ban men, regardless.

@Weetabixandshreddies

Weetabix, my experience was so similar to yours. These experiences really do echo down the years.

Well things have moved along since 1999. I would be wanting to have one of these rooms now. V nice.

www.worcsacute.nhs.uk/maternity-services/meadow-birth-centre

Weetabix
When i was in for 7 weeks . I didnt know if i was going to celebrate a happy event or not. The lady in the next bed baby died. Another woman ended up in a different hospital to her baby because she had kidney failure.
Was DH supposed to stay with me every night for 7 weeks because i needed support.

But i did lots of new babies come and go

Seline

Yes, I can empathise with that and I could probably could have done so without my own horrific hospital experiences (dc1's arrival, watching my df die in one 3 months before dc2 was born etc) but it doesn't feel that many of the posters arguing in favour of men can understand my perspective and/or think it's absolutely fine that I would have had to go home without postnatal care a few hours after a c-section.

I'm a huge advocate for private rooms and my experiences have contributed to the fact that the new and improved local maternity hospital will only have them.

That and more beds for mums near NICU I think are hugely important. No woman who has had a c-section should be expected to get herself from one end of the hospital to another by herself to see her sick baby.

Obviously more staff would be lovely too. With dc2, I barely saw a midwife in the 25 hours I was in postnatal despite being anemic and having an emergency section.

IMO It's not on, for all the reasons already said, to have non-patients present 24 hours a day on curtained-bay ward. Better post natal care is needed to prevent that from being thought of as a good idea to paper over the massive cracks in staffing etc.

It is not a coincidence that a service for women only is given such a low priority and focus. The debate between those women who felt they absolutely needed their partner present 24/7 and those women who absolutely couldn't put up with that will never be resolved because they absolutely conflict. The solution is private rooms, or possibly two separate wards one mixed-sex for partners to stay and one with the normal 12 hour visiting times. That's what we should all be fighting for rather than continually debating who is "right".

We also realise that we are fortunate to have the NHS, for all its faults and that the level of care women are advocating for here are never going to happen.

I'm so sorry, but this is why I don't feel just fortunate to have the NHS, because it's not good enough. It's not good enough to say that a basic level of care isn't going to happen. It's not good enough to outsource basic levels of care to husbands and partners. It's not ok to double the number of people using hospital facilities overnight, increase infection risk, make women feel uncomfortable, strip them of their right to privacy and dignity, make care inaccessible for women who require privacy for religious reasons because the NHS 'isn't going to change.' It needs to change, plenty of workable solutions have been mentioned, employing more hca for example, but what is not acceptable is treating post natal women as less worthy of good medical care than the rest of the hospital inpatients.

I had this I was single and gave birth alone so a bay full of couples and me! Also I had a c section,general anaesthetic they put me from intensive care into this ward. Then told me to get up and have a shower (without help). Needless to say I collapsed naked at the bathroom door, in full view of attentive fathers. I discharged myself, I would rather be at home. 11 years ago now. Thankfully my mother was alive at the time and helped loads.

Dinosaur You shouldn't have to go home without post natal care.

I had to drag myself from ward to the nicu all the time. It was horrible. I remember walking around bleeding and crying just trying to get to my babies. Midwives didn't care at all.

It is not a coincidence that a service for women only is given such a low priority and focus. The debate between those women who felt they absolutely needed their partner present 24/7 and those women who absolutely couldn't put up with that will never be resolved because they absolutely conflict. The solution is private rooms, or possibly two separate wards one mixed-sex for partners to stay and one with the normal 12 hour visiting times. That's what we should all be fighting for rather than continually debating who is "right".

This could work.