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.

Jaxtellerswife that's completely it isn't it "I won't be giving the other people on the ward much thought" - I'm alright Jack, sod everyone else. You're proud of that, are you?

Incidentally when I had my third (section) they had a policy for first 24 hours post section in a communal ward/ curtains open most of the time / right next to the nurses station (for sections) then they’d try to find you a private room - I.e once they knew you were safe to walk around. That worked quite well and I did get my own room after 24 hours.

Different hospital for first 2, but there (section each time) they would tuck the baby up in bed with you - to encourage breastfeeding, but also made it easier post section. The hospital where I had my third almost passed out in horror when I buzzed them and asked them to do the same on my first night there. In the end they did but they didn’t do it right (hospital 1 had a very specific way of doing it) so I ended up having to buzz constantly to have him lifted in and out Of the crib. But being next to the nurses station that was at least easier than at hospital 1.

Don't know what the solution is.

The solution isn't to remove women's privacy and safety. There are good reasons the nhs are trying to reduce mix sex wards.

This thread appears every week.

I wouldn't have coped without DH with me, I'll always be thankful he was allowed to stay on the ward with me and I wouldn't give birth again anywhere where he wasn't. Every other woman on the ward also had their partners with them. In all honestly, we rarely saw each other as curtains were drawn around all beds at all times.

I'd have been a hell of a lot more vulnerable after birth without him there.

There will always be exceptions and people who cannot behave appropriately - that's life unfortunately.

It’s all well and good people who didn’t need help after the birth - or who had plentiful, helpful midwives around - saying men shouldn’t be allowed to stay.

But that wasn’t the case for me and I’m very glad my husband was able to.

Yanbu. With my second dc we were on a shared ward and I was the only one who didn't have their dh because he had to look after dc 1. He managed to get me a side room. Don't know how he did it but he did. And I thank him for this because even though I know nothing would happen I am so quiet and shy that if I had a problem I would have suffered along with it...I had dc3 at home and dc4 will be too as long as all fine.

Thank fuck I had my first baby (and only hospital stay) in 1988. Visiting hours were restricted to 2 hours in the afternoon for partners only and 2 hours in the evening for other visitors. Staff had time to help those who needed it and patients were able to recover from childbirth in peace and privacy.

Before I went into a private room I had asked the midwife a question and she said she was too busy. She came back for a cup of tea for next doors dh...

I hated having men around after I gave birth. I was trying to establish breast feeding and gave up largely because I couldn't face pumping in front of all the strange men in the room!

Just the thought of random blokes snoring next to me and trying to breast feed with some chap loitering

It never occurred to me that my DP not be there tbh. Pretty sure most people had their partners or husbands too.

I was in for about 3 days so he’d pop home to shower and pick up stuff, but that was pretty much it. I did think it was probably not allowed when I saw a man come out of the shower room (mine would never have dreamt of showering in the ward bathroom) but I didn’t dwell on it.

So would you expect the men just to visit a few hours a day?

They had reclining seats for partners even 20 years ago, my dh went home though, with a long shopping list from me!

We are in an area with 2 maternity hospitals about 3/4 of an hour apart. Our local is brand new with private rooms only so wonderful until mums from the other older hospital choose to travel to it. As no other beds local mums now have to travel away. Until all units in an area have the same services you are going to get problems such as this.

The men bit wouldn’t have bothered me - I would have hated 24 hour visiting of any sex.

Same.

Nowhere else in the NHS would patients be expected to share a bay designed for 4-6 overnight with 4-6 non-patients.

It's a hospital not a hotel, you want your partner there then either have a home birth, pay for a private room, or find a hospital with individual rooms as standard. Not every patient wants partners (male or female) to be able to stay overnight for various reasons and their need to rest/recover and feel safe in what should be a predominantly female space trumps that of people who do want their partners there.

if you're going to deny men permission to be available as fathers in the first few hours / days of their child's life, why expect them to get any more hands on once you get home.

It's not about bonding or being available. It's about the woman being a patient, having just put her body through a huge physical trauma, and needing time to rest and recuperate. You wouldn't expect your wife to stay overnight with you on the urology ward if you were having surgery, would you?

There's plenty of opportunity to bond with the baby at-home, DH has never stayed over on the postnatal ward and somehow has managed to parent four children.

But if you are not needing medical care, not sure why people are still kept in - when I had mine you could go home straight from the delivery room for subsequent children and I left after 11 hours with my first. I'm not keen on home birth but early discharge helps sort most of these problems and the only people on the ward are those needing treatment and can be told partners need to be quiet!

So would you expect the men just to visit a few hours a day?
2 hours in the afternoon and 2 hours in the evening was perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. Can't remember any of the other mothers complaining about it either.

Side rooms should be made available for those who want them so fathers can stay without upsetting new mothers on a shared ward.
I was initially on a ward with 6 beds and the 2 toilets in the room had a big sign saying patients /mothers only. Still saw men using them and overheard one woman telling her partner to go there as it was nearer. By the time I had managed to get out of bed (emergency c-section) I couldnt cope with waiting. Some people are just impossibly selfish. Luckily we then got a side room. Not en suite but I didn't care about that.

I’m not that fussed about daytime visiting hours - although tbh dh could only really hang around for ds1 - he had to look after the kids with the other 2, but at night I would have been driven mad by extended visiting.

Cookit the men are not patients. Open visiting hours during the day mean they can be there 12 hours but go home at night. Other patients are at their most vulnerable at night when staffing levels are lower and lights are dimmed, curtains of the most at risk post operative patients have to be open for observation, women in bays of 6 patients are in night wear trying to sleep. The wants of visitors come second.

Any man who tries to claim he can't be good hands on dad for the rest of his life because he wasn't allowed to sleep in the post natal ward overnight with lots of other women is a nasty manipulative excuse for a father, and the mother of his children is to be pitied.

Thankfully the hospital I’m booked in to does not allow partners over night.

My previous one did, there was actually only one bloke who stayed with his partner, and bloody hell did he make full use of the resources for the patients, he was constantly in the toilets used the bathroom and ended up opening the door to the bathroom when one of the mums was in there too. He also spent a lot of time walking up and down the bay peering in between my curtained off area whilst I tried to breastfeed. I couldn’t even discharge myself as I had been readmitted due to baby not putting on enough weight.

Also I wasn’t allowed to sit in a curtained off bay either as midwives wanted to be able to see me. But with him around I kept the curtains closed. I had enough trying to feed my newborn without being ogled.

Was horrendous.

The selfish attitude of ‘oh some men will be like that suck it up’ is downright nasty. Just because I’m alright jack the rest should put up with conditions nobody else recovering from huge personal and psychological trauma would be expected to.

We definitely need an overhaul of the maternity services and it needs to become patient focussed and money spent on training more midwives and aftercare.

Both times I've been on the PN wards it's been like a forest of blue curtains

Mine was like this too. Curtains permanently closed for privacy from other people’s partners and visitors. I didn’t even see any of the other patients or babies. In an ideal world it would be open and friendly and light, but as long as poor staffing means that partners have to stay to help women who are incapacitated, the curtains will remain closed.

To those saying they wouldn't have coped without their partner, you would, you have to, there's no alternative. It's hard but you get in with it.

(I didn't want my dh post birth, I wanted my. Mum. As it was, all visitors were sent home at 8pm regardless of how you'd given birth or what time. Four women and four babies was bad enough, adding another four people to the mix would have been dreadful.)

I paid for a private room second time around after a horrendous experience first time. The woman I shared with talked all fucking day and night very loudly and her OH tried to out volume her. He also was a know it all who argued with every midwife and doctor who came in and told them he knew best. How I wished they had of sent him home (and told her to stop talking all the time, even to herself!).I was in for 5 days due to complications and I barely slept due to them. I wasn't prepared to share the second time round after that.