Should men be allowed on post-natal wards?

[Kibble19]

This is off the back of another thread from a woman who is very concerned about the presence of unknown men on the post-natal ward at hospital.

I had my child during the pandemic so have no experience of normal practices in post-natal wards, and I appreciate they may vary from Trust to Trust.

When I had my baby, I was on the post-natal ward for several days (PPH, sepsis pathway joy). There were three visiting times each day, one hour each. Partners had to call the ward the day before to book their slot the next day, for social distancing purposes. I had no choice but to just manage on my own, as did the other women there.

Should we have a system like that (minus the need to book your visit) instead of the very wide open hours that many hospitals seem to have? Specific hours for visiting (with all visitors gone by, say, 7pm) only? No men or family members overnight?

1 in 4 women in England & Wales has suffered domestic abuse, so there must be many women who are anxious about the presence of men when they’ve had their baby.

One compromise would be that hospitals have to provide a chaperone on wards where not all mothers have a partner staying, to protect women and babies who are alone and who don't have a second, conscious parent present. But I can't think of any other scenario where complete strangers would have access to unprotected babies.

And this sort of aggressive defiant response is exactly why some women feel uncomfortable around men.

Agree that words should be better staffed and visiting hours restricted.

When I had DD I remember being in labour and venturing out for a shower in a towel before visiting time to be met by a man waltzing onto the ward whistling.

Post emergency C Section I was reliant on nurses to pull the curtains to preserve my dignity, often poorly. And had little support. Couldn't wait to get home.

Or a woman's forum!

"In all honesty, the expectation for mothers to get on with everything a day after labour with no time to rest and recover is a prime example of patriarchy imo"

1. Woman posts men should be banned from post natal wards which should be a safe space.

2. Another woman posts that midwives ( overwhelmingly female as many women would refuse use of male midwives) expect new mums to get on with it.

This is patriarchy....

The patients in hospitals you mention don’t have babies to look after.

Ive had 2 babies by CS. With the first EMCS I was in such excruciating pain afterwards I couldn’t move, let alone lift a baby. Luckily we were in a private room so DH was able to stay. DS was also very fussy from the moment he was born - he wouldn’t just settle easily in the crib and sleep for hours like you hear about some newborns doing on the first night.

The second was ELCS and thankfully my recovery was somewhat easier and I could just about cope when DH had to leave the shared ward at 8pm. Still very painful mind and managed to rip out some of my stitches lifting my 10lb baby in and out of the crib. One of the other women on my ward was obviously suffering from her CS the way I had with my first. It was horrible listening to her baby cry in the night, and mum crying to because she couldn’t move to help. The midwives would either ignore her or tick her off for bothering them.

IMO if we want to restrict visiting times we need to go back to the type of maternity wards that my mum describes in the 70s - where the midwives/nurses would look after the babies in nurseries and just bring them to mum for feeding. Mums were actually given a chance to recover after the birth.

Yes. Obviously.

"Some women might feel uncomfortable".

So what?

Only birth that my ex was allowed overnight, is when I had a stillbirth. Baby was born just after midnight and I had my own room.

My other three children were born during the day, via c-section. Two went to nicu and their father followed.

Dc1 went with me to the ward. I was so exhausted and the midwifes were very busy. They have staffing issues, until that is fix they shouldn't band visitors. Some of us really need them.

We of course need to staff the wards properly but I wholeheartedly agree with no men overnight. And I say this as a woman who had two emcs, the first of which was traumatic and late at night with a pph to boot. DH had to leave soon after so I could go to the ward. There were three visiting slots during the day and the third was partners only from 6-9pm and was also a "quiet" visiting slots with dimmed lights from 8pm. Didn't stop the bloke opposite from pestering his postpartum gf for a blow job or the bloke next to us from streaming the football or another bloke from face timing his mates and commenting on the "tits and arses" he'd seen round the ward as he blatantly gawped at all the new mothers.

I’ve had 3 in 2 different hospitals. One hospital allowed my partner to stay overnight and it was invaluable as I’m not allowed on shared wards and always have a private room I easily get forgotten about.

I was once left 32 hours before someone came to see me after having one child. That included being given food because they “forgot”

I also had a child in a hospital that made partners stick to visiting hours only and nearly died because there wasn’t enough staff and regular obs were not being taken and alarms ignored. If my partner was there he would have been able to sound the alarm.

this time I’m having a C-section. But I’m also having another surgery at the same time and will be immobile for a number of days in a private room. My partner will be invaluable as I will have no movement at all.

Most men just want to see their partner and baby, they are not looking for an opertunity to sexually assault women who have just given birth
There is no need for them to be there overnight
However women give birth at call times of the day and night as I recall my dh was allowed up the postnatal ward just after I had given birth I had both my boys in the early morning.

Short answer - no, they shouldn't, other than extended visiting hours for a close relative/partner.

However, the longer answer is more complicated. Ideally, the new parents should have their own private room for the first 24 hours or so, and even better for the majority of their stay. Ideally, each maternity ward would have a proper nursery where mums can leave their babies to go to the toilet, have a shower or have a nap without having to wait for their partner to show up. But this costs money.

They’re patients. Not just some random women. Their needs come first. Would you say it about patients in any other part of the hospital?

Yes I have to say I did laugh at that pathetic response and hope that person didn’t have unfettered access to women and babies (lest they get their solicitor involved 🤣🤣🤣)

The patients in hospitals you mention don’t have babies to look after.

Actually I was referring to the wards that don’t let men stay overnight. Like where I gave birth

IMO if we want to restrict visiting times we need to go back to the type of maternity wards that my mum describes in the 70s - where the midwives/nurses would look after the babies in nurseries and just bring them to mum for feeding. Mums were actually given a chance to recover after the birth.

100% agree. Te NHS has massively regressed in terms of postnatal care, we need to bring back recovering for a good few days in a nice ward with good food, help on hand with feeding etc and optional nurseries down the corridor so we can rest. I don’t understand how we have gone to such poor shitty care

That’s horrific. When I was put in a postnatal ward after having pregnancy by complications at 27 weeks (nowhere else to put me apparently as I worried about losing my baby) I actually reported a man to midwives on safeguarding issues because he was so unbelievably nasty to his partner I could have cried. Why should anyone have these shitty men share a sleeping space with them after they’ve just nearly been split in half and are in pain and have a new baby to look after. I’m afraid I’m too cynical to believe that there are so many helpful Nigel’s out these that it’s a resource the NHS need rather than being a huge burden for both patients and staff.

Oh well as long as only a few men are looking to sexually assualt women then that’s ok god the bar is so unbelievably low isnt it

Ffs that's not whst I meant and you know it ,I doubt many uf any man i is actively looking to assault a women on a postnatal ward ,has it ever occurred to you they might just want see their own partner and baby?

Has it ever occurred to you that the patients - you know the people who NEED to be there - don’t want some random man they don’t know from Adam there? Frankly, given how men as a class treat women why should any woman trust any one man is there for good intentions?

Like I say I may be cynical but given the amount of useless men on these wards who didn’t give a shit about disturbing other women or even being nice to their wives, I don’t see why patients should be trusting of anyone.

They were good to enough to shag and get pregnant with to begin with though.

And yes, you are cynical. A random man wouldn’t bother me, because I would assume he was there to visit his wife, and er baby.

Well its up to the wards isn't it
And it's not all about what you want other women who are also patients will want their partners there.

Absolutely not. I find it dreadful that this practice has become normalised. Thankfully not a thing when I had my two 19 and 17 years ago.

They were good to enough to shag and get pregnant with to begin with though

So because one woman chose to shag them other women should suffer their presence in a space that should be safe and should be theirs?

Well good for you for not being bothered but can you understand why other women - patients - would be bothered by a strange unvetted male visitor sleeping in the same room as them when they’re recovering from birth?

I think there should be designated visiting hours. Just make sure they do not exclude some dads given shift work.

I would have hated my husband not being able to visit freely and was never bothered by any of the other parents visiting the ward. Maybe I was lucky but there weren't a lot of visitors or any rude/obnoxious visitors on the more than one occasion I was on a postnatal ward. However I can see a general argument for no visitors after 9pm with specific allowances made for night time births.

I also think the idea of preventing the other parent from seeing their baby (or having extremely limited access) for what can be a number of days is a really sad idea given all the modern research about parent-child bonding.

A further question to ponder is whether it would be okay for the partner of a same sex female couple to visit more often or stay overnight. I can see how some people may feel more comfortable about that by in my opinion would be discriminatory.

Lastly it feels disproportionate that many women should forgo significant support due to some personal discomfort of others where items like the curtains and ear plugs/noise cancelling headphones can help with this far more than anything else can help with the former (although clearly that balance is very hard to measure).

I expect that NHS budgets wouldn't allow it but I do like previous posters ideas about having most wards relatively open to visitors but then a ward assigned for those who need, or wish, to have more limited or fewer visitors, for whatever reasons as the best compromise.