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.

When I had my last baby the was a man opposite me who never stopped staring at people breastfeeding, including me. It was horrible. No way to avoid it because I could get up to close my curtains and if they did get closed the nurses opened them again.

What about their need to not have to care for another patient (the baby) when they are too unwell to do so? Yes care should be provided by the NHS but it's not being provided. Realistically, given that there is no care, it isn't in many women's best interests to be forced to care for another patient alone.

Our local hospital was one of the ones where men could only stay overnight in side rooms, with no leaving the side room after 8.30pm (this seemed pretty well enforced). The side rooms were all en suite so they weren't using the ward toilets. If there was a medical need for mum and baby have the side room then no charge, otherwise they had to pay. If there were no side rooms available, men couldn't stay.

Personally I thought it was a decent compromise, there were staff shortages and some mums with difficult births got a lot more support having partners there, but there weren't men wandering the ward at night.

Visitors shouldn’t plug a gap for lack of healthcare. And unless visitors can do obs, write in notes, take blood pressure, prescribe medications etc they can’t plug that gap anyway. They are far more of a inference and safety concern than a help.

Exactly this. Neither should other newly delivered women be subjected to loud men, large extended families and overexcited children rampaging round the wards and corridors.
My DH is a quiet, helpful, respectful man but vulnerable women should not have to put up with him in their space when sleeping, washing or breast feeding. Believe me I encountered some awful husbands and partners and absolutely feral children in the hospital I worked in. A female colleague was punched in the face when she asked a particularly awful man to leave. We need all single rooms and most of those should be hotel type accommodation for women who don't need actual nursing care, just rest, privacy and access to advice when needed. The cost to the nhs would be less and the staff would have more time to look after the womenwho need to be on a ward due to having complicated deliveries.
When I had my dc in the 80s and 90s there was an option to go home from the labour ward. Of course back then there were community midwives. There are some places that have no community midwives at all now.

They can certainly change nappies, feed babies, comfort crying babies, get food/water, get medical help, all things that the patient cannot do and therefore should not be reasonably expected to do if she is too unwell. If you think midwives are going to do all this anytime soon you are not living in reality.

I’ll be honest, I completely agree. Not just that, but I would actually prefer professional help to OH over night. Don’t get me wrong, he really tried , but it’s just different when it’s someone that actually knows what needs doing and when. But that isn’t available at the moment so we’re stuck in a horrible, shitty , no mans land , either struggling on our own or ignoring other women’s needs (which doesn’t sit right with me ). I actually saw a midwife at night she cane for something, I asked her please come back and pass the baby because she needed changing and feeding. She never did. So i had to roll myself down the bed (catheter still in, massive pain) and try one handed to pull DD’s bassinet near enough to get her near and be able to get her out. That’s how our cosleeping started because I couldn’t do it to put her back.

Patients can’t change nappies comfort a baby or get medical help?

This Isn’t a good enough reason to put the safety and comfort of women and babies at risk. Men aren’t THAT helpful - if there were men truly plugging gaps really well then it would be NHS policy to have all wards open to men overnight. They cause far more problems being there than they solve.

I do wonder when you last gave birth to be honest. I had my daughter last year and can say absolutely that without the partners to provide the non-medical support, the midwives on my ward would not have been capable of doing their more important jobs- as you say obs, medication etc. There weren’t even enough midwives on my ward to get all meds out & obs done on time, they were very most often at least 60-90 mins late because there simply wasn’t enough of them.

If those midwives were also having to help X to the toilet every hour, filling up Y water jug, passing the baby to Z who is still immobile after c section, I dread to think how long we’d all of been waiting for much needed meds which were already as it is-
late.

Partners aren’t necessarily about plugging the gap in the actual medical healthcare side of things, but they cover all the standard/basic needs so that the already rushed midwives are freed up to do the actual medical bits.

No, they can't if (for example), they have lost 2L of blood due to PPH, they can't move their limbs due to spinal anaesthetic, or they are delirious due to postpartum psychosis. There are many other medical reasons why a patient who has just given birth would not be able to do these things. Yet the standard of 'care' currently is to stick all these patients on a postnatal ward with very little medical help.

Exactly. This is the reality. Perhaps some of the older posters on here are out of touch with this,

It absolutely is. My mum talks often about how amazing the care was in hospital having her children, she was really shocked at how different things were when she was there with us for the birth of my daughter. I was on the postnatal ward for a few days due to a large PPH & sepsis pathway and I am genuinely not criticising the midwives at all- they were amazing- but there absolutely wasn’t enough of them to even do the bare minimum essentials nevermind all of the other bits.

I agree it’s dreadful, but the solution isn’t to bring in visitors who cause more problems than they solve and pose a risk to patients

I’m 39 🤣

I’m happy to criticise midwives - whilst I’m sure they were short staffed when I had my kids, there was a real lack of compassion and care and lots of treating all the women like they were isotopic children. It’s a culture problem, and it needs addressing. We shouldn’t be having the maternity crises in Leeds and the like in 2025!

I am truly horrified to hear this. 25 years ago the food was unpleasant, and I heard some midwives being awful to a young mum on the ward who had torn front to back and was crying in pain and unable to sit, but I’m so grateful for the kindness they showed me. I remember going to the nursery room one night (a big room where they would wheel the sleeping babies in bassinets in the night so mum’s could get sleep) and my son wasn’t there and I panicked. If only given birth about five hours before. He was with the nurses and they were cooing over him. It was a weekend where there weren’t enough labour rooms so several women gave birth on an open ward - v busy weekend. But some of the women who’d had a straightforward delivery were able to leave as soon as post birth check was done, and thankfully we had enough midwives to provide sufficient care.

The NHS is failing. The only option is to raise taxes to help plug the gap.

I’m really sorry that was your experience, I’ve heard a lot of woman who had similar sadly. I do consider myself incredibly lucky that my midwives were genuinely brilliant, so so lovely and did really care, they just simply didn’t have enough time/staff to provide all of the care.

I also think having lots of extra friends/ kids/ relatives/ partners on the ward is a massive infection risk. Especially using the showers and toilets provided for the women who need them. How many of those visitors leave the bathrooms dirty and don't wash their hands after using them?

I had no idea partners could stay overnight now. I think it was fine how it used to be, when everyone had to leave around 8pm. But I absolutely think men should be allowed to visit during the day.

This happened to me, I had the poor planning to deliver at 9.30 at night. Husband ushered off as soon as I was out of the delivery suite (not allowed to accompany me to the ward), not allowed back for 12 hours during which time I had no sleep, no rest, no support and cursory care. I left as soon as possible the next day. It was a shit show all round.

BTW my post was meant to say idiotic not isotopic 😂

Yes, because no woman has ever farted or snored…

I'm nearly 20 years on from the experience and still find the memory very clear. There was an internal enquiry into the failures/chaos/missing notes etc. that night in delivery. My husband and doula were witness to some shocking treatment by staff - all female, incidentally although the official 'apology' was from a male consultant rather than the nursing and midwifery teams.

Women have a right and medical need to be there. It’s not on the basis they won’t fart. Men don’t have a right or medical need to be there.

I really am old but I am increasingly appalled at the stste of the NHS and midwifery services on particular.
When I did my midwifery training you had to be a qualified RN with at least one year's post qualification experience in order to get a place.
You trained in a designated training hospital and were paid as a staff nurse. There were two intakes a year. That meant that the student midwives were all useful, competent nurses and capable of giving care to women who had had epidurals, sections, haemorrhages etc. In turn that allowed midwives to teach, supervise and support with feeding etc. It wasn't perfect but it was much better than what we have now.