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.

For comparison purposes with a similar country - a former colleague moved back to Ireland and had her first child there. The maternity hospital she used (excellent she said) has the following rules around visiting. Quite rational and sensible I think, giving plenty of time for the partners but no overnights (unless exceptional I suppose). Others are restricted to two hours visiting window. Grandparents, one at a time only. Staffing levels were good. This is in Dublin and I assume all maternity hospitals there have similar rules.

https://www.coombe.ie/visitor-information

If no partners allowed then there needs to be another staff to care for the mums and babies properly.

When I gave birth to my oldest partners weren't allowed to stay overnight. DD was in SCBU and I was told I couldn't go to see her until someone could push me there on a wheelchair but there was no one able to take me all through that night so I wasn't able to feed DD at all that first night, and I had a lot of trouble getting breastfeeding established after that, not to mention feeling like absolute shit all night because I couldn't see her and I couldn't sleep from worrying about her.

When I had my youngest you could book a family room if it wasn't too busy on the ward. So OH was able to stay in my room with me, on the other bed (if another mum needed the bed he'd have been kicked out) for all 5 days we were in, which was wonderful because I was really weak after a major PPH so he did all the nappy changes and clothes changes and I just stayed in bed and breastfed. This was a good system because there was privacy - no other women were affected by him being there because we had a room just for us. Not sure I'd like it on an open ward, but I also wouldn't like not having the help.

In the good old days when I had my first dc (1984) we had to stay in hospital for a week. There was 1 hour visiting time in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. Every afternoon we all had a nap and babies were in the nursery and midwife would fetch mum if needed. It was lovely. Proper rest and looked after.
Working on postnatal wards in the 00,s it was incredibly busy and staff were literally struggling to meet the basic care standards.
Husbands were often helpful but added to the extra noise and busyness of the ward which made it feel very chaotic and not at all restful.
We need more beds and more staff with more restricted visiting hours but I can’t see that happening.

Personally I would prefer no men on the ward at night. My DD wanted her partner there to help after a c-section. However my DD later regretted that she didn't breastfeed her baby because dad wanted to feed from a bottle. I beleive she didn't get the right help from the start because ward staff found it too easy to let dad give a bottle instead.

What is needed is Maternity Assistants to help with the babies (nappies etc) and the welfare type bits like food and drink for the mothers. Then midwives and doctors can deal with the medical issues, and visitors can be visitors.

We used to have those. They were called auxiliaries and some of them had worked on the ward for decades. We also had nursery nurses in the ward nursery at night. We either have to pay more to fund staffing or we have to look at changing the system to reduce costs. The amount of harm being done to mothers and babies and all the associated litigation is costing a fortune. If only that money had gone into decent care in the first place.

But this is the point you are not seeing. Women, who are patients themselves, are doing all the care for the newborns (also patients). Frankly until the NHS can properly staff their wards so women are able to be cared for and not just used as sole carers of a baby when they are too poorly to move, then partners are essential on postnatal wards. Either a woman is not well enough to go home, in which case she should not have sole responsibility for caring for a newborn, or she is well enough to go home and would in most cases have further support at home.

With due respect, it sounds as though you have not seen how postnatal wards these days are a dumping ground, where if you're lucky you'll see a HCP a couple of times a day when they take your blood pressure, doing a hearing check on a baby and if you're lucky they will be qualified enough to throw some paracetamol your way. Doesn't matter if you were in surgery a few hours ago or not. The midwives are not trained to deal with surgical aftercare nor do they seem to care. You want food, water, milk for your baby? Fetch it yourself (vague directions may be waved at you if you're lucky). You still can't feel your legs, and your baby is crying? Your problem.

Thank fuck for partners being allowed on wards when I was made to stay in them.

How is that the hospitals fault? Your daughter and her partner should have pre determined this, plus loads of people supplement with formula until their milk comes in. Sorry for your daughter she didn’t get what she wanted but in the next breath the staff would be criticised for pushing BF on someone who wanted to formula feed..

I agree this is how it is. But the first time I discharged myself to get away from another father. Second time dh couldn't be there anyway because he had to look after dc1. So the assumption that fathers will plug the gap is damaging for those of us who don't have anyone who can help. Luckily I could just about feed baby second time around. But I couldnt get up to go to he shower so sat in blood stained clothes for 36 hours, didn't have any food (I only had water id brought and it ran out about 6 hours in) and was in agony with after pains but was told no meds until the trolley came round. It didn't come round.

The hospital trust was one of the ones that has been found negligent and had a lot of babies dying which shouldn't have done. So ridiculously I now feel lucky that all I had to worry about was no food, drink, pain medication and feeling gross.

Whereas on my postnatal ward, we had to argue for hours each time to get (prescribed) formula for top up feeds because the midwives felt I should only be breastfeeding (which I was! And pumping! This was meant to be on top, every 3 hours, as he was premature). With the result that DS’s blood sugars kept going low. And then the doctors lectured ME for not feeding him to schedule.

I would be amazed if the midwives were actively pushing formula.

Of course fathers should be allowed to stay. One of the reasons I saved up to have DS1 in a private hospital was a bed for DH in my room . Post natal patients in NHS hospitals should have individual rooms, then no problems. I had DS2 at home,utter bliss.

Of course single, en suite rooms would be ideal but nobody wants to pay more tax on the off chance that the NHS would prioritise that. It is obvious to most people that obstetric care is at the bottom of the heap in every respect.
Before I retired we had people on £50k a year going round the hospital collecting suggestions on how to save money. It is insane.

Of course they should be allowed. And they should be allowed overnight too. I nearly died with my first delivery and my husband was sent packing at 9pm. I had my own room too so he wouldn't have been bothering anyone else. It was utterly ridiculous and unfair.

1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted in their life time.

This is why some women struggle massively with (to them) random men on the ward overnight. PTSD doesn't allow you to think logically.

I suspect some of the disparity in views here comes from people imagining their own post-natal ward. Mine was big, noisy and crammed- 20 mums with babies, no space for chairs etc for visitors. Not sure where sleeping dads would have gone and simply having that many extra people there all the time would have been impractical. If you were in a spacious small ward with curtains for privacy and chairs for guests it’s a completely different prospect.

Mine was big, noisy and crammed too. Especially in my bad space as I had twins so had to squeeze two babies into such a tiny space but we still managed to just about squeeze a chair in for DH to sleep on. It was uncomfortable but it was better than the alternative of been left to it with twins all night after a c-section.

Yes, I wouldn't have a problem with it as it's a public space with many other people and staff. My youngest is 11, partners were allowed on the ward until 11pm I believe. I couldn't have coped without my DP - unable to move, but no staff free to help