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.

i don’t agree with them being on open wards overnight because safeguarding of mum & baby is first. Of course you have to let them come during visiting time. Overnight stays in side rooms is ok because you have a bathroom and away from the open ward.

Its not that men shouldn't stay... more is it fair t expect a vulnerable wo.an without support to share a ward with unknown men.

I can remember staying awake to last midnight scared to turn out my light until the last man had left. DH was in a hard situation at work (he should have been on paternity leave but it was an emergency situation).

They need to have a ward/separate rooms for any women who are not with a partner or an abusive partner

Absolutely this.

I'm a mother but was shocked at how my DH was ignored, sidelined and spoken about, rather than to, when I was in labour. My labour was complicated in the end and I needed him there.

Parenting is a two person thing. Men aren't just men, they're co parents.

Hard agre with you.

I am very ambivalent about this, to be honest. We had no overnight visitors with any of the kids, but there was a nursery nurse / midwife support, for the first night.

I was on a prenatal (high risk) 4-bedded ward with the last one, and one of the women was being abused by her partner WHILST she was in hospital and it was shocking to be around. He would be there from 7 in the morning until security told him to go home.
On the post-natal ward he would have had 24 hour access.
To me it is appalling that abusers are given that latitude, and I don’t like how many women don’t care.

But I don’t know what the answer is.

As previous posters have said, if you ban fathers overnight, the midwives are going to have to do a lot more active nursing.

Absolutely wouldn’t have been safe for me to manage DS when my spinal still hadn’t worn off post c-section - he was prem and eas prescribed timed top up formula feeds on top of me breastfeeding, as his blood sugars were low, and the midwives couldn’t have been more obstructive if they’d tried.

Parenting is for both, but giving birth is done only by the woman.

See I think this is quite the assumption. I gave birth last year and every woman bar one on our ward had a partner with them, we all wanted them there & most of us needed them there practically.

We all had our own curtains pulled round, so no privacy issues, and I don’t know how much peace you could ever expect on a postnatal ward- it was noisy all night but with babies crying, monitors beeping, 3 hourly obs checks/meds checks etc, partners being there made no difference whatsoever to the noise levels.

I don't think postnatal wards are set up to to function in a way that new mothers need in general. Theoretically fathers should be able to stay with their partners and children - but in reality it's just another thing that makes hospital the absolute worst place to recover.

My baby refused to go in the bedside crib so DH and I had to take turns holding him all night long. If fathers weren’t allowed on the ward then what would I have done?

DH was allowed to stay with our first but not our second, same hospital but one pre and one post Covid.

Both times I desperately needed him there but the second time I just got covered in milk and baby wee, couldn’t change him safely, couldn’t lift him in and out of the cot so he was in bed with me the whole time, I couldn’t sit to eat and drink, was in agony waiting for meds, stuck with a catheter they forgot to empty. It was shit.

The people adamant men shouldn’t be allowed overnight have had easy deliveries, and/or gave birth when staff arrived at the push of the button.

Count yourselves lucky.

Jesus - you’re a bit entitled and aggressive. A more decent response would have been “I would be desperate to see my newborn and support my wife/partner post-birth but I appreciate there are other vulnerable women on the ward so I make sure to be respectful when I’m there”.

The hospital where I'm due to give birth soon, partners can be there all day (8am-10pm I believe) but have to leave overnight. Personally I'm fine with this, it's hard enough to sleep on a postnatal ward without husbands snoring! Plus there aren't adequate toilet /shower facilities for the men to use. I wouldn't mind if everyone had a single room, that would be different. The midwives were very helpful overnight last time when I couldn't move from a spinal but obviously it must be awful if this isn't the case.

In any case, as this is my second baby, DH wouldn't be able to stay overnight anyway, and won't be able to visit for half as long during the day as he did last time. Just hoping I'm not there for a whole week this time...

It’s much worse when they’re not there if the mums are left without adequate care and the babies are at risk.

I’ve had three babies. Luckily, DD2 was a fast, easy birth and I was able to move around afterwards quite easily. DH wasn’t allowed to stay with me because of Covid but I could cope because I could move about and it was my second time around.

DD1, he wasn’t allowed to stay overnight but other women had their partners. I really struggled with how exhausted I was from labouring overnight and how much pain I was in. I struggled to feed her because she was tongue tied and I could have really done with the support.

DS, he was allowed to stay the whole time and it was a god send. I had an EMCS under GA - we both nearly died - and wouldn’t have been safe to have looked after him by myself for quite some time afterwards. Then, I couldn’t get out of bed because of the catheter. I couldn’t have coped without him.

I think men should be allowed to stay as long as they’re actually being helpful. Any instances of them causing upset to anyone and they’re out. Other people’s partners didn’t annoy unless they were being inconsiderate but there were women who were inconsiderate too. People can just be selfish arses.

I have no issue with men being on wards during visiting hours just like any other ward what i do have an issue with is men or anyone for that matter doing tiktok lives in hospital wards.

What happens if you give birth in those hours? Do you know what the minimum amount of time you will spend together after will be?

I don't mean this harshly but just out of interest. Our local delivery ward seems to move people onto the ward fairly quick and I'm trying to figure out if it's the norm

Fine if you have separate rooms. I was on the postnatal ward. Dh went home and I had a man next to me who kept opening the curtain. My dd was very unsettled. I couldn't get feeding to work and he kept on opening the curtain making 'helpful' comments "oh she's not enjoying that is she!?" I felt so so awful and exposed. I ended up leaving without being able to feed because I felt so stressed. Luckily without said nosey bastard I was able to feed happily at home.

Dh stayed, I couldn’t have got to the baby without him.
i was realistically waiting a good 30 minutes any time I needed a midwife so if he hadn’t been there I wouldn’t want to leave my baby crying there that long whilst I waited for help, no one else on the ward needs that either. I’m sure I would have muddled through, but probably hurt myself in the process. You also couldnt take your baby into the toilet or shower, so I would have had to just leave my newborn unattended for long periods of time whilst I walked very very slowly everywhere I needed to go, which seems unreasonable, certainly no midwives were baby sitting for me.

There were 6 people in my ward, and other wards on the same floor. perhaps there could be a ward dedicated just for women who don’t have male partners wanting to stay.

Well yes, because if we want to change the narrative that mum is the default parent, then absolutely the men should be there to help change and settle baby and care for his wife who's just gone through childbirth and help her to the toilet and to shower and make sure she has food and drinks.
If we can't trust our men to care for us in our most vulnerable moments and to share the load of a newborn then what the f*ck is the point of being with them?

If it’s anything like our old local hospital then basically, it depends on luck as to how busy it is.

If it’s busy in delivery then you’re pretty much stitched up and wheeled straight out to postnatal where partners then had to leave. Thankfully none of our hospitals where we are now do this.

I had my first in an NHS hospital, DH was kicked out half an hour after DD was born, I was left on the most miserable ward ever, with barely anyone around to help me. It was lucky I had a rather straightforward birth, despite a postpartum hemmorhage. The whole birth and postpartum experience wrecked my mental health, I had PND and flashbacks for years after.

I had my second in a Dutch hospital and felt positively cosseted. Despite having, in theory, a much more traumatic experience, the excellent care I received made up for a lot. Since then I have developed the opinion that the way new mothers are treated in the UK is a form of misogyny.

Sure, if they are going to staff them well enough so that there's adequate midwives available to help the women instead of their partners.

I have had two c sections (one in Covid but luckily they allowed my DH to stay until around 4am). With both the midwives on the post natal wards were too stretched to offer adequate support. I struggled to get my first born to latch and waited over an hour for a very stressed midwife to come and push him towards my breast before saying it would be easier if I gave him a bottle. After my DH left I gave up waiting for help and got up to attend to my newborn, despite being told not to stand alone (I'd lost a lot of blood during surgery- this was not only painful but unsafe for both me and the baby), because no one was responding to the call button. With my second (non COVID) baby, the mum in the next bed asked DH if he would pass her baby and help her get her bottles and nappies as her legs were still numb from her epidural and no one seemed to be available to offer practical support.

@Meltedbrains sorry, in what hours do you mean? During visiting or overnight? With my first, she was born at 10pm and he was gone by midnight and I was up at the ward so I'd guess it would be similar... But as I say, because it's my second, he'd need to get home anyway as we don't have space for my parents to stay with our toddler beyond the time that I'm actually in labour!

@AnneLovesGilbert That was me. I don't know that having four additional grown men in a space designed for four women with their babies would have improved my experience. I also don't think women should have to scramble around for a 'less worse' option in the first place, especially when 'less worse' clearly differs for everyone.