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 DS was born 17 years ago, DP left around 30 mins after he was born at 00.56 am, they all but chucked him out. When dd was born 13 years ago, she was born at 7.30 pm, DP didn’t immediately get chucked out, the nurse was actually alright and let him stay until 10. 2 different hospitals

Our local hospital is pretty new and all rooms are private. Dp was allowed to stay and slept on the very uncomfortable arm chair. It meant less work for the nurses as he was there to hand me the babies, so a win for them I guess. The baby is the man's too, so feels unfair to send them away.

I’m always horrified to hear that some wards allow men to stay overnight. It just reinforces how shit women’s healthcare is. Visitors should not be plugging a gap for lack of staff.

When I had my kids the partner visiting was 9am to 9pm. Like OP I had a huge PPH and was in for 5 days with my first. The dad from the cubicle next door visited for the whole 12 hours every day and his chair was so close to my curtain I could have reached over from my bed and patted his head. It was horrific not least because I had lots of conversations with doctors and nurses about my private parts and he was a foot or so away. Eventually I said I’d be happy to have conversations with HCPs in another room as curtains are not sound proof. I did feed back that the time should be reduced, 12 hours is way too long and an invasion of patient privacy but no one gives a fuck about women do they.

When I had my second, I didn’t get fed because some bloke had walked up to the trolley and taken a dinner, there was none left for me as I had been in the loo. When I complained to midwives they huffed and puffed and said they’d get the kitchen to bring me a sandwich. They also said they’d wouldn’t be confronting him because they just get abuse. They didn’t mind shouting at me when I was in labour though so I wasn’t really buying that they were fraidy cats, they just didn’t want to pick on someone bigger than them.

I think absolutely not. But I am usually in a massive minority on these threads.

If you are going to give birth and advise that the Dad shouldnt be there for whatever reason. The Dad wont be there.
There's not a maternity hospital in this country that would want this drama.

Yes if course they should be allowed to VISIT, but stay overnight as was the case when my DC2 was born? No fucking way… there were seven completely unfamiliar men sleeping on chairs next to their partners in the same ward as me. I felt so unsafe. I had sent my DH home not realising this would be the case, otherwise he would have stayed. I did not sleep all night, and was also recovering from c section.

Yes they have to be able to stay in the absence of adequate nursing care. I had my anus stitched back together and was put on the postnatal ward at 10pm. It was probably 4am before I could move my legs. No nurses responded to buzzers so how exactly was I supposed to get my baby out of his cot? And don't tell me to put him in the bed as I was told I could not do that because it was considered unsafe. Also, my catheter would have backed up and I would have had some potentially serious problems as the bag was full to bursting and nurses didn't check. So my DH prevented some further medical trauma by noticing. In my opinion banning men from postnatal wards is patriarchal sexism. They should be caring for their babies and facilitating their partners' recovery.

Pretty sure she means patriarchy!

WTAF you want fathers to not be able to see their children? Anyone who thinks this has serious mental issues (and should not be having children in the first place!!)

Given the state of obstetric care I don't think we can rely on staff to care for post natal women. I would suggest that all women should be allowed a female friend or relative as a helper and that person should sign a legal document detailing code of conduct. Staff should have discretion to make any person causing problems leave.
In the 1980s Professor Caroline Flint wrote a wonderful book called Sensitive Midwifery. Unfortunately nobody took any notice. Her ideas for post natal care were excellent. In particilar she advocated for travelodge style post natal hotels with family rooms and community midwives visiting daily. House keeping and security on site. Hospital wards should be just for people who need nursing care. Not women who have had normal deliveries and all their children and extended family.
I worked on a big mixed ante natal / post natal ward with open visiting and honestly it would have been calmer and quieter at a zoo.

I think many public hospitals are very much behind and new maternity ward layouts with each person having a walled room of their own is what’s needed. This way it can be a woman’s choice if they would like their partner to stay or not, however, we live in an imperfect world and the NHS is on its knees.

Nobody has said they can’t see their children, but it is still a hospital and the patients should be priority and given the opportunity to recover. They should be adequately staffed so that the men can go home overnight and return in the morning, this would give them a better night sleep too ready for the new baby and partner returning home the next day.

My husband stayed overnight, and was doing some of the feeds so I could get some rest * *

the way people are talking here “He’s a parent too” - do they care so little for women they forget hospitals are for patients, not a social gathering?

dads are visitors and should be treated as such.

Fine visiting during the day but overnight absolutely not. Its supposed to be a safe place for women at their most vulnerable.

I had a private room and my husband could stay but there was one hard chair in the room. He slept on the floor on my maternity pillow. I'd just had twins and could barely walk, the room was unreasonably hot, we were woken every hour for medical checks one of the three of us, plus trying to handle feeds. Neither of us slept for more than an hour for five days. The only way the experience could have been worse was him not being allowed to stay. Quite frankly I think it's a disgrace that a bed isn't provided for the father. If I'd have had a straightforward single birth I could have gone to the midwife-led unit which provided a double bed and private room with kitchenette etc I was very ill and had twins. When most needed physical comfort and the functional support of my husband the facilities were not there for us. The whole system needs fixing.

When men can start behaving better and treating women with respect, they can stay in maternity wards overnight IMO (so probably never then)

Except without support people, postnatal wards are DEFINITELY not a safe place for women at their most vulnerable. Women with very significant medical needs are not in a position to care for a baby. They may not have slept for 48 hrs plus due to being in labour and need time to recover. There is virtually no nursing care on postnatal wards in my experience beyond doing obs maybe every six hours (and the woman opposite me had to be apologised to with a legal team present as she had severe pre-eclampsia and staff had even failed to do her obs all night). I personally know several women who developed PPD or postpartum psychosis because of sleep deprivation having to care for a baby alone right after giving birth. Postnatal care is sadly completely inadequate and at the moment support family members (men, if they are the ones available) are having to plug the gap.

I'm very glad that I gave birth in a hospital where men are allowed to stay, it was invaluable. Not only for bonding but for emotional and practical support.

But maybe the women around him have a shit about him being there?

Absolutely agree. Men should be down the pub and not having to deal with all that woman and baby stuff

Imagine going through all that and having a load of strange men sleeping nearby, while you feel unsafe.

This is exactly it.

I know my DH is a nice man, but the other women in the ward wouldn’t know. There are plenty of nasty men and some of them are new fathers. I remember a woman on MN posting years ago about a dad staring at her through a gap in her curtain a HCP had left, and she couldn’t get up to close it, he kept staring.

But yeah Nigel comes first above vulnerable women 🙄

So dismissive! How many children have you given birth to and did you have any complications which meant you nearly died and were not medically fit to do anything?

Yes. Because the staffing levels are shocking. Idve been up shit creek if my DH hadn't been there to help me.
If they want to ban men from the wards there needs to be enough staff to actually assist the women.
But the recovery wards are currently a hellscape.