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 was in hospital for five days when I had my daughter and my husband and other visitors could come and go as they wanted between 10am and 8pm, which was great. The first night I was in a ward with three other women and it was absolute hell, with babies crying all through the night. I was moved to a single room the next day because my daughter was jaundiced which was much better. I don’t understand why anyone would be bothered by men visiting on a post natal ward, but I would not be happy for any visitors to be allowed to stay overnight because of the extra noise and disturbance.

Yes.

i had a huge PPH. I had surgery after birth and couldn’t move my lower body properly for hours.

My DH didn’t stay overnight as it wasn’t allowed and I’d never have found it appropriate so wouldn’t have him. I coped, the ward was short staffed but I got through it. Nobody spontaneously combusts from being on a postnatal ward without men overnight. Thousands of women do it every week.

Personally I think it’s dismissive to say that men should come before actual patients and vulnerable women, but there you go

The problem is that the wards are already noisy, cramped and hot with disgusting toilet and shower facilities. Adding more people into the mix makes it worse and a very undignified experience for women. Trying to learn to breast feed with a flapping curtain or walking down a ward with blood running down your legs is made 10 times worse with a male audience. Both of those things happened to me.

Ideally every woman should have a private room so partners can stay and help but that’s never going to happen.

Changing rooms in shops used to be one big room where everyone got changed together. That got replaced with single changing rooms as it was deemed inappropriate. When will the NHS provide more privacy for women who’ve just given birth? Women are treated appallingly. Many have birth injuries or have had a traumatic birth and are just thrown into a packed ward and left to get on with it.

Its not nice having strange men on a ward when women are at their most vulnerable but I can understand why people do it.

While there is no spontaneous combustion, I believe that poor care in the immediate postnatal period and sleep deprivation in particular is a huge driver of PND which is devastating and very common. Postpartum psychosis also, which in worst cases can lead to death.

Well yes actually women will put thier own needs and their babies above the needs of other random women when they are forced to do so.
The issue is that they are forced to do so.
In an ideal world you wouldn't need the help of your male partner on the recovery ward because it would be a safe place without them. But this is not the current reality. They actually rely on some women having their partners in helping them.
In an ideal world we might all have a female friend, sister, mother who could assist us.. but I certainly didn't have this to hand at the time. I only had my DH. So yes I put my recovery and the safety of my baby first. And God knows I was the only one who did through that entire horrific experience

100% this. I remember one man using the women’s toilet in the postnatal ward and coming out saying how gross it was that someone left their wee in there (it was me, I was told to).Men as a class seem to really not manage to respect women enough and we don’t want them in our spaces. They shouldn’t be plugging the gap for a short staff. Not to mention ask any HCP, and visitors actually create more work for them not less.

But it’s not up to “women” to decide if men should stay - it’s up to the NHS. And they shouldn’t be shitting over women and babies for the sake of men, and women should t encourage it either

I would personally never have had my DH stay overnight in a shared ward even when I was ill after giving birth, because it’s not appropriate.

Do you think you’d not have recovered without your DH there? And that your baby would be u safe? How do you think patients in hospitals that don’t allow visitors to stay overnight cope?

Yes this was my experience. I had post natal psychosis with my first and they tried to make my DH leave despite literally no other help being offered to me. I literally didn't know what was going on and was hearing things. I was so ill and didn't actually recieve any support until months later. I couldn't advocate for myself at all, I thought my baby was made from rubber.
According to DH they tried to make him leave me there alone with the baby.. there was one member of staff for about 10 women.

They might perceive that they are doing more work for visitors, but that is not the reality. There is a lot of work that is just not on their to-do lists because it has been basically delegated to support people. Without support people there would be a lot more medical tragedies on postnatal wards because women are checked so infrequently and it is a medically dangerous period.

Every child who is in the hospital should have a parent with them that is not incapacitated in any way. A woman who has just given birth is not sufficient, she is also a patient. hospitals should never be trusted to protect children, parents need to be there to advocate for their children.

that means hospitals need to find a way to protect patient privacy and allow fathers to stay with their newborns. Most countries manage this without difficult. Keeping multiple women and their babies in a single room
is absolutely insane.

Yes it does and it needs to be addressed. But given visitors take up more HCP time it means that women without partners will suffer even more.visitors should not plug the healthcare gap - I’ll keep saying it.

How would it ever be acceptable to stop a father from seeing their new born baby

Patients in hospital that have as high medical needs as women who have multiple birth complications are typically provided with much better nursing support than women on postnatal wards. I don't know what causes that but I suspect sexism is a factor. Added to that they are probably not sleep deprived and don't have to look after a helpless newborn baby on their own. Not comparable.

Do you have data to support that women would die if men weren’t on postnatal wards?

Do you have nothing to say on the many women who feel unsafe? The many women who’ve been sexually abused and raped by men, forced to share a sleeping space with strange men because apparently they’re needed?

So your solution to that is much higher taxes, yes? But in the meantime you'd still take away the support people who are currently plugging the gap?

So it's a reverse then @Kibble19

No my solution is to ban men from sleeping on postnatal wards overnight and giving women a hell of a lot more resting time, rather than turfing them out 0.12 seconds after they’ve had stitches. Maternity wards also need a huge overhaul so they’re run by experienced matrons not middle managers.

TBH I can’t see every man on the postnatal wards being super helpful and as efficient as HCPs. Judging by some of the scumbags I have overheard, half of them wouldn’t even get their OH a pillow for her back. Not to mention they simply can’t carry out some of the work HCPs can. Im not convinced it’s such a valuable resource for the NHS that it would be disastrous consequences if it was taken away.

I'd have family visiting hours, no more than 10-4. A maximum of three visitors per mum at any time.

After that I'd limit it to spouses only, and only for those mums who have had c-sections so they need help lifting baby (and even then, only if absolutely essential).

Mums and babies need peace, calm and sleep. Anyone well enough to want a raucous party is well enough to go home.

The priority in the maternity ward should be

labouring women
women who have just delivered
babies
dads

It shouldn’t be acceptable that men are prioritised to the point where women (me) have to labour in the same room as men. I was in a physical altercation with a “new dad” during contractions at 2am. I was the patient and he wasn’t.

Pregnancy and birth are knackering. Women should be allowed stretches of time to sleep in relative peace. I’ve given birth in 3 hospitals and the one I had dcs 3&4 in had super strict visiting hours with gaps in between for rest. It was something like 10-1, 2-4, 5-8 so there wasn’t a constant presence.

Ideally women should labour in a private room from whence they can be discharged if no complications. Second best would be private labour room followed by private room on post natal ward, Third best, private labour room followed by bed in a bay with restricted visiting and adequate support from staff, Forth best, private labour room followed by bed in a bay with free for all daytime visiting, Fifth best private labour room followed by bed in a bay with 24/7 visiting, Sixth best, labour in a bay with men you don’t know inches away. Seventh best, labour in front of a man saying he is summoning his solicitor if he isn’t allowed to be in the same room as you 24/7 when you labour or recover from birth.

Due to my experience with PPP after my first birth my DH was allowed to stay with me 24/7 in hospital after subsequent births.
They usually eventually found us a private room but we were on ward at one point.
The issue is there aren't many private rooms and it depends who needs them most.
They were not allowed to leave me alone though and due to staffing levels this meant my DH had to be there.
There absolutely should be both more staff and more private rooms.
But it's ridiculous to ask individual women to put themselves at risk or put the needs of others above their own at one of the most vulnerable times in their life.
Some people on this thread are really missing me off. Just because you had a straightforward birth and were able to cope without your partner there doesn't mean that's the reality for everyone. It's not these women's fault that the NHS maternity care isn't fit for purpose.

Absolutely this, I was so frightened and the poor nurses were too busy to give me the time I really needed.

Of course it's up to women to decide if the hospital they are in allows dads overnight.

I would've recovered without my DH there but it would've been awful, especially when I had twins and a c-section. DH did everything for them when I couldn't even lift them at first, of course staff aren't going to be with me constantly to pick up twins taking it in turns to cry or to feed them or to change their nappies.

Women coping because they have to shouldn't be the standard that we're aiming for. I had a pleasant experience because DH was there for emotional and practical support.

I don't see why men need to clutter up the wards overnight while new mothers are trying to sleep. If there are insufficient staff to care for women, then new fathers can sit in chairs overnight in the waiting area and their partners can message or buzz them for help when needed. They can come in briefly, provide the necessary help and then leave again. That would be a much better system. Perhaps hospitals could provide pagers or similar. I respect that some women may need assistance overnight, and postnatal care is subpar, but if the midwives and nursing staff are not on the ward 24/7, neither do partners have to be. They can sit out of the way in a public area until needed.

I am also amazed that it is not viewed as a safeguarding risk for unvetted individuals who are not patients to have unsupervised access to unrelated newborn babies.