to not want strange men in the ante natal ward

[moogster1a]

Lots of discussion today about allowing men to stay overnight in the ward after you've had a baby.
This would be lovely if you were in a private room, but I wouldn't want to have men sleeping overnight in a shared ward.
i have fond memories of shuffling to the loo in the night looking like someone had slaughtered a pig in my pyjamas and literally leaving a bit of a trail ( no one tells you just how much blood is involved!). i would feel very uncomfortable doing this in front of a stranger's husband.

Where I work you can go home as soon as the paperwork is done and the newborn check has been done. No time limits.

the hospital i used had a 6 hour discharge which i wanted to do but when ds was born he stopped breathing and whatever they injected him with to get him started again was a risk for something else (sorry i'm crap at remembering stuff) so they recommended i stay. i wasn't going to but then the fear of him stopping breathing again all because of my wanting to go home was too much so i stayed for 24 hours.

I would really have hated having so many people around in the ward after the birth of my children. I just wanted some space to recover and plenty of chance to feed and go to the toilet etc as i needed no havign to worry about leaking pads with strangers wandering around. Other women who ahd just given birth and were going through the same thing yes but not theri partners who were healthy and had no need to be in a hospital.
After ds2 I was ill and needed the curtains left open (the midwives wanted to be able to see me in case somethign happened it would have been awful to be surrounded by strange men in that cicrumstance all night.

I had a emcs and had to stay in two nights.

Op meant post natal MoreBeta.

I should add, no time limits if mum and baby are clinically well and have no risk factors.

forgot to add that the hospital here where i had dc4 and will have dc5 all the post natal rooms are private and would have plenty of room for men to sleep although they dont allow this. I can see if you have had a difficult delivert it may be of use (perhaps they do in these cicrumstances) but after a normal delivery I woudl rather dh went home had a sleep and made sure everything was ready for us to come home it is not all that upsetting to be apart for a couple of nights.

Hang on.

The OP said ante natal which means before birth. She means post natal_ doesnt she?

Anyway, I didnt stay ante or post and I think it is a bad idea.

I think the problem is that we're treating this as a black-and-white issue -- either all partners can stay or none.

Why not limit partners staying to those who have had sections or complications, ie will need extra care that the overtaxed midwives may not be able to provide?

I think some posters here don't understand that people want their partners to stay not because they're lonely but because they've just had major abdominal surgery, can't yet walk, have catheters and drips in, etc. -- and, because we know we won't be getting enough help from the staff.

Viv it's possible a majority of women want partners on your ward because they don't believe they will get enough support. It's not fair to put the full blame on them for their answers.

Or, why not allow partners if the other women in the ward don't mind? My neighbour had a ghastly instrumental delivery and was left to take care of twins all on her own an hour after birth, becasue it was the middle of the night and they kicked her husband out. But neither me nor the other woman would have minded if her husband stayed. Instead, this poor woman was left on her own sobbing, with no help, and me and the other woman ended up crawling out of bed to try to help her.

Is there no room for discretion here?

Yes Morebeta, she realised her mistake somewhere along the line.

Def a bad idea regardless.

I find it interesting that in this thread and in a previous thread for a campaign for better post-natal care, there are a lot of stories of abuse, neglect, and mistreatment by HCPs, but no one seems concerned about the vulnerable women and babies being left alone with them when there is no recourse to complain or get any outside support at night should one be so unfortunate to have these happen then. During the day should something happen there is all sorts of help available in the hospital to help if these occur but there is no one around to help with bad staff at night. We need more safeguards and ways for PALs staff to be around at night if we want women to be more comfortable staying without partners.

I'll admit that, having had way too many Jekyll and Hyde HCPs (sweet when my DH is there, everything but when not - including being held down and physically assaulted after he was forced to leave the room), I'm a bit "precious" about him, or at least someone, being around when I need to deal with HCPs as I've gotten every tired of 'coping' with this treatment when the complaints procedures for these things have repeatedly shown to be worthless where I am.

It's a really shitty idea.

New mothers are left alone and unsupported after the birth. This is due to a lack of staff available to care for them. So it's suggested that fathers stay overnight to support them. Basically, we're not giving new mothers the support they need, let's get their families to come in and do it for us! We could cut back even more!

How about making sure there are enough staff available to care for women so that they aren't left exposed with the curtains wide open when they can't move to shut them and random people gawping at them?

Yanbu. Whe. I had ds I had to stay in a ward. I would not have liked a man in their. I left the next day for a private room in my local unit(ds and I were taken from midwife unit as it was an emergency do taken to big hosp). Dd was born in the unit. I had to stay over night as there was no one to discharge ne(it was too late and I would have left). Dp(female) stayed with us until I could be discharged at 9am. We had a private room tho and lovely midwives. I don't think her being female made a difference. Dads can stay too. But not at the bigger hosp

I did have a cs and still wouldn't want men on the ward overnight. I stayed in the post labour ward for about 3 hours with dh, then he came with me to the ward to see I was settled and I sent him home.

I don't think there should be extra people getting in the way and it's not fair on the other new mums.

But if it is down to discretion on a public ward that leaves the midwives open to those who get their request turned down, and the other women under pressure to agree to keep people happy.

HarryHill right on all points. But if I had been a gawper that would not have been obvious until I had gawped at least once. There is no remedy for that.

When DC2 was born the hospital had a 6 hour discharge policy. I was sat on bed with coat on waiting for them to sign dead on the 6 hours.

Same hospital let me go home 2.5 hours after DC4 was born, on the promise that I returned in the morning to have the newborn check.

DC1 & 3 there would have been no way on this earth I could have physically got myself out of the hospital any earlier than the two days I spent in with each.

When I first started reading this thread I thought that the OP WBU and it would be nice to have dads stay overnight to support their partner but have changed my mind since reading many of these posts. It's all very well saying you would like your partner to stay but like Viva's surveyees I hadn't considered the implication of other partners staying. My DH would certainly have been a good help to me but having some of the other dads there would have been hellish in a cramped four bed ward where there was barely room for the mums and babies and one toilet between us, the last thing you need is some prat talking when you are trying to sleep, slamming the bathroom door, texting etc, I could put up with those behaviours during visiting only because I knew they had a definite end time, so on balance OP I think YANBU.

For me the gender of the extra people isn't the issue it is the number of people in one relatively small room. As I mentioned in my post earlier when I had DD I was in a room designed to hold 6 patients. They had squeezed in 8 beds and 8 cribs, there wasn't enough room to move as it was. Trying to move about with a wound across your abdomen is difficult enough as it is without having to climb over extra people and furniture.

Yes I could have done with help, especially when I couldn't feel my legs but the place was so claustrophobic I think I would have lost it if there were even more people there.

The thing is Dreaming, you will get some women who have had interventions, or are struggling to cope, or can't get breastfeeding established etc etc etc who will also feel that they 'need' their DH/partner there with them, so the midwives will be faced with a barrage of requests (not all of them polite, I imagine) or will have to come up with another set of black-and-white rules ie no section, no DH/partner.

As for asking the other women if they mind - again, that would cause complications. What if you get a even number saying one thing? Or patients are moved and they've said yes when the next person in says no? Or you feel duty bound to say yes?

I don't think there is room for discretion here to that extent. I know when I was in having DS1 a very frantic dad arrived at stupid o'clock from the rigs - he had missed the birth becuase the helicopter had been grounded, and so was allowed on to the ward to be with his wife and baby. No-one minded that at all - but I can imagine busy midwives being put in a position of having to make judgements about whether or not a DH/partner should stay.

I agree NotJust

Women wanting their partners to stay is just a symptom of a bigger problem -- namely, that women do not believe they will receive adequate support or respect on the postnatal ward.

If you want to campaign for something, don't campaign against vulnerable women who are just looking for the help they need -- campaign for more and better staff on the wards.

Don't write to your MP insisting on no male vistors -- write and insist that David Cameron keep his pledge to hire more midwives.

Of course, we had a thread on here recently asking for an MN campaign to improve postnatal care. There were hundreds of responses and practical suggestions, but AFAIK MN is not interested in doing anything. So I'm not holding my breath. I don't think anyone cares

To the person(s) who said keep ypur curtains closed...I was in an 8 bed bay and was FORBIDDEN to keep the curtain closed. Everytime I closed them, the mw opened them with a tut and a swish.
It was god awful as I had no visitors and the place was surrounded with people even pushed up to my bed at some stages.

Oh and I was there for six god for fucking saken nights...god I hated that place

YANBU

If you want your DP to stay after the birth, pay for a private hospital and private room where they can accommodate you both.

There is no sense in the NHS with it's already massively over stretched resources having to provide beds for fathers with absolutely no need for them to be there. This may also take resources and extra beds away from parents who must stay with their sick children when admitted to hospital. A parent with a sick child should be a priority for staying in hospital with them.

Me too laptopdancer. I wasn't allowed the curtains closed.