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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not want strange men in the ante natal ward

999 replies

moogster1a · 15/11/2011 12:39

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.

OP posts:
VivaLeBeaver · 15/11/2011 19:08

But there aren't other places in the hospital.

A waiting room is part of the ward. You're either on a ward or you're not. You can't go and take a sick baby and sit outside the wrvs all night. If a baby needs to stay in it needs to be on a ward.

HeresTheThingBooyhoo · 15/11/2011 19:08

msscarlett i have told you i was allowed to stay with my baby. exp wasn't.

you would move a baby to a waiting room where there were no staff or midwives? a baby that needed monitoring for 24 hours? a waiting room with no changing facilities and no bed for you to rest in jsut after having given birth?

i think the only place you should be thinking of moving to is the real world to purchase a grip.

VivaLeBeaver · 15/11/2011 19:09

I would be happy for partners to stay if the ward was totally ensuite private rooms. Can't see that happening anytime soon. Which I agree is a shame but nothing I can do about it.

HeresTheThingBooyhoo · 15/11/2011 19:11

and actually if a baby needs to stay the parents dont need to stay. i can't imagine any parent i know choosing not to stay but they dont actually need to stay.

poshme · 15/11/2011 19:11

Msscarlett you seem to think that if you are not well enough to leave, then you are not well enough to look after a baby.
After my DD I could not stand (epidural not worn off). I still had a drip thing in my hand although it was not attached to anything in case my blood pressure suddenly dropped again (as happened several times during labour). I was not well enough to leave - they wanted to keep an eye on my BP, and I didnt want to go home not able to walk. I was perfectly able to lift DD from her plastic box cot into my bed to feed and change her.

when I had DS (my first DC) I wished I had gone home sooner as the first night I really want DH to be there. But I coped. DH got much needed sleep.

After DD I was in a ward with 3 others. 2 had lovely DPs who I chatted to in the daytime and I would've been very happy for them to stay overnight. all partners were kicked out from 10pm-8am.
THe other lady arrived at 830pm. She and her DP argued loudly for the entire 90 minutes he was there. He was cross with her that the baby had cream on it (vernix I think). He was cross that she wasnt sitting up (she'd had a section), he was cross that it was late. He was not abusive as such, I think mostly just really shocked by the whole process and not dealing with it well.
I could not wait for him to leave.
All the babies were quiet. I had not slept for 3 days (snoring lady on antenatal whilst being induced and labour for 2 days) and this stupid, stressed man was keeping me awake. It was not his fault.
BUT how much worse it could have been if he could've stayed.
I was incredibly relieved when he was asked to leave.

In an ideal world, where resources and money is endless, where all women have private rooms and all people are civilised and quiet and pleasant to their partners, then let men stay.

Otherwise, send them home - they have no need of medical attention.

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 15/11/2011 19:13

Imagine trying to get any sleep. As well as all the crying babies, the fathers's snoring. ANd you can't give someone else's husband a good kick to shut them up either!

They only want fathers on the wards to cover up the fact there are not enough trained midwives and nurses. Same idea as getting famiies ont eh wards to feed their elderly relatives.

poshme · 15/11/2011 19:13

sorry that was very long!

HarryHillatemygoldfish · 15/11/2011 19:14

poshme brilliant post, says it all really!

catgirl1976 · 15/11/2011 19:15

Did I sleep through feminism?

Possibly - as I am pretty sure it includes valuing what women want. When surveyed the majority of women WANT their partners to be able to stay with them after giving birth?

Perhaps the energy on this thread should be directed into campaigning for private rooms so the needs of the majority of women can be met whilst the concerns of the minority of women are still resolved and taken care of.

That would probably be better and more in-line with the values of feminism than calling someone "selfish" and telling them to "grow a pair" simply for not wanting their family not to be forcibly split up as soon as it comes into being.

A lot of women believe the birth of a new baby is an important time that should be shared with their partners - I don't think they should be shouted down for that belief.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 15/11/2011 19:15

I don't want to 'debate' degrees of sick babies. It feels very wrong. If it is the baby who needs to be in the hospital then I will expect both of us to be able to stay if we felt we needed to. As I would with any other admission of baby or child. I was hospitalised as a child with my mother on a mattress at the side of the bed on the floor of the ward.

If there is some horrific situation that requires parents to be seperated from their hospitalised newborn - which I really can't imagine anyone thinking is a good or desirable thing - then as I've said, you'll find one or both of us waiting outside in the corridor.

HeresTheThingBooyhoo · 15/11/2011 19:18

"If it is the baby who needs to be in the hospital then I will expect both of us to be able to stay if we felt we needed to."

well you will have a surprise then if you end up in the same situation i was in. you will be welcome to stay overnight with your baby. your DH wont. what would you do if that happened?

OctonautsOnRepeat · 15/11/2011 19:18

It seems to me that most women who want their DHs to stay say that they need the support.

Maybe we don't need DHs to stay but more midwives- if someone was there to help you feed, help you to the loo if needed, pass baby if you had a cs,surely that would make it all a bit easier.

Not likely I know.

quietlyafraid · 15/11/2011 19:18

I may as well save the NHS money and bury myself alive.

It would save you all your precious money in psychiatric care and drugs.

Yes of course, I would love to go private and have a ELCS which I've spoken about on here previously as I'm very clearly "too push too posh". Sadly however since we have this wonderful failing heap of shit called the NHS I don't even have that option even if I could afford to as I do not live anywhere near London.

Build more private room, charge for the privilidge but OH NO THATS DESTROYING THE NHS. Completely ignoring the fact its doing a very good job of committing suicide all by itself.

I know I will never ever ever have a child.

Yeah but you all happy as you don't have to put up with people talking or men who are obviously only there to perv at you and have no right to share the first night or two of their child's life or look after their mental wives.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 15/11/2011 19:19

Everyone is different, if you feel capable of looking after a baby even though you can't walk and don't feel the need for help with that then that's great.

TheOriginalFAB · 15/11/2011 19:20

Is this a new thing that the dad can stay?

I had dc1 by unexpected emergency section in the evening and I am sure the only reason he managed to stay until midnight was because they were really busy and it meant they didn't have to help me. They kicked him out the next night. I was in hospital for 5 nights/6 days.

HarryHillatemygoldfish · 15/11/2011 19:20

A lot of women believe the birth of a new baby is an important time that should be shared with their partners - I don't think they should be shouted down for that belief.

But it wouldn't just be your partner you'd be sharing it with, would it?

Would you really be happy to be put in the situations some of us have described?
With drunks and addicts and abusers? With the bloke in the next bed trying to shag his girlfriend? With your husband avoiding eye contact with the man over the way in case he punches him? With the bloke on the other side telling you how, " fucking disgusting" you are for breastfeeding?

You know, you may well be. I don't know but I suspect you either have not yet given birth or been on a post natal ward.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 15/11/2011 19:21

I would expect the baby to be on a baby or child ward if that were the case Booyhoo. Not in a ward with lots of women.

Sleepyspaniel · 15/11/2011 19:21

Is this still chunnering on?!?!?

Pick 10 male criminals from the average prison, any criminal. A rapist maybe. Child molester. Armed robber. Violent thug. Wife beater.

ANY of these could be the "new dads" you (and your new baby) could be sleeping next to.

Still think all new dads should be allowed to stay on wards??!?

PLEASE GET REAL. ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN FOR THIS VERY GOOD REASON.

ChristinedePizanne · 15/11/2011 19:22

catgirl - ffs get real. This is the NHS. We do not have the resources for every single mother to have a private room post-natally. Most women, after a normal labour, can go home after a few hours. The rest of us have several hours at night which aren't terribly pleasant but can be hugely ameliorated by an increase in MWs/nurses in post-natal wards. No one needs their husband with them. They may want them, they don't need them.

It's a hospital, not a hotel.

HarryHillatemygoldfish · 15/11/2011 19:23

I don't want to 'debate' degrees of sick babies. It feels very wrong. If it is the baby who needs to be in the hospital then I will expect both of us to be able to stay if we felt we needed to. As I would with any other admission of baby or child. I was hospitalised as a child with my mother on a mattress at the side of the bed on the floor of the ward.

We don't seem to be getting through to you Misssacrlett.

If you are on a postnatal ward your DH will be asked to leave/forcibly removed*

  • delete as appropriate.
HeresTheThingBooyhoo · 15/11/2011 19:23

sorry quietly but it very much appears as if you are blaming other women here for you not being able to have your much wanted baby. i said it before, you issue is very much your issue and not up to other women to make themselves feel very vulnerable in order that you can give birth in an NHS hospital. sorry but it just isn't our responsibility if you feel you cant spend the first night away from your DH.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 15/11/2011 19:24

Same can be said of any ward then Sleepyspaniel. Anytime you're admitted to hospital. The women on the ward can just as easily be criminals.

And it'd be you, your new baby, and your husband/partner/allocated guest, I'd imagine.

OddBoots · 15/11/2011 19:24

Would any of the women who do not wish to have men in with them on the ward overnight mind if in a separate bay with its own toilets etc there were men staying with their partners?

CustardCake · 15/11/2011 19:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ChristinedePizanne · 15/11/2011 19:25

quietly - I'm sorry you find the idea of childbirth so distressing. It sounds horrible :(

But you cannot expect the entire healthcare system to be built around your individual needs.