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.

I think you are clutching at straws by claiming that the reason it's not a good idea is because of the possible dubious character of new fathers.

I still absolutely think it is a horrible thing to seperate a new family for no other reason than the time on the clock, and that if women want their partners there they should be able to have them there. I think if anyone needs support in hospital they should have it. It is not a prison, you do not need permission to leave or move or seek better treatment. I know the majority of staff and patients are trying to make things as pleasant as possible for the majority of people the majority of the time, and realise there may be issues. I was not aware of the large amount of people staying in hospital after birth at the beginning of the thread. I am finding it hard to get out of the mindset that people staying in the hospital are very ill, having an operation or undergoing tragedy of some sort, it's the only reason I know people to be admitted to hospital and the only reason I've ever been/only way I've ever thought of it. I didn't know people just randomly stayed after birth (not ill/surgical) and it does seem quite strange to me, but I suppose if you feel very strongly either way about the presence or non-presence of others then you could go home, as I would plan to, provided I was not ill.

Wouldn't choose a hospital birth anyway as everything is so much easier at home but especially if wards overcrowded overnight with noisy oh's. What about cross infection?

There's a huge difference being parents staying all hours with a poorly baby on scbu and relatives staying after visiting hours with a dying, very sick relative and a partner staying overnight on a womans ward when neither his partner or child are sick.

HeresTheThingBooyhoo I agree which is why I prefer strict rules laxly and sensibly applied!

msscarlett why are you avoiding answering me?

what would you do in my situation?

"think the way men are being portrayed is quite OTT"
it's not about the character of the men as such. It's about having to share a room with strangers, in the first place. With women at least they are going through much the same as you are. Their DH is not.

Also in no other situation would you ever be expected to share a room with a strange man.

misdee you are assuming her husband would have been kind and helpful and thoroughly decent.

An assumption most people who want men to stay seem to be making!

Attheend: "I think the way men are being portrayed is quite OTT, though. Any of the women you share a ward with could equally be drug addicts, violent criminals etc. Most of them would be fine, I think.

I agree with that most of them might be fine, yes. However not only "fine" sorts become fathers, (more's the pity). Fatherhood is no judge of character.

Going on a majority still doesn't knock out the awful minority.

As for how men are being portrayed - there really isn't an equivalent for women on men's wards is there, because (obviously) we are talking a labour ward which is exclusive to women (double obviously). So I can't really compare to women criminals on a men's ward. The closest is that a female patient might be an undesirable, but (as I said above) that can't be helped whereas removing men at night from postnatal wards can be helped.

ah right andrew. i thought you were stating yor behaviour as justification for allowing all partners to stay overnight on the post natal ward.

for the two hours before they kicked him out, he was. he was seeing to hers and babys needs. he said sorry if he had the leave the room, and was a nice man. turned out i knew the girls father as well.

No Booyhoo I may be odd but I'm not bonkers - not yet - although the more time I spend on MN . . . :o

Agree Gwendoline - some posters appear to live on the Jeremy Kyle show. I have never met a man who would behave like that. Of course they exist, but they are the minority - hardly typical.

I still think men should be allowed to stay but that it should only be private rooms. I realise that is unrealistic and not going to happen.

I would not however, inflict my DH on a ward of other women, despite it being my preference that he be with me. I understand how uncomfortable that might make other women. I am still shocked by the view of men some people seem to hold though.

Given that I therefore won't be going on the PN ward and will be leaving hospital after delivery, unless there is some sort of compelling medical reason not to do so. If it is just because the midwife hasnt done the paperwork yet or they havent seen me breastfeed then I am afraid that isnt my problem.

But the problem is, if you let the nice, helpful blokes stay it makes it harder to say no to the blokes who're a pita. They'll say "well hes allowed to stay so why aren't I?". Quite rightly. Then it falls to the nurse or midwife to risk getting punched when they have to say well you're an arse so we don't want you here. You can't have one rule for one and one for others. It's not my job to decide who can stay and who can't. Currently the rles are that no partners can stay unless it's in the bereavement room or it's twins in a side room.

Gwendoline - I don't think anyone has thrown around any stereotypes actually (except for you?). It is a fact that some new fathers don't have the mother's or baby's best interests at heart. If you'd given birth in an inner London hospital then that might have become a reality. I don't count myself lucky that I witnessed some really dubious behaviour.

I'm not entirely sure why you're dragging feminism into it - perhaps you could explain?

I've been a student midwife, had 4 babies in hospital (and 1 at home), had a long stay following neurosurgery complications and seen my brother have forteen bowel surgeries in the past three years so I've seen a lot of hospital. Very few people want to be in hospital unless they or their baby is very ill but it is the practicalities, actually getting discharged is the most long-winded and annoying process I have known within a hospital.

Having the doctor sign the papers for both mum and baby, having the paperwork printed out and the midwife go through the exercises and emergency info, having pharmacy deliver the right meds then having someone there to escort you out seems to take a really long time. If you give birth at 9pm you might be ready to go home a few hours later but the system may not be set up to let you go.

Oh and if any bloke stays the night on the ward apart from those in the circumstances I've mentioned I'm supposed to fill a critical incident form out about it. I then get a major blocking from the sister for allowing it and the ward gets a £500 fine. Not sure who we pay the fine to or if the sister made that up to scare me.

Oldboots that is why I would not wait to be discharged if I was well and there were no complications with me or my baby.

Oh come on. Drug addicts? Farting, snoring, breast ogling, trying to have sex with their wives in the next bed, making crass comments. All things that have been said again and again on this thread.

Oh and not to mention that they'll apparently try to nick your wallet, never mind your baby.

catgirl every man of my acquaintance is a decent, educated, kind middle class chap who was a new man before the phrase was even thought of.

But I'm old enough and wise enough to know that not all men, by a very long chalk indeed, are like this.

I have answered you again and again booyhoo. If my baby were sick it wouldn't be on a post-natal ward. It would be in a baby ward.

If for some reason they insisted on keeping my baby on a ward I wasn't on, and could find no single place anywhere where we could be together even if sitting quietly for the 8 or so hours DH would be 'banned' then we would be found outside in the corridor.

I didn't say my baby outside in a corridor, by the way. I said us - ie me and DH, liaising and taking turns to be with the baby if necessary. If there really was no place we could go to be together. It is about treating parents equally and not denying fathers access to their newborn children.

If the staffing levels are so poor on these wards I would suggest it would be better to have two parents observing/holding a baby than one midwife at the end of a darkened room.

Which is why I think it should be private rooms for all (even though I know that isnt going to happen)

As others have said ideas are fine in principle but in reality... Where I work we have some rooms where partners can stay (usually very very sick babies) but this is only for a few days if that. Problems start when people think that conditions attached (for health and safety/ to enable women to recover/to enable midwives to care for women ) don't apply to them. For example at visiting times, 2 visitors (in addition to partner) and only siblings to the baby - not going to debate the reasoning behind this but........telephone door entry to ward, however this does not stop people holding doors open and disregarding the intercom. So some women will have hordes of visitors whilst another woman is trying to recover from her section behind the next curtain.

Moreover if you ask visitors to swap about so only 2 at a time - many become verbally abusive - and sadly our staff have been physically assaulted.

Furthermore the intercom system is there to protect women/babies from some individuals (domestic violence/court orders etc) so if you "just let someone in" the repercussions can be terrible. Sadly the police/security staff are a familiar site on our ward - partners/visitors have been "removed" from the ward.

Think I am trying to say in this rambling post that a post natal ward tries to be a safe haven for some women/families but this is not always possible - even with vigilance on behalf of the staff, if partners were to stay 24 hours (esp as less staffing at night) this could potentially make this even more difficult

Misscarlett, I need to ask, why are you so needing to be with your DH every second after birth? Does he not go out to work and leave you while you go to work/SAH? Do you not have time apart ever?

What if you weren't pregnant but needed an op. Would you insist he sat in theatre and waited while they operated? Does he come with you to have smear tests?
I'm not being facetious, I am interested.

Am I the only one thinking the men who want to stay on a ward with a number of new babies and other mums are either feathery strokers or control freaks?

Yes, OF COURSE a father should be allowed to stay if the baby or the mum is ill - properly ill, not just sore as hell. That's a time when emotional support is most needed. They should have priority in getting a private room, but I don't really think any woman would object to having the father of a sick child or mum in the ward.

But for crying out loud, all these women who want their husbands there the whole time - why are you making such a fuss? Yes, of course it's lovely when they come to see you - they can stay a long time in most hospitals. But at night? Why would you want a man to have very little sleep for several days and then take you home to a cold, possibly grubby, house with no fresh food in it and left in the same condition as when you left it? He gets home, is knackered because he's slept on the floor or on a chair - do you really think most men (OK take your own saints out of this) are going to start running around insisting you rest?

The whole point of him going home is to keep the existing family together (if you have other children) and to prepare your home for your return.

And if they're on the ward, what are they going to do when you're asleep and the baby's asleep? They'll want to chat on the phone, chat to the other men or watch tv. In a side ward you might have four beds. So, four men chatting and watching tv. What happens when there's a football match? Or one comes back from home a bit worse for wear?

What happens when the women are all asleep and the men are not?

What happens when three of the four babies are screaming in the night - are the men going to smile sympathetically and lie on the floor, listening to it?

And what about young man my midwife friend saw having sex with his girlfriend six hours after the birth? Oh yes, he could stay the night. And my sister's husband who, when she went to to the bathroom, went to sleep on her bed?

I have to say though, that taking out of the equation the twins and the sick mums/babies, there are some very spineless women on here. Sorry, but you are.