to be shocked by what my mil went through 60 years ago.

[NorthernLurker]

Talking over lunch I have learnt that my mil was admitted to hospital with pneumonia aged 12 months. She then developed double pneumonia followed by measles, chicken pox and scarlet fever. She was in for a total of 6 months and was only discharged then because her parents couldn't stand anymore and removed her with the support of their GP.
In the whole of that time they never held her or spoke to her. They saw her about three times through a window. To find out how she was they had to travel in to the city and ask at a booth. For 6 weeks all they were told was that she was critical. It was a considerable advance when the hospital started posting status updates in the local paper and you could read about how ill your child was.

I knew this kind of thing happened but to hear it 'in the flesh' is just so shocking. Mil's parents clearly did an excellent job making up for this deprivation as she achieved well at school, became a nurse and an excellent parent and grandparent herself. She is one of the most empathetic people I know.

Thinking about what that litttle baby must have suffered though - just about blubbed all over the dinner table!

'I have a certain reputation now. Hard won. But if I don't speak up for my child who will?'

Exactly! I wasn't a PITA, either, just labelled one for not happily dumping my 9-year-old dying daughter in an entirely new environment with a bunch of strangers, the two I'd met being utter cunts.

My mum was born very unwell and spent her first 6 months in hospital. After the birth, my nan was most offended when the doctor picked up my mum's leg and said 'she's just like a little pig. She's as fat as she is long' (we have all giggled about that story since).

My grandad used to work a 12 hour shift and then cycle for an hour just to stare at her through the window for a bit. Makes me sad to think of it. How it must have affected them all was never disclosed and sadly now I can't ask

Age 7 in the mid 70's and I remember crying the first night I was left in hospital and crying when I left as I didn't want to leave. Even lied at a follow up check up to get back in! I loved the children's ward, was so much fun once I was on the mend though would liked to have seen more of my parents than the one hour in the evening. Loved Nurse Burns, she was lovely, some others were bitches.

Some of these stories are so sad though.

I remember in the early 90s recovering from a tonsil removal operation. I woke up in the worlds smallest gown, no covers, one pillow shivering. I sat up wondering where I was, I was jumped on and made to lie down. I was shouted at a lot, and told I was a nuisance. I hated hospitals after that!

I truly believe that all patients in hospital no matter what age thrive with having their family with them. The doctors, nurses and other medical staff are there to do a job. When my parents have been ill in hospital they want a family member to hold their hand when they are at their most vulnerable. The nurses do not have the time to stop and comfort patients. They are normally rushed off their feet. I had to make sure my parents eat their food as other wise the staff just took it away. Older patients feel incredibly scared and vulnerable. Why are visiting hours so restricted. Surely at least one relative or friend should be allowed in at all times. I appreciate the staff can't have relatives in the way but they can always ask the relative to leave the room for a while if need be.

I'm in my 60s now, but when I was about six I was very ill, and then in and out of hospital many times during the following three years.
Visiting wasn't allowed every day, only three times a week I think. But my Mum used to send me postcards so I got one almost every day, I've still got some of them!
She would bring me a taste of home, like a sponge finger my Dad had made for me, or my bear Bumbo, I could have a cuddle with, (I've still got him too) or if she could afford it, a spray of flowers, mimosa was a favourite.
I can still remember huge amounts about those days, like where my bed was in the ward, the names of the doctors, elements of the treatment, even whole conversations.

DS was born in 2007, when he was born he was taken straight to NICU, I was to unwell myself to stay with him (and when I was conscious it physically hurt me not being able to hold him) but 8 weeks later in SCBU he caught an infection and had to be readmitted to NICU.

They told me to go home, this was after weeks of telling me the worst thing that could happen would be him getting an infection as he was not strong enough to fight it. They just expected me to go home and hope he did not die in the night. In the end they let me stay since I flat out refused to leave.

He is going in for surgery in two weeks and if he ends up in PICU afterwards the only way they are getting me out of there is with a crowbar.

I've said this on MN before, but it just stays with me.

A few years ago my dad told me the story his mother told him. When he was expecting his first child, she said suddenly, 'of course, I had three children'. And my dad was confused as he is one of two. Turns out that during her first pregnancy, she was labouring on a busy ward. They wouldn't let my grandad in. And she kept calling for help. By the time someone got there, she had had the baby and it was dead.

My grandad insisted to my dad that he must be there at the births of all of his children - and I believe he insisted on being there when my dad and his sister were born, which in the 50s would have been very unusual.

It is terrifying and so sad to think of.

That must have been so very hard on you, 1944.

Especially the tour,

Your post gives me a shiver because 'cord around the neck' is what my dad's dad was told, and he never questioned that so far as I know, even though he insisted on saying it could have been helped.

Shocking thread

Diana, Princess of Wales's mother lost two sons, one to full-term stillbirth and one hours after nearly full-term birth. It warped her. She said, 'My arms ache, to hold my babies.' She was disallowed either. It affected her forever.

I was told to leave my 9-year-old daughter, in 2012, overnight, in ICU, by a man, whom, as I've said, that is the closest I will get to hating another human being, so this is still going on. My child was awake and terrified. I would have killed him before he stopped me being with her, indeed, I hope he dies screaming in agony or locked in for his lack of compassion and cruelty, especially because I know he is visited on those far less prepared or strong as we were then. I saw him after my child died and he just looked at me. 'May God send you die in screams of shame,' I told him, and 'You are the worst of all monsters. A cruel cretin excuse of a person. You are a sick disgrace, and if there is a Hell it is too good for you. May you be cursed all this life and the next,' and spat, for the first time in my life but believe me, if you were there you'd have done that or worse.

It was only by chance, that the cons who was on the night she was put on vent, had an ounce of compassion still left in him. Otherwise, our child would have been put under, as she had many times with us, without us. It was the last time we ever saw our child alive again.

One time, he tried to throw me out for a procedure, but her cons overruled him, and she pulled more rank. I cursed him under my breath. Later, he said, 'I heard you.' I said, 'Good. May it stick.' 'You are just her bitch,' he said. I said, 'Most definitely, no better alpha there is. I make sure she knows that every day,' and licked my teeth and smacked my lips and smiled. 'The alpha bitch always defends her cubs to death. I live to serve.'

My aunt lost two babies in the late 60s, one at 3 days and one at 3 months. She was not allowed to see the 3 day old at all (he was brain damaged due to a ridiculously long labour) as it was thought to be easier for her that way. The only people to see him were my uncle and my mother. My uncle died a few years back. No one even has a photo of him and so my mother is the only person who could tell you what he looked like :(

DD1 had to be taken back to SCBU at 10 days old (2010) with extremely toxic jaundice. The dot for her levels was in the writing above the chart. They immediately started treating her for meningitis. She was prem (36+2 I don't let people tell me that it's not properly prem after our experience) and it was 'just' from that and she was surrounded by UV lights for 2 days. Her levels dropped so fast we managed to get away without a blood exchange.

We had a side room as she was an infection risk. I was told that they didn't have any parent rooms as they were all full. I told them that was fine as I wouldn't be leaving her side and she was EBF on demand in any case. I would have sat in a hard chair but they found me a fold out camp bed for the nights.

I was told I'd have to leave for an hour at handovers as all parents were asked to on the open ward for confidentiality reasons and it was only fair to have a blanket rule. I agreed to if I wasn't breastfeeding, but if I was I would be staying. I Dfriend and her husband had come to visit and with my DH I had people to spend time with during those handovers (and go to pizza hut) and DH wasn't alone at home, thank goodness.

They asked me to leave while they did the lumbar puncture, but I wouldn't as I intended to get DD1 BF immediately after, for comfort. Eventually they got me to do most of her care and write out the charts. I had been a nurse for nearly 20 years and I could switch into 'be calm now, stress later' mode.

Most of the staff were lovely but on the last day there was one who insisted to me that I must have done something wrong that nearly killed DD1. Not BF her enough, had her too cold and was plainly looking to accuse me of neglect. Luckily the MW who had come to my house as she was becoming ill had documented the room temperature (had a thermometer in there) and DD1 had performed a huge wee (handy for the sample) on arrival at hospital so they knew BF was working. For every criticism she met a wall of argumentative hostility from me. When the registrar said he would discharge us, under my watch she argued that we clearly needed to stay to see what I was doing wrong. The doctor gave her such a contemptuous look I nearly cheered.

I am 46 and my first memory is being taken from my mother aged 2 and a half, screaming, to surgery for an eye operation. Similar had happened about a year before but I don't remember that. My mother says its still her most traumatic memory - handing me over to the nurse and hearing me scream.

That said, whilst the operation day was dreadful my mother did get to stay with me both times in hospital. We had a room to ourselves (on the NHS not private) and I was an inpatient for about 2 weeks. I have some hazy memories of that time and recall being very close to my mother and having her around pretty much all the time.

I was in hospital a lot from ages 2-6ish in the early/mid 80s. Parents generally weren't allowed to stay (I think they were a couple of times after operations).

The attitude of the staff made a huge difference - at Great Ormond Street the nurses were kind when I missed my parents, and when I was wheeled down to the operating theatre they took my doll on the trolley and carried me, showing me what good care they were taking of her, and I don't remember being scared at all. But at one of the other hospitals when I was 4 or so a nurse repeatedly told me off in a furious voice for crying in the night, because "you'll wake [child in next bed]!" I still remember how sad and lonely I felt, and trying to sob into the blanket so she wouldn't hear me. Cow.

The stillbirth stories are horrendous. How could denying parents the chance to see, hold, mourn for or bury their own children be thought of as 'helping' them in any way at all? It's just inhuman.

DS was admitted to hospital at three days old for jaundice, only one parent was allowed to stay with him in a side room, but the nurse was so lovely and let DH stay because i was so frantic and stressed. She kept apologising for not being able to get him a bed too. I would have gone for anyone who tried to get me to leave DS there. Some of these stories are heart breaking.

My great-aunt caught TB as a child and was sent away from her family to a sanatorium on a hillside in Wales for six months (this would have been the early 1900's) to lie in a room with only 3 walls, open to the 'clean air' (the preferred treatment at the time). No-one could afford to travel to visit her and in all that time they didn't know if she was alive or dead.

My grandmother had what was then called Pernicious Anaemia and lost many babies before and during having my mum and her brother and sisters. She was pregnant again in the 1940's and was told that she had to have an abortion as the baby wasn't developing and would kill her if she carried it to term. As a catholic she had to go and get permission from the local priest before she could have the operation and she never forgave herself for doing it.

My youngest brother was born with Edward Syndrome and had many, many things wrong with him. He was taken from my mother in hospital on The Wirral and sent to Alder Hey in Liverpool, where he died a week later. My mother never got to visit, hold him or say goodbye. She wasn't allowed to go to the funeral on the grounds that it would upset her. It was 1974 and I have a clear memory of her ripping a bouquet of flowers that my Dad's work had sent (with a card saying something rather trite about not dwelling on sorrow) into tiny pieces on the day of the funeral. My Dad never spoke to her or us about him, to him was like he'd never existed. This was 1974.

My granny had a stillborn baby at home. She never saw him but he was secretly buried beside the graveyard that night by a neighbour. It was apparently quite common to do that,they couldn't be buried in consecrated ground because they were not baptised but instead buried close to it. People knew it happened but no one talked about it. She never knew where exactly he was buried.

My nan developed septicimia after giving birth to my mum 60 odd years ago and was hospitalised for 8 weeks. My mum was sent to the workhouse and was there for a week until my Nan's aunt claimed her and took her home. My nan had a 4 week battle with her to get my mum back when she was better so didn't get to take her home until she was 12 weeks old!
My mum is one of 4 siblings and has the worst relationship with my nan, she recalls never receiving any affection growing up compared to the rest of the family

MIL was in hospital for 3 months as a 5 yo, very ill and stuck in a cot with little interaction

her parents were allowed to see her twice a week and when they went her little sister cried every time, took MILs shoes and kept on begging can X come home now.

awful to think of, for all concerned.

My DSM had leukaemia as a child. She was an inpatient for most of the time for a variety of reasons/the time. She saw her parents once a day for an hour, despite the horrible treatment she was going through, for months sometimes. She thought she was dying due to not being told a thing- the nurse told her she was very, very ill, but nothing else. She was seven, thinking she'd die and her mum and dad couldn't hug her or do anything, even when she wasn't in isolation.

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