AIBU to not want strange men sleeping next to me post operative?

[bracingair]

I am due to have a c-section in UCLH and I was chatting to one of the midwives. She said post natal you are in a 4 bedded bay. Partners can sleep over, and they don't like the curtains closed so they can keep an eye on u. This is not my first so very likely DH will not stay overnight.

I think it is wonderful that women can have their partners over if they want, but I do not want someone else's partner right by me! I know resources are stretched but I think it is putting me in a position I am very uncomfortable with. AIBU and if not, what can I do about this?

The focus should be on 'family' as well as 'women'

I don't agree with this. Women and women's physical welfare needs to be at the top of the agenda. The idea that the focus of delivery and recovery after the procedure should not centre women is incredibly regressive.

Can I ask, would anyone have a problem with my wife staying on the ward post birth with me?

Difficult. Not really, to be honest. Women are used to the bleeding and leaking that women experience to at least some extent and tend to get it more. However, if some partners can't stay it seems a bit unfair that others can.

I'm due in around a month and I'd hate having to share a ward with strange men overnight. I think my husband really wouldn't like it either, he'd be very uncomfortable with making women uncomfortable. Plus, I need him fresh and rested when I get home.

How do you cater for women whose anxiety means they want their partners there AND women whose anxiety means they don't want to share space with strangers who aren't patients? Private rooms for everyone? Is that feasible, not just because of cost but for sheer space and logistics?

Fluffy - I would feel roughly the same. If all four women on a ward were gay then it is still four extra people on the ward who aren't patients. I have no issue in a side room.

I don't agree with this. Women and women's physical welfare needs to be at the top of the agenda. The idea that the focus of delivery and recovery after the procedure should not centre women is incredibly regressive.

The thing is though is its not mutually exclusive though is it? Surely women benefit from the support of partners, so by including partners and improving the emphasis on family, women centred care improves? Certainly I do feel that in my case, involving my husband was key to improving the care that I received. It helped DH understand my needs and the problems I had and what bringing a baby into the dynamic would entail and how he could best support me to care for my baby.

Women centred care has multiple meanings based on individual needs and this is entirely the point. If you point blank refuse to acknowledge that partners can have an important and significant role in that, you are missing a really important point.

There is no one size fits all. Hence the phrase women centred care.

"We need a mumsnet campaign"

A mumsnet campaign, in support of partners being allowed to stay on the ward overnight, was proposed last year by RowanMumsnet on Mumsnet Campaigns, Ledkr, when she posted this ...

"The organisation Birthrights (with whom we've done some stuff in the past) are planning a new campaign called First Night, and wanted to know whether it's something MN could support - so we said we'd ask you lot!"

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_campaigns/a2129215-What-do-you-think-about-spouses-partners-staying-overnight-on-postnatal-wards?msgid=48200610#48200610

That thread makes interesting reading, ADishBestEatenCold. The response was overwhelming negative then, too. Does anyone know if Birthright went ahead with the campaign? I suppose they don't need to, since it seems to have become the norm in many hospitals...

Birthrights board are heavily into Human Rights Law!

You couldn't make this nonsense up.

In fairness I think birth rights took it on board.

I did just skim and not to the end !

TedAndLola Sun 26-Apr-15 21:33:54
How do you cater for women whose anxiety means they want their partners there AND women whose anxiety means they don't want to share space with strangers who aren't patients? Private rooms for everyone? Is that feasible, not just because of cost but for sheer space and logistics?

Aim for it. Yes. Chances are slim you'd get that but that's partly the point. If you aim for the bare minimum you'll get even less. At some point there will be a compromise if you are realistic about it. The more we excuse poor care the more we don't get the care that is appropriate to us.

I really wish there was the option to pay for a private room - not to "go private" or to get any sort of different care, just literally to pay for the room space. I know it's a little bit of extra work for the staff but maybe they could charge enough so the money from it helped subsidise extra care for the whole ward, even. I'm sure enough people would pay maybe £100 a night (considering most women would only be in for a night or two) to help make it economical.

brian, so women who can afford it can have private rooms in nhs hospitals, but those who can't afford it have to use wards?

Men do not need to spend the night in a maternity ward to bond with their children. I am appalled that women in such a vulnerable state are being forced to spend the night with strange men.

Bakewell - their human rights stuff is more like women having the right to decline treatment etc. You know, forced section etc.

Yep, and that would make the situation better for everybody. The wards are less crowded and there would be more cash available. I'm not saying it would be a better experience necessarily - not asking for hotel style rooms or anything other than four walls and a door. Plenty of women prefer to be on a ward anyway, and those that were medically in need would obviously have priority without charge.

Postnatal wards are not like other hospital wards. Often the 'patient' is not actually ill but just marking time until they're discharged.

I feel very reassured to see that the majority would not like it either! I was worried it is just me being a prude and anxious.

The amount of responses shows it clearly is a very emotive topic. The majority seem to be against having men. Obviously there would be cases where there is a clinical need for women to need their partners too, but as the ward is set up now i think that should be accommodated on a case by case basis rather than the norm.

It is not about creating a patriarchal society where only mothers look after the baby in the first 24 hours, for goodness sake, it is the woman who carries and gives birth to the baby, not everything can be equalised!!

I am horrified by some of the stories on here, they are unacceptable, having a miscarriage with others (who do not need to be there) in ear shot??!!

I had a c section at the Whittington last December, stayed in two nights. Dp stayed and dozed in an uncomfortable chair. It was nothing to do with bonding, it was because I was unable to move or pick up our daughter when she cried and he was worried about my ability to cope. I would've been devastated if he hadn't been able to stay.

My curtains were drawn shut the entire time I was there (my choice) and although other husbands/partners were there as well I can honestly say I did not give one shiny shit. All of them were as focussed on their partners and new babies as my dp was. They aren't allowed to use the patients' toilets and, unbelievably, they are hardly loitering around the ward hoping for a glimpse of your arsecrack as you shuffle painfully to the loo!

In my hospital a private room is only about £70 a night and that's to pay for the room space only. I thought that was quite common?

i think that should have been matriarchal, not patriarchal

I think it's disgraceful that men can stay when women are so vulnerable, bleeding, half dressed, exhausted and frankly shocked by a massive physical experience. Nurses are there to care (they don't always but that's a care/medical issue). Personal rights of patients wipe the floor with 'bonding'. It's BS. All women need to feel secure and comfortable in whatever way they can manage whilst ward based and that means not a ward full of non patients. Partners can pick it up later. And yes I did it without a partner and my belief in doing what's beat for the majority of women totally overtakes individual wishes here

Tiny - if you'd has decent post op care, your dp didn't need to be there.

I had a c section and such bad SPD that I couldn't walk. But I coped on my own. It wasn't great but we coped.

I think if you have your own partner there supporting you and no "unusual" partners of others to manage it will be fine. However that is not going to be universally the case.

'although other husbands/partners were there as well I can honestly say I did not give one shiny shit. All of them were as focussed on their partners and new babies as my dp was. They aren't allowed to use the patients' toilets and, unbelievably, they are hardly loitering around the ward hoping for a glimpse of your arsecrack as you shuffle painfully to the loo!'

Good for you, Tiny, so all the other people on here who were gawped at, had to endure partners who were arguing with their patient and some who have even been threatened by other peoples' aggressive partners are all just making it up then.

Brian often the patient is ill.

And many wards have patients who aren't 'ill'. Just post op, drugged, exhausted, in pain, temporarily inapacitated, hooked up to machines... all the things that make them patients.

You don't find partners staying over though.

The problem here is shifting the norm to the point where many of us would feel even less inclined to be in these zoos wards.

I'd have self discharged as soon as possible, or demanded my human rights to have my mother to care for me.