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?

I feel very hypocritical as I too would feel uncomfortable with a man being so close to me when I'm in a vulnerable state.

I'm currently going through fertility treatment and my local hospital whilst they have an option to pay for a private room (which we are more than willing to do), they cannot guarantee its availability if/when I give birth.

I'd rather put it off/save a bit longer and save to go private if it would make other women feel uncomfortable though as I know hoe id feel!

Brian, that's what I did - paid for a private room which cost £25/night in 1997. All care was NHS. I stayed in for 2 nights.

When I had DS2 in 1999, he was kept in for a week in SCBU. Again, I had a private room for the duration.

Each time was on the understanding I would have to go on the ward if a C/S or poorly woman needed it.

Why is the no mixed wards rule in place for other wards? Is it because patients don't want to feel vulnerable while they're asleep? Or because they may be partially clothed behind curtains?
Whatever the reasons I can't see that these reasons magically disappear because you have a baby. I can't see how it would encourage women to relax and breastfeed or to move around while bleeding etc. I'd have liked more restrictions on visitors while I was on the post natal ward!
However I can see that people like happy and a few others who have medical needs should be accommodated because they don't have options. and I would be happy if there were choices so one bay is available as a place for partners to stay over but that it could be withdrawn if the request is non medical.

We don't allow any fathers/visitors overnight on our maternity ward. Birth partners have open hours all day however visiting is more tightly controlled due to issues with space, drug rounds, trying to support 3hrly feeding etc etc etc.

Generally speaking our lucky, lucky ward midwives very rarely have more than 6 mums and 6 babies each. So buzzers are answered and all anyone has to do it ask for help.

Still get a fair amount of people really unhappy that a father/relative/visitor can't stay overnight. It's a no win situation and a tricky thing. Imagine the physical size of the unit that could hold 30 private rooms. Be enormous.

I have major issues with people bunking down next to patient beds. Including on children's wards.
I've been in a situation where I needed to get to that bed really bloody quickly, in semi darkness where the person on the floor was deeply asleep and groggy. The fold out bed, extra bags etc. made a really hard situation that little bit worse.

Not read full thread but I spent three days in the UCLH bay you mean. You'll be too busy to even notice any other men and your curtains will probably be closed the whole time.

Concentrate more on making sure you get your paracetamol, clean bedding and regular meals. I had a wonderful birth but the post natal ward left a lot to be desired.

This was 2013.

And also, id imagine all the men who you do see in there are a bit too busy to go sniffing around other women surely?

I don't have children (joined MN for ttc), but I feel pretty uncomfortable with the idea of me breast feeding, and the idea that I'd have to try to do it absolutely knackered the first night after childbirth with a man a don't know about a metre away from me really puts me off breast feeding!

Seriously, you are too busy at UCHL dealing with the knitted boob harridans marching in and out of your cubicle and telling you you've failed your baby cos you didn't take to bfing like a dream in your first three minutes. They're the ones that take away your dignity, not the poor bastards in the next bay trying to help their wives go through the same shitty experience.

CaptainHolt - I am horrified that you went through this. Why did the midwife allow you to labour with men telling you to shut up?! Am gobsmacked. I would do as sunshine says and put in a formal complaint. Am seriously shocked at such mistreatment.

Family members are not staying for medical reasons. They are staying to provide basic care which for one reason or another is not being provided. And it's probably not true to say most women don't need much care on postnatal wards as the majority of women with straightforward deliveries are discharged within hours. There are several issues but I think a major one is the perception that we should simply cope following major abdominal surgery. Following minor laparoscopic procedures with no complications we advise patients take regular analgesia, rest and not take on much for a while. Yet after major surgery, often accompanied by significant blood loss, sometimes infection, we expect women to cope with over the counter pain relief, to look after an infant and generally get on with it. So as I said previously that in theory I would prefer patients only on postnatal wards, at present where the care simply is not being provided should we just leave patients untended?

Whilst I appreciate some people feel uncomfortable with men being present, even in cases where men are not permitted to stay overnight they usually have long open visiting hours and in my experience partners will make the most of them. So for 14 hours a day men are there, whilst you're trying to feed, stagger to the toilet dripping blood etc, does the other 10hrs really make that much difference?

For me, I would have almost rather had my DH there for the long and lonely nights when I was desperately trying to syringe-feed my baby whilst utterly exhausted.

I would quite happily have tolerated having other partners on the ward if I could have had my own there to fetch the formula from the fridge and hold my hand whilst I had a cry.

What the fuck ! Partners stay over ? Never heard the like . Soooo not BU xx

And also, id imagine all the men who you do see in there are a bit too busy to go sniffing around other women surely?

It's that kind of dismissive attitude that makes this so horrific.

Do you really think all men are good, respectful and decent? Did you read about the woman being raped by her partner post birth? About the threats, abuse, gawping?

Imagine the worst kind of man you'd cross the street to avoid. Now imagine sleeping next to him, breastfeeidng in front of him and walking, bleeding , to a loo in front of him.
Then tell me it's a great idea.

Imagine the worst kind of man you'd cross the street to avoid. Now imagine sleeping next to him, breastfeeidng in front of him and walking, bleeding , to a loo in front of him.

But that's inevitable during the long visiting hours anyway? I just don't get what substantial difference the extra overnight hours make?

Personally I would rather a birth partner was allowed to stay 24/7 but there was more of a culture of encouraging/enforcing a calm, quiet atmosphere - eg:

-reduced visiting hours for anyone other than birth partner and enforcing limits on numbers (no gaggles of extended family hanging out all day)
-encouraging low voices rather than shrieking and shouting (or indeed listening to TV on iPad at full volume with no headphones that I had to endure)
-respecting patient preference on curtains closed/open (I got sick of MWs coming in and then leaving the curtain open when they left)

This all boils down to lack of maternity care

If patients had the care there would be absolutely no need for anyone else to be there overnight

It's making a bad situation worse for some women

I find this attitude so anti-men. Post birth, you're on a ward with multiple women, babies, nurses, doctors, annoying bounty women, annoying baby photographers, the hearing test people and what felt like a million others. There is no privacy. Partners should be allowed. Who cares if they accidentally see a nipple, you're unlikely to ever see them again. They have every right to be there, this is their child.

There might be an unpleasant one sometimes but there are unpleasant people in all walks of life, male and female, and you just deal with them accordingly.

FFS I had no idea this was going on. I appreciate it was 7 years ago but in our hospital there were 4 single rooms (with own bathrooms) and since I was having twins I was allocated one. DH was allowed to stay from 8am to 8pm. But not overnight.

I had some minor complications and had to keep my catheter in for 3 days, they wanted to move me onto a ward (4 beds) because of this but I refused and they let me stay in the single room. I would have felt very vulnerable in this situation. Regard of my complications I was breast feeding and with twins there was always one of them latched on

I'd be reservedly in favour of female partner/birth partner/family members being allowed to stay overnight.

My niece was in a six bed ward after giving birth to her second child. She'd had a difficult labour and was in need of sleep.

A nurse asked the 4 of them already in the ward if they objected to the partner of a fifth (about to come onto the ward) staying overnight. All of them said they did not want a man staying overnight. And that was that. If just one person objects then it shouldn't happen.

The new mother was very cross and snappy with them but that was just tough. Her wants did not trump everyone else's. There was no clinical need for him to be there.

It's not anti men, it's pro women

and I cannot understand why anyone cannot see the difference between having partners around during visiting hours as opposed to sleeping there overnight

boyscout you may not care if someone elses partner 'sees a nipple' .You certainly don't speak for other women.
And IMO all those other people (other than medical/nursing staff) should be restricted as well. Women should be entitled to recover and care for their babies in peace, otherwise what's the point of even being in hospital.
I'm so thankful I had my first baby when I did, in the 80's.

boyscout and no partners don't have 'every right to be there'. In hospitals the only people with that right are patients and staff.

This is an interesting thread. I have to say IRL and as I say, my recent hospital stay, I have only found people very in favour of partners staying. I wonder if generally people are, otherwise the pressure on hospitals to end the practise would be strong.
I know my sisters hospital didn't allow fathers to stay and she was disappointed by this, as were the other women she spoke to on the ward. Yet there are people posting here who find the very idea shocking to the point of being unbelievable.
I'm not sure that's a common view tbh.

When I was in hospital the prenatal and post wards were mixed. I was in for 7 weeks, 6 weeks before ds was born and a week after. Thankfully they put me in a private room afterwards.
However it was bad enough having 6 weeks of my life on a shared ward, although I did make some friends with a few who were in longer, however it would have been a nightmare if I had to have the partners in there as well. It may only be one or two nights for most people, but some people are in over a week or like me nearly two months.
The wards are set up for 4 people not 8 and imagine the queue to use the bathroom etc. The visiting hours are long enough and those get abused. One woman pretended her brother was her husband so he could stay all day, even though her husband was around and visited her after work.