About partners on the ward after childbirth?

[hullabaloo234]

Booked in for ELCS for breech baby.

Just going through this week's post and find a letter from the hospital about what to do/not do prior to the op, what time to arrive etc.

At the back is a letter for my "support person", with a list of do's and don'ts for their stay on the ward with me after my section.

Sorry, WTF?! I love DP dearly but not a chance do I want him or more importantly a load of other blokes on the ward.

I was already going to discharge myself the following morning but was realistic about staying a bit longer if needed- bollocks to that I am definitely leaving as soon as my catheter is out and I can walk again!

Am I the only person who thinks this is really bloody unreasonable?!

Women staffing awake all night because they can't put their babies down, being unable to feed them, in pain, thirsty, dripping blood, denied pain relief, holding on to the wall for support, crying.

Sounds like a very safe space for women...

There's a good thread at the moment about the shocking level of care women receive on the NHS, no one can deny it's dire. But in what world does "let's get men, including those who are rude, disrespectful, abusive, and possibly sex offenders onto wards when women are vulnerable anyway" the answer?

TRIGGER WARNING - RAPE

I thought a bit about posting this but I'm going to - after having DD, I had a 3rd degree tear, PPH and what felt like a fist sized bunch of haemorrhoids. Walking was agony. We lived at the time in a rural village with few houses and no street lights, the kind you see on horror films and I often would scare myself with hearing bangs in the night. I remember saying to DH after giving birth and being in such a state downstairs that I was absolutely terrified we'd get intruders and that I'd be raped. I had no reason to think this, there'd been no incidents nearby, but I was in so much pain I thought it would just be so painful to be raped, more so than if I was functioning well downstairs. Looking back I was hormonal and irrational, but it was a genuine fear.

If I had to sleep in a postnatal Ward with 5 strange men, that fear would be overbearing. I don't care how Sue in the next bed says how nice her husband is, to me he is a stranger and I am vulnerable. In what other setting would you even think about sleeping in the same room as 5 strange men?

"I will always fight for women who feel vulnerable and want a space away from men, whatever the setting" So how do you square that with women who want their partners present 24hrs a day? Why does that trump the equally valid desire of women to feel safe, have privacy and dignity for periods of time on the postnatal recovery ward?

I find it hard enough to sleep in a shared hospital ward anyway. If there were an unknown number of unknown men staying in the same space, with me and my baby, I would not have felt able to sleep at all. How is that helpful for my recovery? I would have had to discharge myself, which in my case would have meant leaving my baby in SCBU. I live about 45 minutes drive from the hospital so I'd have to stay somewhere nearby to be able to visit overnight. I can see that this would have hindered my recovery and hindered getting breastfeeding established given the issues presented by tube feeding a poorly baby. I needed to express through the night and store the milk in the hospital. If I were discharged then this would have been very difficult.

speak I have already said that I think, where possible, both should be accommodated. Wards for women who want to be alone, and wards, or family rooms, or a fucking broom cupboard would have done for me, for women who deemed that emotional support vital. As you say - equally valid. So someone else's desire for privacy should not trump someone else's MH needs. That's what is missing here, an acknowledgement that any need other than for a man-free space is valid and should attempt to be accommodated.

In Norn Iron visiting is post 11am and for short periods only
I had a better experience of this than previous births.
I felt more able to be

So long story short I think you're BU and can fuck off if you think you have the right to demand I have to be vulnerable and suffer because the sight of my husband helping care for me and our baby might offend you.

Fuck off? How nice have you even RTFT? Don't be so obtuse, no one is offended by your husband helping you. But you saying "well he's only interested in me" just isn't good enough to invade a patient's safe space. I could say it sincerely about my DH - but why should anyone take my word for it?

Honestly people are taking this as a personal vendetta against their darling OHs. No one says they can't be there, some of us don't want them a few feet away from us 24/7! 12 hour visiting period is plenty. As dozer said it's up to the NHS to fill the other 12-hour gap, not people's partners.

If women feel that they don't have the help and support they need to care for their newborns after c sections, we need to campaign for more help. And that help should be available to all women - not just those whose partners are willing and/or able to act as carers.

I don't want men on post natal wards. Ever

We need to campaign for all women's needs to be met. Yes, of course better post-natal care. Why not campaign for partners to be allowed to stay in designated wards/rooms as long as there are wards where partners are not allowed beyond visiting hours?

How can two types of wards be established though, as this would surely double the amount of staff needed? It seems as unlikely as private en suite rooms being available for all.

I'm absolutely acknowledging that for some women, having their partner present 24 hours a day might be vital for them. That shouldn't be prioritised above those who equally validly don't want men present 24hrs. Somehow both should be accommodated without anyone's safety, dignity and privacy being violated. Mixed accommodation is recognised in the NHS as being something that should be avoided if at all possible, so it seems incongruous that it should be encouraged in postnatal wards where some women are at their most vulnerable.

If I were to be pregnant again, I would choose a hospital where partners were not allowed overnight, if that were at all possible. Presumably women who really want their partners present could look for a hospital where that is allowed, if one exists that is near enough.

So what's your answer then? Obviously the NHS should be plugging the gap but as proven many times, they're not. What do women like me who are left paralysed and then left in immense pain do when they can't look after themselves or their babies, the staff are not there, and there is a father chomping at the bit and desperate to care for us? Or should I suffer because you deem him to be a potential sex offender just because he has a penis?

I'm all for campaigning for more help because that was exactly why I needed him to be there, but in the meanwhile, what do you do?

Why not campaign for partners to be allowed to stay in designated wards/rooms as long as there are wards where partners are not allowed beyond visiting hours?

Do you really think that campaigning for a blanket situation where maternity wards become mixed sex - regardless of whether single sex wards are available - should be a priority for women? What about women in abusive situations whose partners will now have the assurance that their right to be present all the time is now guaranteed and probably the expectation?

You could separate the areas that already exist. There were (I think) two large post natal wards at my hospital, each with several separate bays. We're not talking one long nightingale style ward in most hospitals. Adapt what already exists, no need for extra staffing (except to bring it up to an acceptable staffing level of course).

Coldilox at the risk of playing devil's advocate, someone upthread made a good point about having the choice. Because labour wards are so unpredictable, what happens when a woman is wheeled in at 2am who doesn't want to be in a ward with men but that's the only place there are beds? Does she have to put up with it or do they get kicked out? Either way someone's rights are taken away. And the NHS don't have funding to rebuild maternity wards to make for more private rooms etc, so I imagine very few hospitals are able to accommodate this.

I for one would be happy to forgo the right to a private room so that someone wanting their OH to stay could have it, as long as mixed bays were visitor/men free at night. But then that takes away from women who actually need privacy and their own rooms for different reasons.

And then we have women who couldn't have men in the wards at night for religious reasons. Not sure what happens now re this in the hospitals that allow men overnight?

There's no solution that suits everyone. As said before campaigning for better materniry services is a good start. Including policing behaviour on wards better (it's such a shame that HCPs would have to play Mum so much though because people can't be respectful of others). But I always think women and babies are patients and caring for them and allowing them the space in the ward always takes precedent over allowing visitors in to dictate the rules

Dusty are you saying that the needs of some women should be completely ignored to the detriment of their health so that a blanket "no partners" policy is the only option, even when huge numbers of women don't want that?

I'm saying there should be a choice. And yes, I think campaigning for choices for women should be a priority for women.

I don't think having partners present overnight on general wards is ever the answer. Private facilities and proper staffing should cover the contingencies raised here.

Not read the whole thread...

My friends who had c sec and baby with them all seemed to "need" their DH with them to lift baby up etc. Some were allowed to stay and some not.

My baby was taken away straight to NICU after my EMCS. No way could I have slept in that hospital surrounded by crying babies if I'd been on my own. We were in a side room but could still hear them all night as side room was between two larger rooms. Only thing keeping me safe was DH in chair next to my bed. He was asked to not leave the room alone between certain times of night

Cherry there is always that issue. What happens when a female surgery ward is full but a woman is wheeled up at 2am having had emergency surgery following a car crash? Adjustments have to be made, I don't know the answer. But I don't think women should be refused the emotional support of their partner at their most vulnerable time as a blanket policy.

Coldilox NHS take same sex accommodation very seriously and avoid breaches at all costs. For reasons relating to privacy, dignity and safety. The general exception is ITU/HDU, otherwise it'd be unlikely that sexes would be mixed on a 'regular' Ward.

No one is saying women can't get emotional support, it's the 24/7 aspect some of us object to. By large most people sleep (or try to) at night time, so if they're going to be sleeping anyway and partners will be neither use nor ornament for a great deal of the 12-hour gap. Seems a pretty good time for partners to go home.

Like I say a strange bloke in a postnatal Ward would adversely affect my MH, I would be a nervous wreck especially at night when there's fewer staff and more unconscious people. So whilst someone in the next bed may need emotional support, mine and MANY others' feelings and privacy would be trampled on. And I'm not sure many people are crying out for this - you only have to take a look the other thread to see how heavily women object to it. MN dropped the campaign idea because of the overwhelming response.

I've been on these threads before. I had an emcs, a pph and a severe infection so was very ill after having DD. I sent DH home on our first night on the ward (2nd night overall- spent to first in HDU, in a side room with a 1:1 nurse to help me with DD). I never received my antibiotics or pain killers (I am a medic so very capable of advocating for myself generally but this didn't seem to matter). As a result I had a high fever and was dizzy all night. I was in so much pain that I couldn't get into the bed so sat upright in the chair. DD cried and nobody came when I buzzed and called. I managed to stand up and bled heavily onto the floor and fell over.

The woman in the bed next to me had her DH staying, he helped me back into my chair, gave me DD and checked on me every so often overnight. The midwives complained that I hadn't cleaned up the floor when they finally came to me (3 hours later). I spent the night sitting bolt upright in the chair holding DD as I was terrified to put her down, very ill, bleeding heavily.

I made sure my DH stayed the following few nights (spent 10days in hospital in total). I was told on another thread that this made me selfish and the problem was not enough midwives. And I agree. But being noble wasn't going to help me then and there when I desperately needed help.

What would happen in the emergency surgery case is probably that they would be kept in recovery for longer until a bed is available. They'd try and move women out to other wards or discharge if at all possible. In the case of a maternity ward, they'd have to keep you in the delivery room until a suitable bed is available on the right kind of ward. It might mean that they have to close to new admissions, so women in labour would be turned away to other hospitals.

As for separating existing wards, it would need extra staff. If a ward was split into two separate sections, separated properly with security doors, they would be two totally separate wards. I can't see how that wouldn't need more staff?

It really does sound as though the campaign that is definitely needed is for more present overnight care from midwives or nurses on postnatal wards.

Having read this thread I am now more worried about the time I'll be spending on the postnatal ward than I am about giving birth

For some people who say it would affect their mental health if partners could stay what about those who's would be affected if they can't. Our hospital have made an exception for my husband to stay and offered us a private room as im at risk of post partum problems and it's essential he is there to support me with the overnight feeds. It might bec that you don't need your husband there but others do im afraid which is why some hospitals are starting to see that allowing partners can be helpful for some people

Bumplovin you would want everyone to be allowed to have their partners staying on large curtained bay wards, sleeping in chairs or on the floor, as a general rule?

Bumplovin I said to a poster earlier that anyone who worries they may experience MH problems following the birth (because of partners not staying etc) should always discuss antenatally with their MW, so they can find a solution and it's great they found one for you. I would have huge anxiety if a man was on my ward, I couldn't prepare for or prevent this, nor could I foresee it. I'm not saying my MH problem would trump yours, but having an "any man can stay in case the patient had MH issues with them or being there" as a general rule is not the answer

I would be happy to be surrounded by other people's husbands yes as I would assume they were interested in their own wife and baby not me. That's just me though I know other people would be unhappy hence why our consultant offered us a separate room so he's not in the way of other people. She said there were clear medical reasons why he should be allowed, and it was agreed with the matron. He knows he will need to use a toilet off the ward and will be sleeping in a chair in his clothes so if he has to go down the ward to prep a bottle he won't be seen in his pyjamas for example.

For me it wasn't about emotional support. It was physical support at a time when I was physically unwell.