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?!

Dusty busty. Totally wrong.
Men can pick up and put down the baby for mum, get her a drink if she's thirsty. Change nappies, clean up any mess, help with feeding if baby is not breastfed, help their partner to the toilet, help with personal care, change pads etc. If mum is being ignored by the nurses, her partner can physically go and find them, decreasing the chances of her being left without pain relief.

Hardly wringing hands for 12 hours is it?

People should stop being so selfish about their want for their partners to be by their side after birth
This sums it up. Both ways. Most of us are defending what would suit our own circumstances. Yes, it is human nature to be selfish.

The women with no parter or with older children won't have a parter there so they don't want the downsides of having men allowed.
The women with difficult births want their partner there for practical reasons, so they are willing to accept the downsides of having others men there as well.

I had twins with a CS. I physically wasn't able to carry one, let alone two babies. In this situation I was happy that DH was allowed to stay overnight. It is all good in theory to say the nurses should have been able to help, but they weren't, so while we wait for more nurses to be hired what do you suggest people do if they physically need help?

The post natal ward is not any ward, because patients are not only expected to heal but also to take care of a tiny, vulnerable human being!

If a woman next to me was uncomfortable/distressed bu having my DH here I would feel bad. But in all honestly I wouldn't have asked him to leave because this would have made me uncomfortable/distressed and would have lowered the level of care brought to our babies.

You can't reduce hospitals down to meet every individual need - room for option a, room for option b etc but hospitals should be very clear so mothers can make informed choices. I hadn't given it a second thought but turns out our hospital let's some dads and not others. Not lady literally said be nice to the nurses of you want to stay over!! We ended up with little choice but Dh sleeping over but we were in a side room

Private rooms are a no go at my hospital, trust me I've tried! You get allocated one if you need it, you cannot pay to have one.

And advisable or not, I'll be leaving the hospital as soon as my catheter is out and I can feel my legs.

If I'm really lucky, I'll be first in at 8am and might not even have to stay one night, fingers crossed!

I am again aghast at the idea that anyone would suggest men going into the toilets on a postnatal ward.

It would have been so helpful on the postnatal ward even to just do something as simple as putting all the women who had had c sections/PPH/third degree tears in one bay. Then the staff could have concentrated their meagre resources on the patients who most needed it. I was left for almost 48 hours in a pool of my own blood, and my DDs meconium which had run down my legs when they broke my waters. Frankly I just wanted to die and have my dh there to hold my hand whilst I did.

Mrs I was in a bay of six with one patient toilet in the bay, if there were 6 extra people using those toilets, irrelevant of gender instead of the visitor toilets it may mean that a post operative mother would have to either wait or walk further (possibly with drip stand in tow). With 5 other mothers there may already be a wait but with another 6 people wanting to use the toilet it will always be busy!

Men shouldn't be clogging up the toilets or showers, they can go to the hospital public toilets. If they don't do that, its a problem with enforcement of rules, not the men being able to stay I the first place.

The real problem is that post-natal 'care' is fucking barbaric and I'm surprised more women and babies don't die. Women are routinely treated like absolute shit, even after major surgery - left with no food or water, no painkillers, no vital medicines like antibiotics, filthy bathrooms and floors, basically shoved somewhere to live or die.

THIS is the real problem and no one seems to be much bothered about changing that.

Yes, this x 1000!

I had an awful experience on our postnatal ward. They were so understaffed that the midwives simply didn't respond to patients pressing their call buzzer. I woke up one night in a lot of pain (post emergency c section) and despite pressing the call buzzer 30 minutes later nobody had come to help me. Fortunately my DH was with me and went to ask for help, I honestly don't know what I could have done if he hadn't been allowed to stay as I couldn't get out of bed and the door to my room was closed so I couldn't even have shouted for help. I don't know what a woman facing an emergency such as severe bleeding or feeling she was about to lose consciousness would be expected to do in that situation when her only means of calling staff isn't responded to promptly.

They also forgot to give me the anticoagulant injections I'd been prescribed (and then when questioned told me it was my own fault for not asking). On two occasions they gave me medication I'm allergic to (fortunately I noticed that the tablets looked different and questioned it). My DH had to bring me meals and water as I wasn't well enough to walk to the serving area and the midwives and MCAs were too busy to help me.

I honestly can't believe that this level of care is allowed to continue. It's just awful and must surely contribute to both physical and mental health problems for mums and babies.

'Men shouldn't be clogging up the toilets or showers, they can go to the hospital public toilets. If they don't do that, its a problem with enforcement of rules, not the men being able to stay I the first place.'

It's one and the same. The men are there because there's not enough staff, so how do you think the rules will be enforced?

Surely wouldn't men be asked to use the toilets on the main corridor?. Ive already instructed my husband he will have to do this but told him to take his phone to ring as I envisage that no one will answer the door buzzer to let him back in in the middle of night. Ive also told him he will have to go home to shower the next day. Whist I want my husband to stay to help me I actually don't think men should be allowed to use the showers

'Surely wouldn't men be asked to use the toilets on the main corridor?. '

By whom? Anyone who's a dick enough to use hte patient toilets isn't going to be someone I want to approach. And the men are there because there's not enough staff.

Surely wouldn't men be asked to use the toilets on the main corridor?

Presumably. But how are they going to assist women to the toilet without going into the women's ward toilets and either going into the cubicle or loitering outside?

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

I'm going in to be induced tomorrow and I'm also now shitting myself about the level of care I can not expect.

I don't know what the solution to this problem is but for the many, many of you who had totally unacceptable experiences.

mrs dusty I guess if I saw a man helping his wife who was in pain to the toilet I wouldn't think of him as 'loitering' Id just think he was waiting in a corridor to help her back. Don't see what the problem is with that if im honest

After having my baby I was in the ward for 24 hours. There were curtains you can draw around your bed to give a bit of privacy. I would have been very upset if DH couldn't have stayed there with me Andrea our baby, and mine of the male visitors bothered me in the slightest. I don't think you're going to worry about it when it comes to it, and you maybe be very happy to have the chance to have your own DP with you.

Meant to say and it baby and none, not mine

Not read all the thread yet

But just had to say that yes you might be able to discharge yourself the next day

I did

And without reading i think its a dreadful idea having stray people overnight on the wards

Back to read

If you are in a single room then its fine if partner wants to stay overnight but if you are in a room with other people then I think they have a right to say if they are comfortable with men in the room and with only a curtain for privacy.

When I had a Csection visiting was something like 10 am to 8 pm and there were six of us in the room, with visitors at every bed it was noisy and there was no privacy (those curtains never make me feel very secure about someone putting their head in to ask if they can borrow a chair for a visitor or something) If midwife was examining me I didn't want some random bloke the otherside of the curtain even if the woman in the next bed loved him to bits and wanted him there. I have rights as well.

One of the mothers in my room was about 14 and all her school friends would arrive after school and it was bedlam.

mrs dusty I guess if I saw a man helping his wife who was in pain to the toilet I wouldn't think of him as 'loitering' Id just think he was waiting in a corridor to help her back. Don't see what the problem is with that if im honest

Well I've only been in one maternity hospital but in that one, the ward toilets and showers were across the corridor in a room with three cubicles for toilets, three for showers. So if someone needed assistance to get there and back more their assistant wouldn't be standing in a corridor but right in the toilet area. Lots of women might not mind but others wouldn't be happy, especially if they still need to bring those cardboard bowls.

There isn't resources any more for side rooms.

4 years ago DD2 was in neonatal I was in a side room.

Last year DS was in neonatal (before he died) I was on a bay with mothers and babies. DP at the time wasn't allowed too stay. My parents tried to pay for a private room under the circumstances and there was none available.

If they can't manage a side room when the baby has actually died I doubt they can pull one out for previous abuse and neonatal babies.

That's true but until the wards are staffed better so there are healthcare assistants to help Id still prefer to have someone help me than struggle on my own and would hate to see another woman struggling on her own

unbornmortificado so sorry for your loss

Someone said earlier that in the 1970s babies were taken to a nursery overnight. I had two babies in the 70s, for the first I was on an old style Nightingale ward with 24 beds, 24 cots, and little space. The babies were with us 24 hrs a day and visiting was one hour a day except Wednesdays and Sundays when there was also an afternoon visit. Only one visitor allowed per bed. Yes there were negatives but there were positives as well, one midwife could sit at her desk in the middle of the ward and see all the mums and babies were safe and well, mums helped each other so you might fetch things for a newly delivered mum just as someone did for you when you first got to the ward.

My experience in a more modern hospital in the 90s with single, 4 and 6 bed rooms, loads of showers and loos compared to one bath and two loos for 24 mums, was that things looked better but overall I preferred the big ward, midwife always around and mums supporting each other.

Just wanted to add that with the old Nightingale wards you had separate day rooms and could have more visitors there without disrupting the rest of the ward. Much more civilised in my opinion.