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?!

Is it really selfishness to want a newborn baby to be brought to the bed for its feed, U2? Or selfishness not to be able to lift a 5 kilo baby a couple of hours after your caesarian? Or selfishness to want a newborn to have its nappy changed before it gets sore? Or do you actually believe there are nurses there with time on their hand to wait on your every need?

YOU ARE MISSING THE FUCKING POINT!!!!

The answer isn't - let DPs stay. The answer is - appropriately staff post natal wards so that woman and their babies are appropriately cared for. FFS.

Jesus christ some people just do. not. get. it.

Postnatal wards don't have to be shit, though. I gave birth two years ago and postnatal care was fine. Not perfect (noisy chaotic wards during visiting), but there were staff around, they were responsive and caring, and I wasn't ignored all night after a section. And that was at a big, busy city hospital.

Clearly there are staffing and general care problems in a lot of places. But we can campaign for things to be better without expecting them to be perfect.

If he hadn't have been there I don't know what I would have done as there were no maternity staff around and there's no way the other new mother in the bay would have been able to get out of bed and help.

Again - this is NOT WHY PARTNERS SHOULD BE THERE!!!!!!

We need to campaign for appropriately staffed wards. Not to let DPs there so they can step in instead of a HCP.

I had a planned section 2 weeks ago with a week on the ante-natal ward first. My care was nothing like that described from other posters. The midwives on the ante-natal ward were lovely and although other people had their partners with them - early labour/inductions on the whole they were really considerate. After the section, I was on a high dependency ward for 5/6 hours until I could get up, there was one midwife who was there all of the time to the three beds, lots of help, the midwife helped me have a shower and cleaned me up. Then when I was transferred to the post natal ward, everything was put within reach including DD2 and despite it being really busy, the midwives answered the buzzer promptly and were always supportive. Partners were allowed if they agreed it with the midwives but most people seemed to send them home. If people have had poor experiences then they need to complain through PALS, as we shouldn't need partners to do basic care.
Separate bays could be a solution, but if there is a rush of births then it wouldn't always be possible and then you are down to whose rights matter most. However I didn't realise it was possible to give birth in hospital and then transfer to a birthing centre for post-natal care where your partner can stay as the ones round here tend to have private rooms. Maybe more options post natally would solve this including baby hotels like in Scandinavia.

Writerwannabe83

I can't believe that you took away "wish DP had been there" from your experience rather than "I am outraged at the shit level of care that was provided"

The level of care is appalling but it's not the Maternity Departments fault, the staff are stretched to the absolute limit and I can't see that changing anytime soon.

Of course things should be better, absolutely care provision should be of a higher standard but I don't think any amount of outrage is going to change things in the near future.

In an ideal world there should be more maternity staff, but there isn't, and if having partners (or any support) stay makes the experience more bearable for some women then yes, I do think partners should be allowed to be more involved.

I was in a small 4 bed bay in a very old London hospital. The woman's family opposite were so abusive to the nurse when she asked them to leave, they had to go security in.

The woman diagonally opposite not only didn't have a DP with her, she had no visitors at all during the 3 days I was there. I even had to give her nappies because she didn't have any.

Not everyone has lovely middle class husbands running around winding babies and bringing them water.

I cannot imagine how much more stressful that hideous experience would have been if partners had been allowed to stay.

I had a catheter, was wearing a gown, was bleeding and trying to establish breastfeeding. It's bad enough trying to do that in front of strange women. It would be a massive invasion of my privacy to have to try and do that in front of your husband, no matter how lovely he is.

I can't believe the selfishness of some women. It's appalling.

It's probably selfish but I hated that other people's partners were there all day. Hated that while I was shuffling around in agony carrying trays of food and jugs of water around, most of the other women were lying in bed while their partners fetched, carried, changed nappies

So jealousy basically.

I'm sorry your husband only saw you for 10 minutes a day, but others shouldn't have to suffer because your husband couldn't give you the tlc you need after birth.

I honestly don't understand how he spent so little time with you if I'm honest. Unless it was a completely unexpected birth, so say very, very premature, surely friends and family can be called in to help. Or the children get picked up by friend/grandparents etc and taken away for a few days, or at least someone is arranged to babysit for a few hours in the evening.

I was outraged at the care I received yello. I did complain in writing. I am a HCP and knew exactly what care I should have received.

That wouldn't have helped me or my newborn less than 48hours after surgery (and 10 hours before a second surgery) when I couldn't lift her, couldn't stand etc. And with a temperature of over 40 degrees for most of that night I doubt, combined with 3 days of sleep deprivation (long Labour before emcs) I was thinking as clearly as usual.

The fact was that safe care was not being provided there and then. That wasn't something I could fix with a complaint that day.

cory actually you are right. It isn't selfish to want any of what you described.

I just don't think having men on the wards over night is a viable alternative to getting more staff. Yes, we do need to make more of a stink. The care is not acceptable but by throwing women under the bus even more by putting them in an uncomfortable and scary (for some women) position is not the right way to go about it.

It's just trampling over women's rights again, we don't need more of that, we need less.

Hospitals aren't going to make more private rooms, well mine isn't at least. NWIH can they afford that. Causing a stink is the only way forward I think.

Where do we draw the line? There have been shifts where patients have had to wait far too long to go to the toilet because there isn't enough staff. Do we get their partners to stay in and give the care we should be providing? Relatives can be more 'demanding' than the patients. I don't find my work load is easier at all when it comes to visiting times (I am not in maternity/postnatal care) it actually seems to double. It's not the nursing staff's job to keep an eye on the relatives, and they would have to. They shouldn't be in the position where they have to speak to relatives who are being arseholes. It does not lighten the nursing staff's load.

Having partners stay over will benefit some women and harm others. We should be concentrating on what will benefit all women.

Sorry for any typos, my laptop is lagging.

So glad that I most likely won't be pregnant again and have to go through a postnatal ward with partners there 24 hrs a day.

I don't understand why people are keen to campaign for partners on wards when it's much more appropriate to campaign for better staffing and treatment for everyone. Partners there 24hrs only helps those women who can have their partner present, and it makes matters much worse for some women there.

I think we all agree that there needs to be more care, but what do we do in the meantime? Either we take what help we can, which often means a lot of reliance on partners, or we suffer, in a very passive aggressive way, hoping that by suffering, the nhs will start to notice.

I'll take the help.

So jealousy basically. Wtf!

And if I ever have another baby (which tbh I've been putting off mainly due to the thoughts of having another cs which unfortunately given the complications I had is inevitable) I will be making sure I fly a member of my family over to London so someone (DH/DM) can take care of both DD and me. Hopefully it won't be needed but I'm not going through what I did before! Selfish as that may make me.

My dh is lovely but he snores his head off and can look intimidating as he's very tall and stocky. If you were stuck in a room with him snoring his head off all night and you were vulnerable and on your own, would you ask him to shurrup?

That is just like my husband. Lovely and considerate. Built like a brick shit house and snores like mad. It's so bad even I can't share a room with him. It's hard enough sleeping in hospital as it is. Add a few snoring men like my husband into the mix it would be a fucking nightmare. I have had patients falling out over snoring. People get very pissed off after a couple of nights of shit sleep due to the snorer.

Campaign for better care. Men sleeping over is not the answer.

Yellodraw - all that shouting and passion is fine and justified- but what should we do in the meantime? Let newborn babies suffer whilst we campaign?

And secondly, who's paying for it? As I said upthread, would you prioritise that over cancer patients, for example? I was reading a heartbreaking story about a new mum with breast cancer who can't get new cancer drugs on the NHS. There just isn't enough money to provide top class free health care for everyone these days :(

What about setting up a system of volunteers to give practical (non medical) support at night?

Nice idea bluesky but I just can't see how it would work - imagine the risk of someone dodgy taking your baby away whilst you're in the shower? And if you're going to set up a full system of CRB checks etc, again, who would pay for that and oversee it?

We're not wanting "top class" care, just adequate care. The RCN and others have published advice on staffing levels etc.

But some NHS hospitals are managing to have acceptable care on postnatal wards. So it's not like fixing this problem means we'd need to divert billions of pounds away from the chemotherapy budget to give everyone ensuite private rooms and 1-to-1 staffing - it could just be made better enough that women and babies are safe, even overnight, as it already is in some wards.

If we change the system so that partners can stay 24/7 on all postnatal wards, that will also cost money. There isn't enough room; there aren't enough toilets and showers. There aren't enough staff to keep an eye on the partners and make sure everyone's behaving well, or make sure they leave if they're not. Where's that money going to come from?

But using husbands as substitutes for proper care is fuck all use to those who don't have partners or whose partners can't or won't be there. All of you who want your partners there overnight and don't mind the nurses being tied in policing this, how do you propose those without partners cope? Our public services should be tailored to care for those that are most vulnerable as a baseline and that means no men overnight on postnatal wards imo (with extra provision for men to stay overnight in side rooms where possible).

I had a shit time with emcs etc with ds. I'm going in for elcs. I'm scared about what it will be like. My dh can't do 24/7 as someone needs to look after ds and I'm one of those inconsiderate women who don't have any family willing to help out to free up dh to provide 24 hour care. Friends can do bits but they all work and have dc themselves so are limited to how much they can do. But, you know, fuck women like me. Hopefully one of those lovely hubbies might pass me a glass of water but that shouldn't be something I have to rely on.

I'm sorry to sound callous, but hca for maternity wards are a lot more cost effective than cancer treatments that may or may not work that cost hundreds of thousands per patient.

I think having visiting hours for partners would be fine, but yes, the real problem Is poor post natal care. If I'd felt safe and cared for by the staff, and not like there just wasn't enough staff to go around, I'd have been fine with DH there just during visiting hours. As it was, with confusion and a general
Feeling you had to fend for yourself, I would have been distraught if he had been told to leave. I got no food or water and many times when I had to ask for something and DH was just out to get something, I had to get out of bed and wander around the ward looking for staff.

I understand it's completely messed up that we have to rely on partners/family/friends in postnatal wards, it really shouldn't be that way! But for those of you who have no one to help out, how does Otman make it worse for you that others have someone there? In fact, it may make things better for you, as the family helping out other women can free up some
Time for the staff to look after you.

I think some people's views are probably skewed by the hospital they were in too. You can't compare an inner city hospital to a quieter one. For example, I was at Chelsea and Westminster. Of the 3 weeks I was on the ward, I only saw/heard a handful of other English women. Most of them didn't seem to speak much English, and were certainly very dependent on their partners as a consequence. What should those women do?

You don't sound callous, handbag, but it's a difficult question and that's why I raised it. If it were your child or mother with cancer, would you think, oh well, the money isn't there for the treatment, because it was spent on new private rooms? Some would, some wouldn't. Difficult!