Partner on wards after birth - part 2!

[CherryChasingDotMuncher]

Wanted to continue this discussion as someone asked about stats re impact of visitors on wards.

I doubt there's stats anywhere (can't find anything with a quick Google anyway) but ask yourselves, why are visiting times the NHS over generally kept to a few hours a day? Because it's disruptive for the ward and patients need rest, and it can be a huge infection prevention risk. This is no different for maternity.

Original Thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2790704-About-partners-on-the-ward-after-childbirth

But I offered a do-able and realistic compromise temporary, which is more than you've done. You just don't like it - how many hours would you prefer for visiting if it couldn't be 24?

I'm due to have twins by c section on thursday and frankly I dont know how I will cope when my partner is not present. Having had a singleton baby in same hospital and seen how understaffed and busy the ward is, and remembering how little assistance I got with my DC1 I don't see how I will cope with twins and c section recovery without my partner being present at every possible opportunity.

I expect a huge number of people would still insist on their partners being there "as their right" or for "bonding" even if there was extra care.

MissDuke its the same at my hospital. In the MLU partners can stay, but not on the other wards. Unfortunately my health conditions mean I won't be allowed in the MLU (or a home birth, as some have suggested). They also mean there's a high chance I won't be able to care for my baby after birth, and will desperately need the baby's father to be able to care for her.

So the people who need the father to care for their baby most don't get it, while mothers with uncomplicated births who can cope on their own will be able to get help. So fucked up.

I have had two unmarried mothers admitted to ICU and the babies went to NICU to be cared for as they could not go home automatically with her partner

I hope that's not true for married people, (my husband should have automatic parental responsibility?) why on earth would I want my baby itaken away from its flesh and blood and cared for by strangers when it has a healthy father to look after it. Horrific.

But your solution to wanting extra support is to say, "fuck you, your extra support makes me feel bad, so you can't have it."

No it wasn't again with the fabrication!

I said o think private rooms should be given to those who need their DHs there (difficult births where women are immobile etc, women with anxiety, not the smooth births or low risk mum's, for clarity) and that 12 hours for the general visiting hours would be my compromise. What more do you want? Answer - you want it all your way, with no wriggle room at all

And if there are no private rooms free? And as I and others have said, if your baby arrives at the wrong end of those visiting hours? Your compromise is NOT a compromise. Unless your actual argument is no visitors at all. But you compromise is that you'll tolerate them for the 12 hours of the day that suit you.

And anyone who wants their partners there outside that 12 hour window is being "fucking selfish".

Your 12 hour rule would have made my experience utterly horrific. And now you want me to accept that I would have been selfish in not inflicting that on myself.

You're having a giraffe!

But you do seem to want to compromise at all.

butterflies have you discussed with your midwife your health issues that will mean you won't be able to care for your baby when she is born? Surely there will have to be a plan in place for that?

Yeah cherry it just says 1 in 5 are victim of rape or attempted rape, not selevated stats.

Which is what there chairtys/national stats say.

Between my own abuse and the field i worked in I have only ever heard between 1 in 6 & 1 in 3 quoted.

Actually, I think posters shouldn't be so dismissive of the idea that's it's reasonable to expect trusts to be moving to single ensuite rooms to better support women after birth and give them true choices here.

It's possible. I've given birth twice in a busy maternity unit in London. The vast majority of their postnatal beds, both in the regular ward for uncomplicated vaginal and c-section births and in the high dependency unit, are in single ensuite rooms. A very few are in 2-bed rooms. I think there is one 4-bed recovery bay in each ward:

As long as we accept substandard, dehumanising care for women who've just given birth (open-curtain policies? Fuck the fuck off, what misogynistic git dreamt that one up?) and put the onus of care on women to provide family members to deliver the basics for them, we'll continue to be treated like cattle. So let's not, but let's suggest things that are actually workable rather than the name calling bunfight on both sides this thread has become.

What do people who "need" their husbands/partners with them 24/7 do after giving birth to their second, third babies? Surely their partner needs to go home after the birth to relieve the babysitter? I agree that maternity care needs to be improved so that there is better support for new mothers in hospital. I would not be happy to have any visitors on a ward 24/7 whether male or female.

Jassy is correct. I'd like to be looked after by the nurses and staff and for my OH to rest up for our homecoming but I know thats not likely to happen, hence why I would like him on the ward as much as possible. Shame.

Cherry asked for a compromise. It's not a perfect solution. Nor do I actually think it should be implemented. But nor is her insistence that I should have coped alone for 12 hours out of 24 when I physically could not have done so, especially for the first 5-6 hours, and the midwives were far too busy to help much. Jesus, I had to wait 12 hours for someone from surgery to come and look at my dressing because they'd given me some fancy thing with a pump and nobody on maternity knew what to do with it!

She isn;t saying she wants you to go back and not have your DP there.

She is saying that going forward it would be better if there was adequate nursing provision to care for mothers and babies without relying on partners

How hard is it to understand.

Using partners to plug the care gap is not an appropriate solution.

as I said, Justin, I am really sad that it is necessary. It shouldn't be and I hope it will change. But I accepted other people's partners - I didn't want them there! Having it my own way would have been an exception for my DP. Now THAT would have been selfish. As it is, I'm hugely sorry if he intimidated anyone (although my conscience is mostly clear, partly because he was quiet as a mouse, went home for showers etc and partly coincidentally because we happened to get the end bed so he could walk straight from the corridor through my curtain!), but it was the only way I coped.

I was in a real mess and the midwives really couldn't have done the things he did like soothing a sobbing newborn who wouldn't sleep in her cot at all; changing her 3 times in an hour; hand expressing colostrum and feeding her with a syringe all night - no, I can't accept that it's selfish to want your partner there in that sort of circumstance. And I don't think you can draw the line to say, your partner can stay, yours can't - that's not fair on the staff who'd have to make the decision and enforce it.

I've been following this but too scared to comment until now! I gave birth 3 weeks ago (first baby). My hospital allow partners to stay 24/7 on postnatal wards. My thoughts:

It's a great idea in principle. However, the wards at my hospital are just too small to cope. I was on a bay with 4 beds- there were just too many people in a small space. The man in the cubicle opposite me had constant loud telephone calls. It created a stressful environment. I didn't feel I could complain- I felt vulnerable having just given birth. I hated trying to breastfeed and ask for advice about bleeding etc knowing that I could be overheard by these men (though I accept that this is my issue). My DH didn't stay, purely because I'd given birth at 7am, and it was uncomplicated, so baby and I were settled when he left to try and get some sleep and sort things at home. I wouldn't have coped without him if I'd had a difficult birth, long labour, or c-section though.

There just seems to be a massive clash of needs here, and I guess prioritising those of the most typically vulnerable patients is the way forward. Needs of others will be missed with such a blanket approach though.

Totally agree, Jassy.

The hospital where I gave birth is all single-rooms, apart from ICU, HDU and... postnatal. Because hey, who doesn't want to be sharing a room with a bunch of strangers right after giving birth, right?

Right, but for those having babies RIGHT NOW, what are they supposed to do until this alternative solution is put in place??

That's why it should be visitor hours (longer for maternity if necessary) only and extra care from staff. But it isn't going to happen and I'm being sterilised as a direct result. shrug

Gabby - fear of that is in no small part why DD may well be an only child. I don't have parents who can help and DP's mother works full time 150 miles away.

private en suite rooms should be possible jassy absolutely. I felt very fortunate to get my own room after a shit birth, it should be standard.

Also I had help in the night when I buzzed and after the first night I didn't need so much help, so not a ridiculous burden on the NHS in the grand scheme of things.

I was recently on a medical assessment ward followed by a general medical ward with a lot of elderly women. They could barely sit up let alone move, eat etc. they were in a bad way. Visitors helped at feeding times and I dare say the HCAs would have loved them to plug the gaps but it was 3-4 hours a day of gap plugging only and patients were left sitting in shit, covered in piss and crying there too.

In a realistic world, the reality is that maternity wards have been understaffed for years and it will get worst. In the real world we can make the secure assumption that their will not be an increase in staffing on maternity wards anytime soon, and we could probably go as far as saying that it will get worst. Yes, worst. New mothers will become increasingly dependent on family members to help.

After my first emergency c section, with a newborn baby crying his eyes out in the middle of the night (he was born at the unfortunate time of 11pm) I had to wait for ages and ages for a midwife to come in, press the button on the wall, walk out again saying she didn't have time to change his nappy and I should be able to do it myself. That was 4 hours after a c section, my body was still immobile from the spinal block. I was in absolute tears when another nurse came in to help and my son had been in his own poo for well over an hour. That was Newham General, in East London, in 2007. It's worst not. I wish DH would have been able to stay for the night...

Temporary, you seem really, really determined to believe that anyone who doesn't want partners in overnight is calling you personally selfish, and wanting you personally to suffer.

Like I said: if I was due to give birth right now, and the hospital said "FYI there's no staff to help you overnight, so either bring in your own support or struggle on alone from 8-8," of course I'd try to bring someone with me.

But I still don't think that's an acceptable, workable, fair or sustainable setup. I'm not going to shrug off the negative effects it would have on a great number of women because my family does ok.

gabby I needed my husband with me. If we ever have a second and our new baby is in NICU and might die and I'm a hysterical emotional and stitched up from emcs mess, I hope our family will step up and help out. Otherwise I'll just lock the first born in the cupboard