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

A man does not have the right to bond with his child override the rights of privacy to women who have just given birth, because his presence might just stop that new mum and her newborn bond.

randoms yes I think you're definitely in the minority there.
Personally I did care, even when I was in labour. Having a baby didn't remove my need for privacy and dignity, and it certainly shouldn't be disregarded on a post natal ward.
All patients are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect and a new mother is no different. I was pretty much the same person I was before the birth. Just as an example, I would die of embarassment if people saw me with period blood on my clothes, and I would feel the same way after giving birth.

No newborn is going to be left in a cot crying for 12 hours.

I have an answer any non-sick babies should go home immediately post-birth with partners leaving the mother to convelesce alone. No need to bf no need to bond. Is that what you want OP.

This entire thread is stupid. Stupid people using stupid exceptions to paint all new fathers as rapists. It's sexism and discrimination at it's worst but as always MN won't do anything because it's aimed at men. Go do one OP.

So for the want of a piss, privately, your husband has to wait on you hand and foot at the expense of others? To. Watch. A. Sleeping. Baby?

Home births is where it's at folks.

That's to 'DFO' Temporary

This entire thread is stupid
If you feel that way about this thread why don't you just ignore it and let those of us who don't think that it is stupid carry on participating??

Where is there sexism? No one has said all men are rapists. Women are talking about dignity, privacy and some about vulnerability. It's about patients (who are all women) and partners (overwhelmingly male).

When I had DD1 men were allowe to stay 24/7.
When I had dd2 (6 weeks ago) the policy had changed and fathers were only allowed to visit 11 - 11. I was dreading it, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.
However the time between 7am (when they woke us) and 11 was long post section.
The care from midwives and hca's was better second time too.

To be honest though the other patients made me feel just s uncomfortable as their husbands did.

Painting all new fathers as rapists. Colby Listen to yourself. I personally, would hate to be beside you in a hospital.

For me random people are less embarrassing than people who might know me - so I would wear a bikini (or shorts) on holiday (and die if a neighbour happened to be there), giving birth is an embarrassing process, but the fact that someone might have seen the back of the nurse's head between my legs if they'd happened to be looking is far less of an issue than if I had blood on my skirt/trousers at work because I know who might have seen and will definitely see them again. People in a maternity ward in a big hospital - probability of seeing and recognising them is about zero.

I accept that's unusual but that's how my brain works.

Whatever happened to infection control on a ward full of women bleeding with open cervix and stitches? Babies with cut cords?

I can't believe the blase approach to allowing any Tom, Dick or Harry on a ward were there are open wounds.

Well at least we're not in America where babies are kept in nurseries away from the mother. I've participated on American forums where people have found it v odd that an exhausted post-birth woman should have to take immediate care of her newborn. This attitude I find wrong. I would HATE to be separated from my baby. If it had to go to NICU, fair enough (I'd still not like it though), but if it was perfectly healthy?? Nuh uh.
There is no one size fits all solution. There isn't the money to build facilities to cater to every woman's whims. Constrained visiting hours would suit some but not others.

Jesus Elendon, why didn't I think of that? I should just have gotten on my kitchen table and performed my own C-section with a breadknife, you clever little genius, you.

And I don't really give a fuck if it's 12 hours or 12 minutes - it's unbearable to a new mum who is exhausted, in pain, possibly drugged off her tits, unable to feed or stand up to change the baby etc. You think you're thinking rationally about going for a piss when you're in that state and full of hormones?!

There was very little that was private about that piss. I had to queue, then wait outside another toilet door in my gown, then piss with a queue outside the door. They were all patients. That ward was BUSY. If you would have left a newborn alone for 30 mins at a time like that, then I hope to fuck you don't have kids.

I could not have breastfed my baby without DP's help in the first 24 hours. Why are the experiences of all the women who are saying these same things about how they would have felt if they had been left alone being degraded as "selfish" and not respecting the need for women to have privacy? It's just not helpful to the discussion.

Well, Elendon, it happens all the time. Do you have any evidence about infection rates as a consequence? Now THAT would be a compelling argument, if you could find them.

*Elendon

So for the want of a piss, privately, your husband has to wait on you hand and foot at the expense of others? To. Watch. A. Sleeping. Baby?*

Yes, because babies just sleep. They don't need any attention

You say that babies won't be left to cry for 12 hours, well in the experience of many women on this thread, they would have done, if they hasn't managed to pick them up, then held then ask night because they couldn't put them down due to limited mobility.

There are women which may well have died through neglect if their partners hadn't been there. They aren't there to watch a sleeping baby, but to help.

Anyway, after being through childbirth why shouldn't someone wait on you a bit when you need it? There are no prizes for being a martyr.

toffee that happened when I had my first, though it wasn't enforced. I asked to keep my baby by my bedside.
Midwives/auxillary staff also used to do the first top and tail and first bath, look after a baby if a mother wanted a nap, and just generally help. In addition to attending to the usual nursing care of post op patients and those with problems.

Perhaps I've missed something but when I was on postnatal, women took their babies with them in their wheely cots, even to the toilet. There were signs everywhere about taking your baby with you. Isn't that what would happen?

Temporary I have had three children. So your wish will not be fulfilled. Nasty doesn't even begin to describe you. First born had meconium in the waters, was fine after expiration. I walked to the tube whilst in early labour and then walked back. I'm not a special snowflake. All the children I had are hale and healthy.

I've had abdominal surgery too, three times. Quite frankly I want to know why it was busy, were there men queuing for the toilet (only one?) as well? Where did you give birth? In a cinema?

You can leave a hospital at any time you so wish. You don't need to be discharged. It's not prison.

A few questions to those who have said they would prefer partners to be allowed on the ward 24/7 - how would you feel about there also being a 'curtains open' policy in place? So establishing breastfeeding, sleeping etc are all done in front of both male and female strangers? And also, how would you feel if you were the only one in a bay of 6 whose partner couldn't be there (if he had to stay at home to look after dc2, for example). And finally, how do you feel about being in the same room as men who may have carried out sexual/physical assualts on women, whilst you are in a vulnerable state yourself?

I had a t6wrribke experience on th pn ward with dc1 (instrumental delivery) and would have loved dh there overnight for moral support mainly. But the partner of the woman opposite me was vile, constantly referring to her tits whilst she was breastfeeding etc. so my desire for him to leave was greater than my desire for dh to stay. I therefore can't understand the stance of some who are happy to have partners there 24/7.

Well, I hope you have a nicer attitude and way of talking to people offline then. Nasty doesn't begin to describe me?? HAHAHAHAHAHA take a look at your own utterly twattish posts.

Hoorah and well done you. I was not in that state. I had been in hospital for a long time and I had a difficult time in labour then C-section. Not everyone was lucky enough to have your experience.

You want to know why a central London hospital was busy?????? It shouldn't really need explaining, but OK. Because there was one toilet/shower room on the ward of 6 beds. And when women used it for a shower, it meant that the toilet could not be used. Unless you think that was selfish of them and me, of course, and I should have been expected to piss in front of a stranger having a shower?

There were 2 other toilets for patients on the corridor within a 20 second and 1 min walk of the ward. UNLESS you'd just had a C-section, and hadn't eaten for a couple of days because you kept throwing up, and were in a lot of pain. Then it took about 10 minutes to shuffle down there.

I think there were 3 post-natal wards, so that's 18 beds and 5 toilets, 3 of which had showers in them. And you're asking why there was a queue?!?

No, I never saw any men using them. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I definitely didn't see it.

I had emergency abdominal surgery when ds2 was 5 weeks old and I was still ebf. I had to stay on a women's gynaecology ward and there was never any question from anyone involved in my care that ds2 would stay with me. The condition was that someone (happened to be dh) stayed with me to help me care for baby. Had I not had someone with me ds2 couldn't stay.

I don't see what's different on a maternity ward? if you need help you need help and that's better from a partner than a nurse or midwife surely? how could they cope otherwise?

When ds1 was born i didn't struggle so my partner didnt stay but I was greatfull we had the option.

ds2 was homebirth - if you like privacy and can take that option it's definitely worth it!

mismims if he's behind a curtain visiting my baby he certainly won't be looking at other women and isn't a sexual predator. Gosh I don't know how you walk down the steet if you view all men that way.

Oh DFO yourself, cherry - you are seriously overestimating yourself if you think the ward would be full of people desperate to earwig about your vagina! There's that dramatic tendency to undermine any decent point you might accidentally make showing itself again

You really aren't reading my posts are you? I don't think a man cares about my vagina, I have I idea what he think - I care that I have to have that conversation with him nearby because I don't fucking know him and shouldn't have to put up with it. It's about how I feel or himself and I know I'm not alone in this discomfort and it's not dramatic to feel that way.

BTW calling someone dramatic about not wanting strange men in their women-only space when they're at their most vulnerable is gaslighting, and frankly massively twattish, but if you think it helps your argument then whatever.

Still waiting to hear your compromise for women who don't want your man around? Because having men around would be traumatic for me and many others. You do not hold the monopoly on trauma