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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Partner on wards after birth - part 2!

376 replies

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 15:21

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

OP posts:
HandbagCrab · 29/11/2016 19:19

If adequate care is provided no one needs a partner to stay. The problem is the lack of care.

53rdAndBird · 29/11/2016 19:19

Temporary, I am speaking as a woman who had an EMCS after 48 hours of labour and a really tough pregnancy. Believe me, I know what it's like to feel exhausted and beaten up after giving birth. And yet I'm still capable of thinking beyond myself and my own situation - I want a setup that works for everyone, not just "as long as my Herbert gets to be here, screw the rest of you."

randomsabreuse · 29/11/2016 19:20

Given that they can't time meals so there's a chance of eating after a 2pm birth before 8.30 the following morning (dinner 5.30, breakfast allegedly from 7 but arrived 8.30) visiting would be more of a mess!

Maternity care is an underfunded mess, but so is the NHS in general. The only good care I've seen was while actually giving birth and for DH after a late afternoon chest surgery (pre op was shocking)

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:21

I really fail to see how "only" having 12 hours with a baby rather than 24 hours (when people are sleeping for much of this anyway) = dad's missing out and not bonding. This is for a few days, not the rest of their lives. Sorry but having an extra 12 hours per day should never ever be put before the privacy, safety, care and dignity of actual patients. If your reasons for 24/7 male access are about bonding then I suggest you look into a home birth, rather than think it's your way or no way. That is a selfish attitude to have

OP posts:
Wolverbamptonwanderer · 29/11/2016 19:21

I don't really get that- unless you were scared of male strangers why would you get in such a flap? I don't know of anyone who has given a crap

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 29/11/2016 19:22

Sorry cherry I did try a home birth but my baby nearly died. Sorry me and my husband scared you Hmm

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:23

you are basically asking people to care about hypothetical partnerless strangers more than their new baby and themselves, when they are feeling exhausted and beaten up after giving birth - is that really realistic?

And you are asking other people to put their comfort, fears and in some cases their MH concerns to one side so random male visitors can sleep in the same room as them for the sake of a woman they've never met- do you think that is realistic.

OP posts:
CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:24

Sorry me and my husband scared you

Wow, people really think it's a personal vendetta against their nice Normans don't they

OP posts:
Temporaryname137 · 29/11/2016 19:24

But your right to have 24 hour access forYour DH rather than 12 hour trumps my right to not have the trauma of strange men around?

Yes. For the umpteenth time, I am not happy about it, but I think it's the lesser of two evils. I agree with a PP that you border on the hysterical when you talk about men, however.

*Oh. My. God. Just stop fabricating.
That was what I actually experienced because the man in the next curtain (during visiting hours) was so very close, my point being having him so close 24/7 rather than just 12 hours would have been twice as awful. *

How am I fabricating? Your solution to people not having this issue is to ban men from the ward for 12 hours overnight. But the 12 hours during the day are precisely when you are most likely to have to talk to the doctor about your bits!

I'd have a quiet discussion with them, and thank god that the bloke next door won't be within earshot the whole time I have to talk about my vagina/fart/cry/feed. Because I deserve respite from other people's partners, wether they are nice or nasty is absolutely irrelevant.

See above. It's at least 50/50 that the bloke WILL be there, if you give it a 12/12 split. In fact, far more than that, given that you are more likely to have this conversation during your own imposed daytime visiting hours.

*HAHA! That's not a compromise! I asked what's your compromise for women who DON'T want your partner there. "Well you can have yours too" is not a compromise, because not everyone has a partner, nor every partner wants to or can stay. Even so, did you think NHS policy was going to be made so only you, temporary could have your partner there? It's very good of you too extend this to others grinhmm That's basically you finding a loophole to get your way. That's like me saying "my compromise is that I won't bring my own DH in"

What would be your compromise for women who don't want any partners there? Or do you just not give a shot as long as you're getting your way?*

It's hardly getting my way when my partner has to spend 3 nights upright in a plastic chair. But it was better than the alternative, and I am very grateful that my hospital had that policy. If it hadn't, I would have looked for one that did, given that London has more options than most places.

I think I would probably be in favour of paying £1,000 per baby to cover the costs of additional care. That would be my compromise.

It's not rocket science. If there's a queue at the patient loo, people will go to the visitors loo. Having men overnight will extend all queues (and some men will still be twats and use patient loos)

The visitors' toilets were down a flight of steps or right down the other end of the corridor and outside a midwife's station. But good luck getting your catheter down there, dear. If you're lucky enough to have been given a catheter stand that is, unlike some of the people on the previous thread.

PersianCatLady · 29/11/2016 19:24

Other womens' partners don't care about anyone else but their own mother and child twosome
Please could you actually READ THE FUCKING THREAD before you make assumptions like this.

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 29/11/2016 19:25

I think it's odd you expect me to consider women who are scared of men when it's clearly them with the problem Hmm

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:26

I don't really get that- unless you were scared of male strangers why would you get in such a flap? I don't know of anyone who has given a crap

Read the last thread, plentyof examples to answer your question. Including a poster who got told off for breastfeeding by a male visitor and laughed at when she wet herself.

But fuck her, she isn't scared so what do her feelings matter?

OP posts:
Wolverbamptonwanderer · 29/11/2016 19:29

You can't make a policy based on a few women's experiences. It's an Internet forum, who knows if they're even true? No doubt things that aren't nice happen on post natal (mainly the midwives Wink) but that doesn't inform a blanket policy

PersianCatLady · 29/11/2016 19:29

I don't feel like my husband was "missing out" by not getting to spend all night on the ward after my EMCS
One thing that amazes me about men is that I suspect that even the ones that cannot bear to be away from their DPs and babies for the first few days will be begging for a baby free night within weeks.

DoYouRememberJustinBobby · 29/11/2016 19:31

It's interesting the people who are generally against partners being there can on the whole concede 12 hours of the day to visiting, why can't the others give the rest of the day over to privacy and dignity?

PersianCatLady · 29/11/2016 19:33

It's interesting the people who are generally against partners being there can on the whole concede 12 hours of the day to visiting, why can't the others give the rest of the day over to privacy and dignity?
Because one group are willing to compromise and the other are not.

Temporaryname137 · 29/11/2016 19:35

Justin - for me, it's because that same 12 hours would have been intolerable and possibly dangerous for my baby; even if it hadn't actually been dangerous, I would have been convinced that it was, as I was not exactly rational at that point. This has been said by a number of posters who have reported their tales of being left or what would have happened had they been left.

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:36

This reply has been deleted

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CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:37

You can't make a policy based on a few women's experiences. It's an Internet forum, who knows if they're even true

Yeah everyone is lying. Hmm
Why then did MN stop running a campaign to get men in women's wards 24/7 if it was just "a few women's experiences"?

OP posts:
Wolverbamptonwanderer · 29/11/2016 19:38

Cherry you seem surprised that people don't care. I don't think it's at all hard to understand that women will put themselves and their families needs above a total strangers (whose needs they aren't even aware of)

HandbagCrab · 29/11/2016 19:38

According to my understanding of the maternal deaths report you are nearly at much at risk of being murdered by a partner or family member as you are of dying of thrombosis in pregnancy and the postnatal period.

www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/downloads/files/mbrrace-uk/reports/MBRRACE-UK%20Maternal%20Report%202015.pdf

Better care is needed from the NHS, not partners in wards as things currently are.

Wolverbamptonwanderer · 29/11/2016 19:39

I don't know. Or care really, what MN campaign about. Neither do 99% of the population

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:40

Justin - for me, it's because that same 12 hours would have been intolerable and possibly dangerous for my baby; even if it hadn't actually been dangerous, I would have been convinced that it was, as I was not exactly rational at that point

I could post almost the exact same thing for why I want 12 hours respite from men. For me it would have been detrimental to the point of dangerous.

YET - you are the one in need and I'm hysterical, right temporary?

OP posts:
CherryChasingDotMuncher · 29/11/2016 19:41

This reply has been deleted

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53rdAndBird · 29/11/2016 19:41

I think I would probably be in favour of paying £1,000 per baby to cover the costs of additional care.

I'd be fine with that, as long as the money was used to improve maternity care for everyone.

So something like:

  • Step 1: assign some of the rooms in a ward to be for women with partners. No more than, say, 25%. If you don't get a place in one, then your partner doesn't get to stay. If you do, then you + partner pay £1000, or whatever fee covers cost of one average partner being there x2.
  • Step 2: use money raised that way to increase staffing on wards so that nobody's ever left without help and support.
  • Step 3: if/when there's money left over, channel it into a fund for creating more private rooms (and staffing to cover that) on the ward. Dibs for women who don't have a partner staying overnight with them.
  • Step 4: eventually, everyone gets a private room, can have whatever partner they like to stay on an adequately-staffed ward, and everyone's happy.

Steps 3 and 4 might take a few decades, though!