AIBU to think that all mothers should have food and water on postnatal wards?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello,

Today, we at MNHQ are launching a new campaign called Better Postnatal Care: Aftercare, not Afterthought.

Over the years, we’ve been struck by how many MNers have related pretty horrible experiences on postnatal wards. We’ve also seen lots of discussions about longer term aspects of postnatal care: help with breast or bottle feeding, mental health care for new mothers, wound care after difficult births, and physio for women who feel they need it (but rarely feel able to ask for it) - among other things.

So, towards the end of last year we decided to see if we could do something about it. We ran a big survey of Mumsnet users’ experiences of postnatal care, and some of the results were striking. (You can see more here.) Among those who stayed in hospital after giving birth - which was most new mums - many reported that it was sometimes difficult to access food, pain relief, drinking water and washing facilities. 61% had been unable to access food when they needed it; 45% had been unable to access pain relief when they needed it; 22% had been unable to access water when they needed it; and 19% had been unable to access washing facilities when they needed them.

So today, we are asking the major UK political parties to commit, in their manifestos for the general election, to making sure that women on postnatal wards always have access to the absolute basics: food, water, pain relief and washing facilities.

We’re also asking everyone (this means you!) to contribute ideas about how we can make postnatal wards ‘fit for purpose’. More midwives? A fridge full of sandwiches, fruit and water on every ward? Asking all visitors and patients to turn off noises on their phones and personal devices? Maternity support assistants? Welcome cards by every bed explaining how the ward works? Making sure that inpatients and their visitors use headphones if they’re watching TV? We’re after all your suggestions, no matter how small. We’ll also be asking for input from healthcare workers with frontline experience - so if you’re one of those, please do chip in.

This isn’t about going into battle with people who work in maternity services in the NHS. Most of you feel that overall, over the year or so post-birth, standards of postnatal care are good or OK. When asked what needs to change, many of you say you think there should be more staff. Some of you had very good experiences: if you look at the ‘Good Stuff’ heading on this page you’ll see some shout-outs to hospitals and services that MNers say are getting things right. So we know that it can be done. What we want to do is find out how these hospitals are managing to get it right, and see if the lessons can be transferred.

In the months to come, the campaign will look in more detail at things like infant feeding, traumatic births, postnatal mental health, and follow-up care for birth injuries.

Please get involved with the campaign. Here are some ways you can help.

And as ever - do let us know what you think!

Thanks

'I'm sorry expat but in that context it is a ridiculous thing to say. My partner and everyone else's is not there to invade anyone else's space, they are there to provide support to their partner at their partners' most vulnerable moments, in the face of incredibly lacking health care.'

Why are you 'sorry'? Eh? In your opinion it's a ridiculous thing to say, to others, that is exactly how they see it. Plenty of partners are not there to 'provide support', have zero consideration of anyone else's space and it's beside the point because they are not patients, the wards are not designed to accommodate such double occupancy when it comes to sleeping and facilities, and they certainly should not be utilised to plug huge staffing gaps.

You have completely derailed this thread to push your own agenda. It's tedious in the extreme.

But surely context matters somewhat? These men will be with their partners, in a medical setting with staff present. They would have just had a baby. Surely we can't assume that all men are sitting waiting to be aggressive and violent? It has to matter, right? There must be a reason they deemed it safe and appropriate to allow men to stay in the first place? I don't mean to offend anyone by saying that but as a sufferer of assault myself I still feel strongly for the rights of women to have partners for lots of reasons.

I obviously cannot speak for all women but I think the reason Im becoming such a bitch on this thread (and would desparately like to move on as it's been done to death now and is very upsetting to talk about) is because I feel like a large proportion of women aren't being heArd. Their needs are being trivialised and dismissed as something that good midwifery care would solve on its own. I genuinely feel like just as many women need their partners with them on this journey and yes of course there should be provisons for both women as previously mentioned but it is upsetting to see such a lack of sympathy from the other side of the argument. I will stop now, really.

@CherriesInTheSnow you are in danger of hijacking what is a much needed campaign.

Contrary to what you are more or less writing especially when you (sic) wrote you "honestly didn't care about anyone else but your baby and your partner " it's not all about what you want but about the NHS meeting a basic standard of PROFESSONAL, CLINICAL POSTNATAL CARE NOT HAVING YOUR SODDING PARTNER DO IT FOR YOU

Give me a break, I've not derailed the thread at all its an aspect of post natal care as is everything else? If you don't agree with my opinion or don't want to discuss it then you don't have to reply do you? You can carry on the conversation without me. I'm not a troll or a dickhead I'm just genuinely invested in that discussing and I have every right to be.

Haggis had done nothing to contribute to this discussion apart from to riducule me and another poster saying that we feel it is important to have partners with us, baseductive on our experience. If you don't agree thend fine but yes it is my opinion, which is shared by many and which I am perfectly entitled to talk about and express.
If you find it so very tedious then feel free, as said above, to ignore my comments and move on.

'But surely context matters somewhat? These men will be with their partners, in a medical setting with staff present. They would have just had a baby.'

No, it doesn't to a lot of women, it's a room doubled in occupancy with strange blokes! You are kidding yourself if you think all the 'partners' are even the fathers of the babies. I don't care if it's Michael Fassbender or Peter Kay, I'm a survivor of sexual assault and I cannot sleep with a bunch of strange men around me, especially in the vulnerable state I was in the two times I had to stay in after childbirth.

Grow up Gin how on earth can one poster derail an entire campaign? Its an aspect of postnatal care and one I feel strongly about It's a forum post and I'm perfectly entitled to express my opinion as well.

Sorry, @CherriesIntheSnow - but you have missed my point.

Even though the men are with their partners, and may be the loveliest people imaginable, they are still strangers to the other women in that ward/bay, and that may well make them feel scared and vulnerable.

It is also worth remembering that, if care on the postnatal ward depends on the efforts of women's partners, that will leave those women whose partners can't stay with them, or who don't have a partner or birth partner, in a very vulnerable position.

The default position MUST be that the ward staff are properly trained and that there are enough of them that they can meet all the nursing and care needs of the women and babies in their care, and that partners provide extra help and support.

Cherries having an opinion doesn't make you a bitch and you obviously feel passionately about this issue but I think it's perhaps a debate for further down the line once the NHS has sorted the basics out like adequate nutrition, proper pain relief, sensible staffing levels and broader staff training.

Having my partner there 24/7 wouldn't have stopped me from contracting sepsis, it was lack of nursing care that missed the early signs. Being given only oral paracetamol after major abdominal surgery would still have happened with him there. The pressure to go home would have still started barely 2hrs post-section. What would have fixed these issues would have been proper nursing care and that's where the main focus of the campaign should be, putting the care back into postnatal care.

Sorry SDT, I completely agree with you.

I would never want partners to replace care at all, I suppose at the moment I am just being realistic based on my experience - as in I wouldn't have received any basic care had my partner not been there. But completely agree in an ideal world there would be no need for practical support. The very best would be private enough space to have partners there without any discomfort for other women,and they would be there purely to bond with baby and enjoy those first few hours of bonding.

I do believe it can happen, even if rooms weren't particularly big or they were more sort of cubicles, but I think it should be an investment that would really change the experience for so many women.

Thank you bear :)

I agree, and as I said to SDT I guess the reason I am do adamant i's because that care is missing at the moment. You're completely right that those basic element's need to be in place first and as a minimum. I do hope that in the future we could change our service to be more similar to countries where care is outstanding - unfortunately because of the whole bloody experience this is likely to be my last baby But it's still important that we don't accept how far behind many countries we are in terms of post natal care.

And so sorry to here about the sepsis, how awful

I haven't RFTF (other than the last couple of posts) however I am going to voice my opinion on the original op.

I think we need private rooms, I don't think it would take much to put up even thin walls between bays to make this happen to enable privacy for new mums.

I think each individual mother should be catered for, everyone is different - I wanted more privacy but I still needed help, which I didn't get because I wasn't breastfeeding. The baby is no less important because of my issues.

The midwives snuck me a cup of tea and some toast which was amazing, although I know they weren't supposed to - hardly ok to leave a woman who has been through labour for days without food. Saying that, DH would have got me food, I would not have gone without...some others might have though.

Labour was more of an issue though, being left alone for 12 hours without someone coming to see me, being left alone in labour until dc2 was making her way out, the midwife standing in the corner looking scared and birthing a 10lb+ baby without ANY help was more of a concern. Along with being denied pain relief, having an internal physically forced upon me and being treated like an animal give me more cause for concern. If THIS can be sorted out - I'm more than happy to get my own sandwich.

Thing is though cherries, your DH being there in a caring role with you makes fuck all difference to a sexual assault victim trapped on that ward with him.

@CherriesInTheSnow I'm not the one that needs to be told to grow up. I'm not the one bleating about how my partner and my baby are the most important thing and everyone else is like the Waltons fawning peacefully over their perfect baby behind their little curtains.
PN wards aren't like that.

You've made your views very clear. I don't think anyone could be in doubt that you want to be able to have your partner there 24/7. Quite a number of us disagree in some way shape or form and instead of just letting that stand you keep iterating your individual position. Unlike a lot of us on here who have had ghastly PN experience myself included, a lot of us are able to talk about systemic errors and the bigger picture not whether Darling John/ Andy/Pete etc gets a click clack and a cuppa at 3am. It's risible and peripheral to the very serious thing we are ALL entitled to which is better care. As new mothers with new babies.

This campaign is about improving the most important and necessary aspects of clinics, postnatal care for women, and some of the emotional ones. A job that should be done by midwives, HCAs, and where relevant doctors. Not partners. If this campaign succeeds in one thing it would be that standards are driven up and that partners are there for the nice bits then go home.

I think it's sexist that women are often expected to get on with looking after the baby on their own on postnatal wards and their partner gets sent home for the night.

When I've been on children's hospital wards a parent is usually allowed to stay to look after the child, and that quite rightly isn't limited to always being the mother. Fathers should have a legal right to be present and care for their baby during the postnatal period too, and equally mothers shouldn't be expected to be solely responsible for care.

This would require private rooms and for society to recognise that childcare shouldn't just be a woman's job, though.

I think it's wrong that hospitals are getting away with substandard care on postnatal wards because partners are basically resident taking the pressure off them. I understand why this happens but the point is if they weren't there and some really awful mistakes occurred then at least there'd be a proper high level enquiry and changes would have to be made.

It's not right at all.

If I'm in hospital I want the relevant clinical professional looking after my not my husband.

@Fruu for Christ's sake men can't give birth. It's sexist by its biological function not by dominant matriarchal social norms or systems.

They have plenty of rights and generally can be around for hours and hours of the day to care for their newborn in hospital if they wish. Just not overnight or 24/7. I genuinely cannot believe how many women are so desperate for this to happen.

This debate is not the same thing as parents jointly / staggering caring for a sick child brought into hospital.

I think that's the problem! For some people the need for a 24/7 advocate in hospital is a need that should be taken seriously. It's no less important than the myriad reasons women might not be comfortable with other people's partners on a post natal ward for an extended period. Being in hospital for any reason at all is a bit shit, really and lacking In privacy. If it was all unicorns and rainbows we'd all have orgasmic home water births with fairy lights and soft music. Most of us don't manage that. I bet the poor woman who pissed herself in the middle of a four bedded bay when I had one of mine was mortified. I bet she would have had bugger all chance of helping that at 2am or at peak, approved, santitised visiting hours, either.

I do think we should be increasing fathers involvement in pregnancy, birth and early babyhood, not trying to reclaim post natal wards from fathers who are trying to be supportive. As a society we need a zero tolerance approach to violence against women so nobody has anything to fear from unfamiliar men in a hospital or anywhere else.

My son was born in a very busy week for births. In the ward next day, when I got to it, there was no food left on the trolley for breakfast. I get that it is good for you to get out of bed to move about, even after an emergency ceasarian and 30hrs labour, but it cant be good to have no food available. After 5 more days of sleep deprivation, and random food supply, I discharged myself and went home to get advice from NCT breastfeeding counsellor who somehow managed to get him to feed. This was 18 years ago, I dread to think what it is like now. Advice to mums is to take food or get people to bring some for you. Tell visitors who may come for the entertainment that you will be sleeping and breastfeeding in the day so not available to entertain with new baby. Second time round, as seasoned mother, I made sure every moment possible I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. They discharged me early again partly because child number 1 threw up on the bed when he visited.

fruu but on a postnatal ward it's (usually) the woman who's the patient. the woman being the one with injuries and wounds and in need of medical care.
the baby needs care as well, but usually 'just' feeding and being kept clean.

...and at any other time in a child's life we'd require the father to step up and care for his child while his partner is indisposed. That is no reason to restrict them on post natal wards because the babies can't be removed from their mothers at that stage.

@Idontmeanto I don't think anyone who is against anyone other than mothers and babies being on a PN ward 24/7 wants to reclaim things from fathers. I think the point I was trying to make is it is NOT their job to do the professionals' jobs.

Men are able to be far more involved in pregnancy and childbirth and postnatal care than before. I have no problem with fathers being on the ward for a lot of the time, but I don't see why overnight is necessary, and especially not on communal wards.

I also think that there needs to be flex and capability in the system to enable women who circumstances demand that they are supported by their partners constant presence to be met. But to me that is a different debate and one that falls further down the line when the basic tenets of postnatal care are being met much more satisfactorily than they currently are.

@Idontmeanto - so how do you square the dads being there to care for the babies, with women's need not to have strange men in the same room as them 24/7 when they may be feeling vulnerable due to a traumatic labour and birth, or due to birth interventions, or when they are in pain, bleeding and may be trying to establish breastfeeding? What about women with prior trauma due to sexual assault, for whom the presence of strange men in their space may be a nightmare?

Cherries with respect, if you had needed to stay in overnight, you might understand why partners should not be allowed overnight on post natal wards.

I have been given a choice of hospitals for my next birth and have chosen the one that does not allow partners overnight. I know I will need to stay in due to a pre-existing condition and I cannot bare the thought of having to be near strange men overnight when I'm at my most vulnerable. Yes, I'd love DH there - but my DH is a stranger to another person and that overrides my need for him to be there.