To think that if you are not in active labour and you have a partner who snores, you should not have him overnight on an Antenatal ward

[Belleende]

I know there are polarised opinions on the presence of men overnight on Antenatal wards. I can see both sides. BUT if you know your DP has a snore like a 747, surely you send him home for a kip if you are not in pain/active labour. I know I did. He won't be back until the action starts.

Currently listening to two snorers in concert as well as a poor lady in quite a bit of pain.

So whilst the princes charming get some slumber, I will be producing a baby at some point in the next 24 hours on no sleep. Yeah!

Thing is, a snoring woman has a medical need to be on a maternity ward so, with the best will in the world, it’s kinda tough shit. It’s a necessary disturbance. But it’s definitely not a ‘tough shit’ case for a snoring man, he has no need to be there and is only causing unnecessary disturbance.

Could you imagine if all the husbands and all the wives snores and you had a cacophony of various rumbling melodies? I’d be hobbling out the ward faster than you can say ‘perennial tear’

The good news is the snoring has stopped. The bad news is, it's because the lady in pain, is now really quite distressed, so everyone is awake.

Giving birth sucks.

Good luck op

Yes, good luck! This too shall pass.

Good luck with your baby!

The men staying thing, I see both sides.
My husband stayed with my third(he wasn't allowed with my others), I was high risk and having him there helped to keep me calm and in control, there were certainly not enough staff to go around when each women felt she needed someone so I guess partners staying helps with that.

A lady in the bed next to me spoke no English and her husband was translating for her. Massive help for the staff,

Oh I feel your pain! I spent 5 nights across different postnatal wards last week and every time I was next to a snorer, whether it was the woman themself or their DH I couldn't say! I think on reflection snoring was marginally preferable to the woman who FaceTimed what seemed like everyone she'd ever met all through the night though

It's been a fair few years since I had my last but I'm agog at all these blokes clogging up maternity wards at night!!
I'm not suggesting for a minute that they should be banished to the pub with a cigar but outside of visiting hours (which are usually fairly lengthy for partners anyway) they should stay the feck away from wards full of female strangers at their most vulnerable.
Until the day hospitals can provide individual rooms with ensuite facilities (never) it should be a strictly female environment to make sure that all the women there feel safe and comfortable.
I find it pretty selfish for women to say they demanded their partner stay because they were feeling scared and vulnerable.
What about the female through the curtain who is feeling scared and vulnerable, possibly without a partner who then also has someone else's male partner just behind a curtain all night. Not on!
I had two pretty traumatic labours/births and wouldn't have dreamed of asking for DH to stay and quite honestly I know he wouldn't have felt comfortable with it either! Walking across a ward full of blokes to reach the communal toilet while trying not to leak on the floor or through the back of your clothes. Lovely.

Ah, I think I can top this (been dying to find a thread it was kinda relevant to!).

Just emerged from a not-very-smooth-or-normal 24hr birth. Went up to the ward to find myself bunked in with a young lass and her bf. She was only 7 months or so pregnant, but had been admitted for some worrying pains.

While I grappled with some fairly major challenges to my undercarriage and tried to express colostrum, they....pulled the curtain across and had sex. Several times through the night. At some point her moans changed pitch and I pressed the nurse alarm buzzer. I figured either way, their session would end, and I’d get some sleep.

Over the next 45 minutes (at about 4.30am) our room grew crowded with nurses and obstetricians as they argued over what to do about her pains, and whether it was labour. Finally I lost it and shouted at them all to get out and figure it out in another off the 300 rooms in the hospital. Not my finest hour.

Postscript: she had the baby, it was very poorly/underweight and she was told it would likely not leave the hospital nicu for a couple of months. The hospital sent all kinds of social workers to our room to support her, but she was more interested to chat on her phone to her friends about how easy birth really was (!). The family & friends who visited her never asked about the health of her or the kid. They only wanted to know, to a man, what skin colour the baby had. Weirdest 48hrs of my life.

Give me a snoring ward neighbour over that anytime (but I do really feel for you OP, all the best to you!)

Wow that's crazy times have changed! Try and complain that you're getting no sleep because of it - maybe there's a nice side bed

Currently being kept awake by a snoring 14 month old in my bed.

Sorry to say, your snoring ward partner is just the beginning

Oh god, how annoying is that?! Men weren't allowed to stay over at my hospital. Hubby was pleased as he got a full two nights sleep before the baby came (not happened since he's been here the last 4 months ha ha!). I did however have a young girl on my ward who decided to ring all her relatives (mum, gran, boyfriend) at 3am to tell them how she was getting on.

After giving birth late at night, I got on to the postnatal ward in the wee small hours of the morning after having stitches for a 2nd degree tear and the epidural wearing off. My husband had gone home for a few hours. Was also struggling to get anything in baby and had some breastfeeding specialist come see me (in the delivery suite) as she wouldn’t latch on) so was quite upset bordering on hysterical.

Finally got to sleep around 5am. Got awoken at 6am by a midwife pulling back the curtain and telling me I must wake up because I was keeping all the other ladies awake with my snoring. So I was essentially left not allowed to sleep. I spent the next couple of ours crying hysterically. I almost dropped baby on the floor as I fell asleep sat up trying to feed baby, cried so hard another woman (patient) came to help me. The midwives saw me crying and ignored me.

I got out of their as soon as I could and still feel upset thinking about it. I literally couldn’t do anything about snoring, so as a woman a few hours post labour I wasn’t entitled to sleep like the other women.

Good news is, I got some kip, bad news is the action has slowed down so baby not imminent.
Minnie that sucks, being prevented from sleeping, particularly when you are knackered is akin to torture.

I will confess that I am not convinced I didn't snore last night. I have a cold and am 40 weeks, I have a really dry throat this am, so that'll learn me for getting on my high horse.

Skittlesandbeer that is beyond nuts. The last time I was here one night I was next to a v young girl. She was in early labour, quite scared. Come 6.30pm, her mum says she is just going out to make a call. In the meantime, the girl is given some morphine for the pain.

Mum comes back and announces Fred is picking her up in ten minutes, they have a date. Girl starts crying, mum does not relent, is really dismissive.

At this point I stuck my head around the curtain, said to the girl that I was going nowhere, and would sit with her. Mum says see, you will be fine. She only relented as the girl had a really bad reaction to the morphine and started being violently ill, over and over. She stayed in the end, but the poor girl never heard the end of it. I really wanted to thump the mum one.

But the having sex one still wins.

Poor old you, OP. Can you go home for a bit now?

I can see both sides too; if you've got curtains and the partner is not making noise, plus you're someone who is mega anxious or in a pickle post labour, fair enough. But if they're disturbing new mums and babies, it's not on.

A friend who recently gave birth was next to a couple where the man talked incessantly and loudly all through the night. By the sounds of it being very patronising and telling his partner who had just given birth how to suck eggs. Kept wheeling the baby out of the ward to 'take it for a walk' - with a trolley that squeaked to boot.

Then at one point because he was "tired", he asked his partner to get out of bed and sit in the chair so he could have a lie down!! She did! Ironically he then continued to talk for the rest of the night, whilst lying in her bed.
My friend didn't get a wink of sleep after going through labour and having a newborn to deal with. Her DH who had gone home had a great nights sleep!

Oh OP, YANBU at all. Antenatal wards are utterly miserable. Having spent a fair bit of time having lonnngggggg inductions with both mine, I am happy I will never spend any more time in one. The dads hanging around are annoying but bloody hell....the other mums were outrageous! Come ‘lights off’ everyone (except me) put their own lights on with curtains open and continued their phone conversations (loudly and endlessly). Lots of coming and going, male partners using the ward loo while the mothers waiting outside and total lack of consideration for anyone. I don’t recall hearing any snoring because it seemed that nobody was interested in getting any sleep! Two of the most awful experiences of my life (the births in comparison were delightful!). Good luck OP! Hope you have a lovely peaceful birth to make up for the nonsense beforehand

I had weeks on a ward due to being high risk. Mostly it was the women who snored like jumbo jets - I think it's all the pregnancy fluid!

This makes me angry too. It has gone way too far. Pre and post natal wards should be for women. No way should men be staying over night, in any circumstances.

The partner shouldn't be on the ward full stop. It's an option to refuse to be nursed on a ward with men sleeping there, OP. Hope things improve for you soon, in whatever capacity!

And of course the women might be snorers. But the more people on the ward, the more you increase the possibility of someone being one, and the women have got to be there. Partners haven't.

George - if there were adequate care on busy wards, I would agree. As it stands, that would cause a lot of issues for some people. I had nearly a month on the ward then an 18 hour induction resulting in a c section and a jaundiced baby - I simply couldn't pick her up or hold her safely. Changing her for the first 2 days would have been impossible. And it took me 30 mins to shuffle to the toilet and have a simple wee; imagine having to leave your newborn for that long - because there was no way anyone on the ward had time to sit with her. There were also various checks that had to be done on me due to blood loss, blood sugars etc - often there was nobody free until v late at night (they had also given me a vey fancy dressing but I was the first in obstetrics to have it, so had to wait hours for someone from general surgery); again, there would have been nobody to deal with my brand new tiny baby and I would have been panicking.

By all means campaign strongly for better support and care - but until we get it, chucking women who really couldn't cope in the hours after birth under the bus isn't the way to deal with it in my view. It would have added hugely to my stress and trauma if I hadn't known that my baby was safe with her dad when I couldn't move!

And maybe some people could have their mothers there instead (although it was the visiting families I wanted to murder during my time on the ward, not least the kids whose family thought it was hilarious when they ripped open my curtains when I was trying to breastfeed!) but like a lot of people, I lost my mum v young so not an option for me

Hermione’s not a ludicrous idea at all, our maternity hospital does exactly that!

Partners aren’t allowed outside visiting times (which is all day for partners!) on the antinatal wards at our hospital. I can see both sides but I must say I think I sway towards the more is definitely not merrier camp unless the situation is serious enough for them to have to be around.

I had an overnight stay with DD and I loved having those few hours just me and her.

Oh and ear plugs and headphones should always be a staple in a hospital bag

It's all very well allowing partners to stay to support pregnant woman if she's feeling vulnerable, but if he's snoring his head off, what support is he actually providing?

I think often our views are shaped by our own experiences. If I'd been in and out in a day or so, or if they'd been able to give me a side ward or private room, I may well have felt totally differently - pre DD I simply had no idea what it feels like not to be able to walk or to walk a couple of hours after a c section or to try and stay awake so you can hold a baby safely when you've had over 24 hours of labour and a major operation, or how it feels trying to shift around holding a baby or get to a crying baby when you've got a major abdominal wound! I was also high as a kite for the first couple of hours of her life, had no idea where I was. As it is, the thought of having been left alone during that time makes me shiver, as with the best will in the world, the staff could only pop in every so often.

Second baby is due April, all being well, and I'm going private for that precisely because of the above. But that's not an option for lots of people and I think it's just a difficult situation where there isn't an easy answer that pleases everyone.