Maternity ward etiquette?

[greenfooted]

I suspect I am. On a maternity ward of four after c section two days ago. Baby opposite is a screamer. Has been doing so on and off all day . It's now 3 am. I have had no sleep. My baby wakes every time other baby screams. So is in my arms ( so I can't sleep). There are two of them with screaming baby. Aibu to think at some stage one of them should take it for a walk/ to the day room. I am on own as DH with our other kids so feeling pretty uncharitable and grumpy....even when DH was hear earlier this baby screamed through my earplugs...

@Pingu that must vary by hospital as q friend of mine stayed in a private room at our local hospital (in Surrey) for two nights last week after giving birth. I think she paid £80 a night. It was actually advertised by the lady who took us on a tour of the maternity area of the hospital... I'm pretty sure she said there are two or three rooms for private hire! I'm personally not intending to bother unless I'm desperate but nice to know there's the option!

@PinguForPresident that must vary significantly by trust.

When I had my first baby (in October 2015) there were over a dozen private rooms on the post natal Ward so good availability. I was in at the same time as 3 other women I knew. We all paid for rooms. My second baby was earlier this year. Different hospital, again over a dozen private rooms. I was given a choice of two (one nearer the dining room, one with a nicer view). This time there was even a mattress and bedding for DH which I absolutely didn’t expect.

Just the private ensuite each time was worth the money.

I am always very sad to see what a miserable time some women have post natally. I have had tricky pregnancies etc but fabulous aftercare.

I honestly don't understand men being allowed to stay on a postnatal ward, no matter how gentle, kind and respectful. In fact, that kind of man would probably realise how inappropriate it is. The NHS has moved heaven and earth to try and eradicate mixed sex wards and is the encouraging exactly the same thing in the least appropriate ward of all. It's utterly bonkers and very unfair to the women who don't want it.

I suspect Pingu works in a large consultant led unit who only offer ‘amenity beds’ if they don’t have people with clinical need requiring them. September/October is generally outrageously busy so a bit tongue in cheek, I know at my unit it’s virtually standing room only on some shifts at the minute 😖

Pingu must also work in a unit where post-section mothers are given adequate pain relief and assistance from the midwives. My experience was that paracetamol was given very infrequently with no other pain relief and that you were treated as though you were attention seeking when asking for any help at all hours after having an emergency section, pph and sepsis.... I was anti having partners to stay until I spent time in a post natal ward- if my DH hadn’t been around the first few days I would have neither eaten nor slept as I was too unwell to walk to the kitchen and bring back my food, and found it very hard to get into it out of bed. The staff on the ward were not willing to help so I’m not sure what they expected us to do!

(As a frontline health care provider of over a decade I have never seen such poor care on any other wards).

Where I had my baby (in the U.S.) they keep all the babies in a nursery and you phone them when you want the baby brought to you to feed or just to have the baby near you.

I had one of mine in the USA and she stayed with me all of the time, all check were done in the room too. I thought they were all like that now?

I’m sure it was on here I read about a man who forced his wife to have sex with him in her hospital bed a day after giving birth

@ilovegin112

Really??? Bloody hell. Poor woman.

Urgh I so get this. After dc2 was I room.with another woman (ward was full). Her husband talked or snores non stop, baby squealed all the time. Mine was silent and dozey. Mw took pity on me after a couple of hours (2 in the morning) and.moved me to a delivery room as they were so noisey

If it helps at all, when I was in a ward of two, I was sharing with a saint of a woman who was actually a midwife. When I got to day 4 of no sleep (LONG delivery) and my dd wouldn't settle and I was off my head with exhaustion, she told me to head along to the nurses station and ask them to look after the baby for a while. It was her assurance that to ask was perfectly normal, that meant I felt able to do so. I got 3 or 4 unbroken hours of sleep and it was like medicine to me. If you feel you could, could you share that info with the lady with the screamer? She must be desperate too!

Poor you! I was a screamer - Mum said the hospital shut me in the sluice room at night so I didn't wake the other babies! (But in those days babies were in a different room from their Mums. They only allowed feeding at certain times - and she said I was just hungry!!! Luckily things have improved a bit 50+ years later ).

It must be hideous but I'm not sure there is really any solution - hope you get home soon .

Do they not take baby away these days ? I hadn't first in hospital and she was taken to the nursery if I needed despite !

I hope you've managed to get some rest, and congratulations on your baby.

But...YABU.

I had EMCS after a 4 day failed induction. I was exhausted. DS was a screamer. Partners weren't allowed overnight. Having to shuffle up and down the corridors with him screaming, feeling like I had been cut in half was hard. Trying to establish breastfeeding when I was in said state was harder. Seeing the other mums rolling their eyes at him/me and being told to 'just give him a bottle' was hardest.

You're not in there forever.

I think YABU, but it’s probable due to the fact you are exhausted, we all struggle to cope with things that we find difficult when we are not at our best.

The other women are probably equally as exhausted and feel frustrated. Also...They probably feel awful that they baby is unsettled and disturbing everyone else. I should imagine they are worrying about what they may be doing wrong or wondering if baby is getting enough milk.

When I had my first she cried almost all night that first night at the hospital and every time I felt awful for the women I was sharing a bay with. It’s not something you have any control over if your baby won’t settle. It’s not appropriate for women to be wandering around a maternity unit with their babies either. There are multiple things to consider here for example safeguarding and the mother feeling isolated.

The hospital is not an ideal environment for women and babies to rest and unfortunately the NHS doesn’t have the resources or capacity to provide women with their own room etc ...and sometimes it’s not appropriate for women to be in a room alone. All being well you will be home in no time and hopefully you will be able to recover properly and get back to some level of normality.

Congratulations on the new arrival!

Can you ask to be moved to a private room?

Is there a reason you can't just go home?

Firstly, congratulations on your new baby! How wonderful for you and your family. With regards to how you’re feeling: I understand. It’s horrible and it’s hard to think straight when you’re sleep deprived - I hope you get discharged home soon.

I recently left Midwifery after 20 years. I still work for the NHS in a different capacity. I left because I didn’t feel that I was providing the care I wanted to and I fretted a lot. Secondly, no pay rise in almost 10 years. Thirdly, my colleagues were also leaving in their droves & staffing levels were frightening.

Postnatal wards were lovely places when I trained & first qualified. Bottle feeders & breastfeeders were separated- not for militant reasons lol, but because breastfeeding babies feed very frequently in the early days and this reduced the disruption for mums who chose not to. We never had a nursery - there were incidents in other hospitals when the wrong baby was returned to the wrong mum, so it was for safety reasons initially, and then research on baby brain development advocated that the baby stayed with the mother. We did take unsettled babies though to give the mum a rest - just not the entire ward of babies.

I loved running baths for the mums & the smell of Tea tree and Lavender oils that we put into them.

I loved getting to know the mums - C/sections stayed in for five nights, instrumentals deliveries for three, normal delivery first time mum 2 nights (longer if feeding wasn’t established), normal delivery experienced mums one night. Now they’re gone in 6 hours if all is well.

I don’t know why Midwifery has not received more investment- a good birthing experience bodes well for mum & baby’s physical & mental health. And this is not a vaginal vs c/section statement - I mean that the mums should feel really well cared for throughout regardless of mode of delivery.

Re blokes on the ward: no way would we have had them on an open ward. The mums are vulnerable anyway and some are sedated. Secondly, it makes the blokes open to accusation. However, I did work on an Midwife Led Unit that had single rooms, and sofa beds were supplied. Dads were encouraged to stay and it worked well because the unit was very small & well staffed - we’d see the comings and goings. Separate loos for visitors too.

I feel sad for mums nowadays and I’m frightened for my daughter. It saddens me when people talk about going private, and having to employ doulas for labour & postnatal care - a lovely service, but there should be enough midwives. You should never have to spend a penny on health care given that we have an NHS.

When you get home, do nothing! Sleep and rest. Get your partner to police the door & tell family to bring dinner when they visit! Good luck to you, and I know you’re exhausted but that other Mummy is too. Take care. Xx

Hello. Just to reply. The reason we stopped in the uk putting babies in nurseries whilst mum slept because it was proven to not be beneficial to bonding and starting breastfeeding. How can you feed responsively if you’re baby is not with you. Plus it’s a scientific fact that baby’s that do not have interaction such as cuddling, talking and eye contact will suffer neurologically and their brain neurons don’t connect effectively and can lead them to being an insecure and dependant adult. So best mum and baby stay together really. 👍🏻

Sorry for my abrupt view but....I am a nurse and I also had this same situation as you. It's an NHS hospital, not a hotel and youve just had a baby, get used to little sleep. I had a c section and was in a room with three others, their babies were all breastfed and so were screaming all night and they kept needing help for the babies to latch on, my baby was sleeping and yes it did wake him and me every hour through the night for 3 nights but hey, if I was in a private hospital paying through the nose I would expect quiet. I was grateful that mine was sleeping and I actually felt sorry for the other ladies. I think expecting people to take their babies to a dayroom in the middle of the night is being unreasonable. Either pay more for a side room or suck it up for 3 nights - Sorry.

I personally believe this to be the cause of a lot of babies sleeping badly, they get woken up so frequently by hospital noise that they get used to waking frequently.
Congratulations I hope you get home soon x

When I had my first baby several years ago, I was on a ward of six and everyone was super noisy. One woman would open all her curtains in the middle of the night when the baby cried, place the baby in the middle of her bed and then walk around the bed chanting LOUDLY "my baby, my baby, I love you my baby" over and over and over again. Funnily enough, this display did not make the baby stop crying (but it did make all the other ones wake up!). The lady next to me had a huge family who would all come to visit throughout the day and literally prepare very pungent food around the bed - pans clattering and everything. Another one would have her partner and several other children visiting all the time and they would just row. I had to stay in for 5 days after the birth due to complications and it was like trying to recover in an ever-changing circus. On day 5 when they didn't want to discharge me and my baby due to a paperwork oversight, I had a breakdown and locked myself in the ward toilet crying until they finally agreed to let us go! It was such a nice experience...

Fair enough @rn

If you are exhausted through no sleep then I can imagine the mothers of the screaming babies also are. I wouldn’t expect them to have the energy to be walking them up and down corridors so you can sleep. So YABU big time here.

My babies were born in NHS maternity wards in the early 80s and I was given the option of staying for 36 hours or 5 days, and went for the long stay every time. A senior midwife in charge of the ward, nurses on tap to help with breastfeeding, bathing and settling crying babies. Post-natal exercises every morning, nap time every afternoon - babies in the nursery, curtains drawn, no noise, on our stomachs. Fixed visiting times, decent meals. A bottle of Guinness every evening if you were breastfeeding. And all babies wheeled into the nursery at night and brought to us for feeding if we requested it. Plenty of chance to bond because we as mothers were being looked after and were encouraged to spend time with our babies.

Yes, it was regimented. But we felt that we and our babies were safe and cared for. And there was always the home birth option or going home sooner if you wanted it. When I saw the maternity ward experience my daughters and daughter in law had it was like another world, and not a better one. No wonder they couldn't wait to get out.

My youngest is 20 and I'm so glad I had them back in the dark ages. Restricted visiting even partners unless in labour, no noise on the wards and baby taken to nursery if you wanted. I remember midwives coming round with hot cocoa at 10pm, lights off and peace... wonderful peace. I had 4 days in with my last, it was lovely having her to myself for that time, DH came in for an hour a day as he was working and caring for our other 2 and I felt restored when I was discharged.

I don't get this entitled "must have my partner with me" attitude of today. Do they go to work with you too, and hold your hands crossing the road .