NICU staff being judgemental.

[NicuProblem]

I'm in tears. Requested my baby's medical notes after a prem birth. Found a part where apparently they started a visiting log as they felt we didn't stay on the ward long enough, that I wasn't talkative enough and that my husband "rarely visited".

I don't drive and have an older child with disabilities. My husband works and at that time was working night shifts. They KNEW this.

I feel distraught by this notion that at my most vulnerable when I was trying my best I was judged as somehow not good enough.

Babies referring to my eldest as he's a toddler yet still very much a baby in his needs. I call them both my babies and he still wakes twice nightly.

It wasn't that I didn't like the nurses but that I felt judged and these notes seem to support that. I do get what people are saying but it was recorded in a way that seems judgemental.

I don't even understand what "bonding with the baby" even means. I love my children, DH loves our children. I don't love them more or less depending on how often I change their nappies. I loved them from the moment I got two lines on the test, I don't understand the bonding argument.

I think you have perhaps some views on parenting which are considered a little old fashioned these days. That's not to say they are 'wrong' as such, but they are unusual, and I think might be one of the issues here.

It really stands out to me that you have several times seemed confused over the concept of bonding with a baby, or that your husbands presence will help him bond with baby (and baby with him).

Spending time together helps create a bond. Caring for your child helps create a bond. Your child spending time with you helps their attachment to you to grow. It's obviously not a new concept, but I think there is more emphasis on it these days. It's one of the reasons why maternity leave exists - a nursery could take care of the physical needs of a newborn, but it's good for a very young child to have time with their parents as an infant. Bonding is one of the main reasons behind paternity leave. Then there's the hormonal stuff - cuddling and spending time together releases oxytocin, which helps both of you feel close to eachother. It's like any relationship, spending time together makes the bond stronger.

Its quite apparent that you have a very traditional approach when it comes to the roles you both undertake in parenting. As you've said, your background probably plays a part in that. Whilst in a lot of families, mum does most of the parenting, I think your expectation of involvement from dad is still far less than most couples would be happy with. If that works for you, then that's your business, but it's unusual for a locally living dad to be quite that absent, and it goes against more modern ideas of dad's taking a more active role, so I think you've got to expect that some people will be confused by it, and some will be a bit horrified - both the NICU staff and on here.

As someone whose husband made dinner last night, spent an hour putting our toddler to bed, and 2 hours up with her in the middle of the night, and has gone to work this morning, the 'why would a dad need to spend time with a child' approach seems very alien. Many nurses in NICU will have felt the same. And whilst I know many men don't do as much as women, most that I know go out of their way to shoehorn extra time in with their child, because nurturing thst relationship is important.

If you are content with how you organised/split things, then just put this aside and get on with enjoying your baby.
As far as you being expected to help out with care etc, that's partly to check that you can do it (yes you've done it before, but a baby who has been poorly is likely to be less robust when going home, and they need to check that you're OK with stuff) and also because again, it's an opportunity to bond and spend time together. And it's as near normality as you get, when you get to care for your own child, rather than being passive. I don't see they've gone anything wrong there. Sorry.

Ultimately, I can totally see why you'd feel upset by what was written, even though most of it was just factual observations. You're out of there now though, so I hope you can move on with your lives as a family of 4.

Obvs NICU IS a judgemental place ,so many on here have expained why .
Remarks ( and if they are commenting on whether or not someone is quiet it should be remembered that this is a subjective remark ) are recorded in case behaviour warrants concern . If it's then decided that it doesnt warrant concern why not also record that ? And why ? Otherwise what's the point ?

Husband visits weekly? Shocking

And why is the OP being asked to say what she wants to "get out" of this thread ?

Perhaps she started it out of distress and angst ,maybe now she's continuing to post to defend/answer all the comments being made .

Are all the posters on here going to explain what they are "getting out " of the thread ?

Wow OP seriously, your husband need to get his priority's right. I do not care how many times he picks up a phone, once a week visit is disgraceful for his twins.

@Sleeplikeasloth that's how YOUR partner bonds, others bond differently. As I've asked previously when you were banging on about YOUR husband up bottle feeding, how about EBF babies does dad not bond because he doesn't feed the baby?

You do realise that different parents take on different roles?

If you're at home not working, not sure if that is the case then unless you've had a series of disturb nights then I see no reason for your husband to be up with LO then working.

You are the most smug, sanctimonious person I've ever come across on MN.

Be careful of how high a pedestal your husband is on, it's a long way to fall!

@Interceptor999 what twins?

Certainly point things out if you feel aggrieved and it makes you feel better. However if you think that’s going to change any system or process in regards to the things you have written here you are mistaken.

If you are suing I would also get detailed advice if you want to include stuff like this as you want to put forward facts in order to be taken seriously. Once you start to put forward stuff like this which is really subjective then it starts to muddy the waters and could affect things when an overall picture is looked at in regards to the nature of your complaints. Not saying don’t include this, just tread carefully and get good advice in this regard.

Sometimes things are dumb and that’s the way it is. The same child who was in NICU (now teen) routinely spends a fair bit of time in hospital. One day, after admission to the ward the staff were completely overwhelmed, hadn’t done meds chart, hadn’t organised routine meds with pharmacy etc. So come medication time that evening I gave my kid their meds (previous routine fuck ups with the pharmacy had taught me to take the meds whenever I felt they were likely to be admitted). These were the meds prescribed by the same specialist who admitted them and are noted in the hospitals records as being the current meds. OMG. The. Absolute. Horror.

I was qualified enough as a parent to give my kids those exact meds at home every day. At the time I was a registered and practicing A&E specialist who would, on balance, seemingly have some idea about meds and you would think be deemed qualified to administer them. Nope. Only the nurses could give my child the meds. How they knew what to give was a bit perplexing as no meds form had been done at that point and what they were physically going to give was also perplexing as nothing had been ordered up from the pharmacy. So a report had to be written up because I had given my child unknown medication (aka the meds they took every night prescribed by the admitting specialist and described in the hospitals computer system for which I had the cartons on me with kids name on dispensing label). To make it even funnier, they only knew about this because I told them and asked them to note down meds given when they came around for obs. I just said, yep, knock yourself out with that. I didn’t give it another thought. Sure, the nurse was all huffy about it. I get that, they have more than enough to do without having to add a report on top. I certainly didn’t interprete the nurse as an ill tempered, judgemental, crazy bitch. Just someone trying to make it through the shift with sanity intact in a system with a one rule for all approach.

Sadly, there are parents who suffer from a syndrome who give their kids all sorts of shit behind the staffs back to make them or keep them sick. Also parents who know better than staff and sneakily give them other stuff because ‘the internet says this is what they need and no ones giving it/ my hairdressers second cousin twice removed had this and this medicine fixed it but the Dr won’t listen/insert another 1000 crazy lines here’. That’s why this sort of rule exists and everyone gets captured by the same net even though it doesn’t fit every situation.

The report was just factual - I gave my child unknown medication without staff knowledge at the time. That’s fine, they are the facts, that’s true. The context is not captured nor relevant. No one, myself included, gave a shiny shit about this piece of paper in the file. It’s only use is if it were to add to a bigger picture. There was no bigger picture in our case so no drama. The end.

You've had a horrible, traumatic time. I really feel for you. And seeing as you suffered hugely at the hands of negligent hospital staff, I kind of get why you're angry. I do, however, think that your anger is misdirected. The nurses were doing their job by making those notes, and they did not lie, did they? They wrote down facts which you think are misleading- but they are facts. Baby's father rarely visited. Whatever the circumstances were, that was the true fact, and I think that you have to acknowledge, having read this thread, that many people would find that unusual.

Don't turn the nurses into the bad guys here- they do a bloody difficult job and they were assessing the situation as they saw it. You seem to be getting on fine now and so I wouldn't worry about it.

Youknowmedontyou, two parents that share the load with night waking, means thst neither is exhausted. You wouldn't eat 3 meals a day whilst your partner starves, so equally I feel its wrong thst one person has all the sleep just because they work (unless baby is breastfed and doesn't take a bottle). Incidentally, through sharing, neither of us have ever felt the exhaustion that many new parents talk about.

Different levels of involvement within families are obviously going to occur, but visiting just once a week (when there is no risk to work to visit more often) because its pointless a dad seeing a poorly baby, is so far to the other extreme that of course it's going to raise some eyebrows.

The parenting expectations some people have of fathers is very low, as shown by you being shocked that a working father might get up at night, even though millions of women do it when they go back to work.

@Sleeplikeasloth well we will have to agree to disagree.....mother for me includes putting exhaustion aside and taking on breast feeding which will include night feeds (obviously!!). You chose to share that and save exhaustion, which is your right but 10000s of mother's would not entertain that.

Of course nothing wrong with bottle feeding, but I'm just showing that different people choose different ways of parenting and you sound so smug it's like you think your way is right.

It's right for YOU and YOUR partner and you have no right to tell OP her way is "old fashioned"! It's not, it's her way!

@Sleeplikeasloth I also said in my post ASSUMING YOU'RE NOT WORKING! Big difference if you're both working ..... night wakings to be shared then obviously!

People can set up their own families in the way they like. The way I've chosen to do it is nothing like OP - I'm at work right now while my DH is at home on parental leave with our baby - but her way isn't wrong, and nor is it really that uncommon (mine, and yours sleeplikeasloth is much more unusual, in fact). If we all want the freedom to choose our own family arrangements then we need a 'judge not, lest ye be judged' attitude. OP's been through an awful, traumatic time - she doesn't need people telling her that her and her partner's whole approach to parenting is wrong - and even if you think that, what do you think preaching at her in this thread will achieve? Do you want her to go back in time and force her DP to visit more? Or to kick him out now for not having done so? What will realistically be achieved apart from making an upset mother more upset?

Maybe we are "old fashioned", but if it works I don't see why that's an issue. My husband does do the nights sometimes as we are bottle feeding now so it's not all left to me, but I do the bulk of the day to day childcare and household managing. It works for us. He has more earning potential than me anyway so even though while he was doing that horrible job I earned more, long-term he will earn more and carve out a career whereas I'm happier in the domestic sphere. It's not a case of me being stupid or bullied into it by husband or feeling like I have to or anything.

What if I was a single patent? What would they do then, just not release the baby because I had no partner? What if my husband worked overseas?

But you were not a single parent and he wasn't working oversees and they knew that.

I'm really sorry but it is very unusual for a father to only visit once a week.

I'd also urge you to think very carefully before suing. If you are successful you are taking money away from the NHS. Is that what really what you want to achieve? Complain by all means (but I wouldn't complain about the notes!), however think carefully about suing.

But if the concern is but what if mum's ill that would apply to single parents. Or that ISNT the concern and they're passing a judgement on how our family dynamic works. It may have been their job to but you can't say it's concern for the mum being ill and having no one to step in if that concern doesn't apply to single parents.

Regarding suing. I used to think like that too. Then I experienced complete and utter contempt from NHS staff and my daughter paid the price for their abhorrent attitude and behaviour. Someone will be held accountable for the pain and suffering she went through when it was unnecessary.

So a dad working long hours and seeing his children on his days off isn't something I see as a problem.

OP that fine if that is what you want for your family, but I would have a problem with that and I can very much understand why an outside observer would see it as unusual and note it.

Again, if there is nothing in the notes that isn't factually correct then what's the problem. Yes the may be missing the context that you feel should be there, but that's not up to you. They can only record the observed facts.

I don't disagree that there may have been issues with your care, but the recording the factual logs of the parental visits is not one of them.

nico this is separate one assumes though as NICU were not involved

Also with suing presumably it is to get answers etc and make sure it wont happen again - damages tend to only be awarded if the money is needed for the child to have a good quality of life

I think they were probably more concerned that judgemental. Of course it's important than you both bond with the baby before you take him/her home. A prem. baby may also need special handling than NICU staff can help both you and DH with before baby goes home. They were probably concerned that if DH is only able to visit once a week he'll struggle to be supportive once the baby is home.

Because things like "rarely" and "quiet" are subjective. If it had said dad visits weekly then that would be fine.

It may have been their job to but you can't say it's concern for the mum being ill and having no one to step in if that concern doesn't apply to single parents.

But a single parent with no support network caring for a disabled toddler and premature baby would be a source of concern and would hopefully be flagged by the hospital. Not because she is a bad mum but because she might need additional support.

Also with suing presumably it is to get answers etc and make sure it wont happen again - damages tend to only be awarded if the money is needed for the child to have a good quality of life*

It's absolutely not about the money. It's about someone taking responsibility for their lack of action and preventing it from reoccurring as I spoke to another mother and she had a similar experience.

I am a single parent with a disabled child. Questions are often asked of the support network I have - and rightly so because that support is vital and if I didn’t have it then I would probably need much more support from outside agencies or would be struggling much more.

I think sometimes these people can’t do right for doing wrong because people will always find issue whatever they do

Because things like "rarely" and "quiet" are subjective
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