To say postnatal wards are the least conducive environment for a mum/baby recovery

[cheesemumma]

Currently sitting on a ward at 11.30pm. 6th night. No exaggeration I think in total I must have had 4 hours sleep. My physical and mental health is suffering. I'm going to have to talk to the Drs tomorrow and say we're going home whatever, as we're getting more ill staying. Its not just the other selfish fucker couples that decide to talk on phone /watch films/ have conversations with each other but the staff seem to not give 2 shits it's the middle of the night. I realise my tiredness and hormones are a big contributing factor but I can feel a full tantrum /meltdown coming on. It's also 10000000 degrees and the enviable screaming babies plus the fact you get 3 teeny portions of food a day so I'm really hungry as ebf.

Yes enlightenedowl and the gratitude we are supposed to have for a free NHS so nobody complains because the NHS does us such a favour. Except it doesn't and it isn't free. It's funded by the people for the people and we have allowed it to become an unwieldy and totally mismanaged behemoth which misuses resources and does not give a jot about Service - the third word in NHS.

Until the people stop being grateful for sub optimal "care" because it's "free" it will not change.

I have to say I'm nearly 60 and at some point in the next 10 years I hope dd will have a baby. If I am her supporter I will not leave her side and God help any little shit of an hcp who tries to behave towards her as some have behaved towards you in recent times.

And Charge.

On a positive I found the maternity assistants amazing, but so stretched. They did come round and check everyone had eaten, and offered to bring something round when they could, and made sure to check bedsheets, catheters and babies. I know this is their job, but when the midwives couldn't really be arsed and felt that catheters etc were beneath them and you're left trying to let some out yourself whilst attached to IVs etc, and you're sitting in a massive pool of blood as you've rang the bell but they've said they don't change pads. Which may be true, and I'm not saying they have an easy job and loaf around, but it was so degrading and my partner had to do it (he was happy to help, but I wanted some dignity left). It was just horrendous, and although it's obvious now no one said when my baby was screaming that I hadn't latched properly and she was probably hungry.

But the MA's were great when they had the time.

So glad you’re having a better time now OP. Some of these stories are horrific and so sad to read. It’s hard enough to get your head round having a baby never I don’t being treated like shit afterwards to top all those other hormones off.

I just wanted to say though, in case anyone is pregnant for the first time and reading this thread in horror (like I just have) that my experience, in the U.K., almost two years ago was nothing short of excellent.

I was on a busy ward but visiting times in our hospital are strict so noise kept to a minimum. All of our meals were brought to us in our beds with people coming round to keep jugs of water/juice topped up and we could help ourselves to tea/coffee and toast at anytime from the kitchen.

Midwives were attentive without being intrusive (to me anyway, maybe one or two that were a bit pushy about feeding) and the morning after my first night there, a midwife told me she’d been doing obs etc but I was sleeping so soundly with the baby from about 2am that she told everyone to leave us alone and just poked her head round the curtain every now and again.

Medicine rounds were prompt, call buttons were answered almost instantly and everything was beautifully clean. Our hospital doesn’t generally even have that much of a good reputation. I was moved to a side room after a couple of days (and again when I was readmitted) and my care remained the same, I was encouraged to rest, watch television and cuddle with my baby.

It makes me so sad to think that other people aren’t getting this experience up and down the country but I just wanted to say that it isn’t that bad everywhere. More campaigning needs to be done to change these things.

"Not my job ". It absolutely is their job if everyone else is busy. As a company director it's not my job to pick up a ringing phone, answer the door, or copy a visitor's docs, but I do beause I'm responsible for the service of a directorate and if my apprentices or clerical staff are busy I roll up my sleeves because it's role modelling and emphasises the importance of providing a service at all times. If I hear that, there's hell to pay - the service is everybody's job.

Of course its fiction but I smile watching call the midwife when they are told they are on district that day. No chance now with current training standards and midwives with no nursing skills or inclination to do so.

First of all congrats on your baby. I read the first half of this thread but couldn't finish it as it brought back awful flashbacks from when I had my dd in 2002. It was horrific and contributed to my pnd. I couldn't set foot in a hospital for years without getting physically sick and shaky after what I had experienced. I had my second child at home. I remember the community midwife kept telling me all the awful things that may happen by giving birth at home (very professional) but I'd rather risk that than set foot in another hospital again. Fucking barbaric conditions. I wish I had had the strength to make a complaint. I was just so mentally scarred from it I couldn't.

YANBU. I spent three nights on the postnatal ward and it was filthy. I spent the whole time in bloodstained sheets because I wasn't provided with new ones after bleeding all over them on the first afternoon, despite begging for clean sheets. I also had to stare at my own bloodstained handprint on the partition for three days and nights. I'd have cleaned it off myself but they kept saying no, they would send someone to do it (they didn't).

I was left without any pain relief for more than three hours after requesting it, on the morning after my c-section. I ended up crying with pain and then I got pigeonholed as "not coping" and was repeatedly told that I wouldn't be allowed to take my baby home until I'd shown I could cope. This left me with postnatal anxiety because I'm a single mum and became paranoid that someone would take my baby away. They also forgot to observe me at all on the first night and didn't give me the injection that I was supposed to have (the one that's to do with blood-clotting?). One of the nicer members of staff eventually apologised and admitted that they'd completely forgotten me because they were overstretched. Despite the fact that the injection was over twelve hours late, I got yelled at for asking for a moment to compose myself (I'm not good with needles) because it was too important to wait.

I also got yelled at for asking if someone could help me walk four paces to the loo because I was feeling very faint. Fair enough if they were too busy, but I didn't deserve to be yelled at (especially since I was only feeling like I was about to pass out because my request for pain relief had been fobbed off for hours).

Breastfeeding support was pretty much non-existent. I was made to feel crazy because I thought my baby was hungry (she would feed for an hour and then almost immediately start screaming to go back on the breast, on repeat for three nights). It wasn't until the health visitor came out after I was discharged that someone checked my latch and discovered that it was shit, by which point my nipples were one big mess of bruising and blood.

I was actually amazed when I got home and realised that I could do this, because those three nights on the ward left me totally crushed and feeling like a failed mother.

Op
Just leave AMA.
I had to stay 3 nights after dd1. Left.
Much better at home able to feed baby and stay in bed with her.

We're home. Thank the lord. Now to feed feed feed so we never have to go back.

I don't agree that men should be in the showers but it's absolutely ridiculous that some people don't think a man should be on the ward at all. So yeah, the Dad definitely shouldn't be be allowed to see their new child for the first 24 hours of its life should they??? Ffs how stupid!!

Thank God cheesemumma. Glad you are home!

I work as a Maternity patient representative as part of the Better Births initiative and there’s a huge focus here on postnatal care since that’s where there are the most complaints. But when they talk about postnatal care they’re talking about women who are at home - I’ve had to point out repeatedly that not all women get to go home within 48 hours and their experiences are often negative.

We are getting a new hospital and the new PN Ward will be almost exclusively private rooms. They have to allow men to stay because they don’t have the staff to actually care for the women. They’ve had to put really strict rules in place because men were wandering around naked / in underwear, bringing in curries, bringing in alcohol, sleeping in the bed while recovering partners were consigned to the chair next to the bed, etc.

Has anything been put in place for women who don't have someone to come in and stay with them?

This is something I’ve brought up repeatedly, and it seems from feedback that they are doing better at identifying the patients who don’t have support / need additional help and making sure they get it

How far would this go? For example on a mixed ward I'd want someone to accompany me if I needed to walk to the kitchen at night to get water, I can't see staff being willing to do that.

YANBU

My baby boy was born at 24 weeks and sadly died early hours of the next morning.

The only spare bed was on the post natal ward with 3 other mothers all with there babies.

I self discharged against advice 17 hours after a caesarean.

It was my very lovely GP who saw me the next day to sort pain relief/sedatives and who hugged me while I cried on her.

Ive had 5 kids and other horror stories but that is the one that still gives me nightmares.

They have to allow men to stay because they don’t have the staff to actually care for the women. They’ve had to put really strict rules in place because men were wandering around naked / in underwear, bringing in curries, bringing in alcohol, sleeping in the bed while recovering partners were consigned to the chair next to the bed, etc.

This is sadly very common, for every supportive sensible partner/husband that stays there are at least two others that really don't want to be there but feel obligated to stay because new mums want them there. And tbh they are a pain in the bum for staff.

Also do these private rooms have bathrooms?

Op I'm glad you are home. Let the good times begin!
Bringing your tiny human home is the most amazing, crazy, bazaar moment ever. And by tomorrow they'll have taken over the house with 'stuff' in every room.

Sinkgirl - it's not just about identifying who doesn't have support. A lady might appear to have tons of support. Parents, DH, family. But actually which support is really avaible.
DH might have work / financial pressure that means he's not available.

Their might be older siblings that need cared for that takes up GP time.
Leaving the new mum to struggle on in isolation. Mums need proper care!

Of course men should be allowed to see their newborn children but not at the expense of other new mothers’ privacy and dignity. They shouldn’t be there all night, using the showers, keeping the actual patients awake. I know I’m old and things (thank God) were different when I had mine but postnatal wards were a haven and a sanctuary in those days. They should be all about women.

Glad you are home OP.

I posted earlier in this thread but my experience was nothing compared to what I've read. At the very least, meals and water were brought to me. I can't imagine giving birth and then having to wander round the ward to find food and drink.

DH stayed with us in our private room but had to sign a form to say that he wouldn't wander round half naked, wouldn't drink alcohol or bring hot food into the ward. He also wasn't allowed to shower in the bathroom. They seemed like silly things at the time, but it sounds like they were all perfectly valid.

@snuggybuggy my private room had an en suite bathroom.

it's not just about identifying who doesn't have support. A lady might appear to have tons of support. Parents, DH, family. But actually which support is really avaible.

As I said, they’re better at identifying who doesn’t have support and / or needs additional help. They’re well aware that just having a partner / family member present doesn’t mean a woman has sufficient help. The staff would want to give proper care to all the women themselves if they could, obviously the staffing levels are not their choice and they’d rather have more people on duty. They know that it’s not a pleasant place to stay. The issue has been communicating these issues to those in charge, the staff themselves are acutely aware.

Yes, in the new hospital design all the single rooms in postnatal, antenatal and delivery have en-suite shower rooms. They even have a couple of larger rooms for parents with multiples (I’ve seen parents of triplets crammed into a regular size postnatal bay, which are absolutely tiny). Our maternity unit at present is very old and really not a nice place to be.

Would the staff accompany you to the kitchen to get some water? If they had time I’m sure they would. Whether they have time would depend on a lot of factors. They should be bringing you water anyway though, you shouldn’t having to get up up and push your baby’s bassinette to a kitchen to get a drink.

Is their additional security to enforce rules about men not behaving like louts on the wards?