To think we don’t need partners staying overnight in the post natal ward

[Mammylamb]

If on a shared ward it would have been my idea of a nightmare. The lack of privacy. A midwife bursting in when my boobs were out. Someone pushing against the curtain when I was getting my catheter removed. It was horrible enough when there were other women about. Never mind any random men

www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/8981244/mum-debate-dads-stay-overnight-maternity-wards/?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=fabulousfacebook080919&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1567937417

Of medical care shouldn't be the responsibility of an 'untrained family member', but while the state derelicts its duty to provide such medical care, with no immediate prospect of any change, it is both cruel and dangerous to refuse women their own informal support.

My husband stayed both nights I was in hospital after DD2. The difference in my mental health compared to when I had DD1 was incredible. I specifically wrote to the hospital thanking them.

How many women are leaving hospital with PTSD & their Pnd increased because they didnt get the right level of support & care during their hospital stay? Most women don't get a choice about going in to hospital to give birth or even which hospital they are admitted to, they should have a choice of if a loved one stays to support & care for them. Maybe if every woman who comments on here emails their MP & tells them about the shortcomings of maternity care & suggestions of how it could be improved, we might get women's voices heard.

Are you seriously telling me that if your partner had just nearly bled to death and was currently paralysed from the waist down you would leave her alone to look after your newborn baby in case a woman in the next cubicle felt uncomfortable about your presence? Not a nice choice to be forced to make but I know what my choice would be

This was me and I chose for my DH to go home because, you know, I wasn’t a selfish arse. The nursing staff I had were amazing and there was no need for DH to stay. This was just my experience and I wouldn’t have had my DH to stay on a ward with women who were vulnerable (for many reasons) after childbirth.

I’ve noticed those who have had a c section have the advantage of the operation being scheduled during the morning/afternoon. Unless it was an emergency c section.

Which does mean that they can spend the first recovery period with their partner until night time comes.

Do bare in mind many women who went through labour don’t have that option and might actually have been admitted into postnatal ward just around when visiting hours have finished.

As I mentioned my traumatic birth finished at 8 and I was in the ward by 9.30pm if not more because I had stitching done and so on. I cannot imagine having to deal wit the baby alone within half an hour. It was physically not possible.

Secondly.. I just think every birth is sooo different depending on what the mother has gone through. So reallt you cannot assume what works for you works for someone else. So many variables.

Labour is common to start at night and oxytocin intensifies at night so that’s when the babies pop out.. so the likelihood is that these hours of the night are the first interactions both parents and baby have with each other.. and is the most time when anyone from a traumatic birth needs emotional support to not take he trauma with them.

I was quite delusional.. I kept being hysterical thinking something happened to the baby waking up In tears. If I didn’t have my DH there I reallt thjnj I would’ve been more disruptive to the mothers.

Honestly can't believe this thread is still going.
We're never going to agree with each other and the answer lies with investment in post natal care. If only it were that simple though.
I will say this.
I still can't believe that so many women who insist on their right to have their DH with them 24/7 openly don't give a fuck about the other women on the ward! It's pretty sickening actually.

Your DH comes well, WELL below the pecking order in a women's ward where women are recovering from giving birth.

Whether it's because you feel you need him, or he feels he needs to be near you. No matter how traumatised he might feel about YOUR birth experience or worried about you and your DC, he needs to pull up his big boys Y fronts and accept that his presence when lights are low can be intimidating for other women dealing with their own traumas.

If even only one out of four of the women in a ward is uncomfortable with strange men in their female ward then it shouldn't ever happen. End of.

I also had traumatic births and poor post natal ward experiences which I won't go into detail about (as it's not a horror story competition).
It's never really left me but despite it all I would never have argued for my DH to stay overnight because believe it or not it would automatically occur to me that it might be upsetting for other women. I'm not a do gooder or a martyr or anything like that. I just can't honestly believe that others don't think like that.

On a different note some of the comments up thread about how traumatised women are by the birth process and post natal recovery have me wondering why some women are so shocked and unprepared for what might happen during birth?

Birth is by its very nature utterly brutal and animalistic. We will (unless we're very lucky) be dazed and bruised and exhausted and possibly drugged up after it. Why aren't we properly prepared for that?

I wonder whether things like NCT teachings of gentle natural birth, hypnobirthing etc has given women a false expectation of how beautiful it's all going to be?

Are we setting ourselves up? Maybe a whole other thread but you've got to wonder.

As for some of the other comments - well they're just ridiculous. Someone up thread was furious that their DH first held their DC in a corridor!!!!
A corridor would you believe?? Can almost hear the foot stamping from here

Anyway as I said we're not going to agree. Maybe we should all use the anger on this thread to campaign for proper maternity care then we could all unite behind the same cause.

"This was me and I chose for my DH to go home because, you know, I wasn’t a selfish arse. The nursing staff I had were amazing and there was no need for DH to stay"

I'm glad you weren't left alone all night with no ability to care for your equally vulnerable baby. That is the reality for many.

MintChocAddict

But you are able to believe that those women wanting to ban all men give a shit about the mothers who said they actually needed their DH for medical reasons?

And you are going to try find holes in those women by blaming them for being unprepared for labour ?

Yeh labour is no funny matter but some people do end up stayint in hospitals for longer because there is a medical need!!! And in this case the mother feels vulnerable to have a new born under the care of a stranger.

No one is saying the worry of other women aren’t valid about not wanting men there. But I think the solution should include both needs... not just yours. Because that’s selfishz

And no based on how my hospital lay out was, I wouldn’t have assumed women where uncomfortable with my dH. Simply because most people were told the hospitals allowed partners - encouraged even- to be there.

That’s why I chose it. And I have no appology,

There are other hospitals that don’t,

Well you certainly put your two penneth in Mint for somebody shocked at
the thread still going. I note you get to put your very lengthy views but you want to shut down those who suffered traumatic experiences who absolutely needed their partners, kind of hinting that it’s due to not being up to giving birth and selfishness.

Nice and obviously utterly ridiculous.

@Smotheroffive No I don't think it should.
But you need to stop being a silly billy and realise that's just not happening and I and a lot of other people will not ever put ourselves at risk. And so will prioritise our needs.

This subject has me incredibly torn.
I had a very traumatic birth resulting in emergency c-section which left me very unwell. That unwell that the anaesthetist didn’t want me to go to the post natal ward he wanted me to remain in theatre recovery for closer monitoring overnight. This was awful, there was one midwife and 4 ladies who’s had sections not acceptable in this environment. I was handed my baby and then the curtain drawn so I could try to feed I could feel myself dropping her because I was so weak but had no buzzer to call for help. I shouted for help but nobody came.
my DP was asked to go home hours before that. When I did get to the ward the care I received was just as bad so I would have welcomed a bit of help from my DP.
However the lady in the bed opposite me her husband never left the ward til gone midnight he was so rude and one day he even walked round in just his underpants and when the midwife told him off be simply said he’d been having skin to skin time with baby didn’t see an issue that other women were there. They were awful and I felt very vulnerable I really struggled knowing he was there.
So I really can see both sides of the argument here

I think this whole issue is just women trying to have a one up on men, and trying to push a feminist agenda of wanting men to know they’re excluded.. which is totally fine except it’s blindingly coming at the cost of 30 percent of women who feel their suffering is being silenced.

I thought the whole thing is to find things that work for women. U know.

It’s not about proving anything to men.. it’s about catering for bloody women

I'm not remotely scared of men ( although clearly some of them are arseholes).
I think the essential point is this: many women had very good reasons for needing their husbands there to help them, such as with twins or after a c section BUT
the more this is normalised-Hell it's expected now- the more the hospitals will depend on it.
As I said, I had no help, and boy did it piss them off. That's just screwed up. Husbands are no substitute for midwives.

Whatever did happen to the MN campaign about post natal care? Did I dream it??

As other posters have said it boils down to a lack of care on maternity wards

Better care and more staff will mean that there is not a need to have non-patients on the wards overnight

Of course how we get that is the challenge

Hell it's expected now- the more the hospitals will depend on it.

Yep, there have been threads on here where women have been given leaflets outlining what the role of their 'support person' will be.

I'm not blaming anyone for being unprepared for labour jealous

I'm simply wondering whether women's perception of how fucking awful birth and afterwards can be is flawed and what the reasons for that might be?

I'm sure you've read threads on here by women who feel they have failed by having an EMCS when their natural childbirth teacher told them it would be all candles and music?
Maybe some women struggle with birth going off track and the mucky aftermath because they're woefully underprepared for it?

Maybe some women would cope better afterwards if they weren't in shock about the whole experience?

Maybe if men were off the wards at night, women wouldn't be in their own small family bubble and would be able to talk to and support other women who were struggling? Now there's a thought!

I remember both times talking to the other women in the room, keeping a watch on their babies while they hobbled to the toilet and back. I remember another patient handing me my baby when I couldn't reach the cot. Once I was on my feet I brought food from the lunch station for someone else who wasn't. I remember talking to a woman opposite who was clearly on her own whose only visitor was her elderly mother who took 3 buses so visited rarely. Two of us spotted the Mum in the corner really struggling during the night and alerted a midwife.

Would any of that happened if we were all behind the curtains (except for maybe that one person in the ward completely alone and intimidated by other people men?) She would really benefit from other watchful women.

Women supporting women. That's all.

I wonder whether it’s a hormonal thing to absolutely resent the idea of men in close proximity after birth.

I wonder whether it’s some maternal hormone to kick the men away so they don’t claim the baby is theirs.

And maybe those of us who had our husbands there don’t understand it because I felt completely safe wirh DH claiming his son... and so everyone else was just a blur.

Sounds silly but trying to make sense of this all biologically because I genuinely am the type that feels vulnerable around men but definately didn’t feel that on the ward..

As much as I would have loved DH to stay with me I think overall the ward was better without being full of strange men all night.

Sounds silly

Yes it does

MintChocAddict

Some trauma might be due to being unprepared. But you can’t deny that some labour were not meant to end up in the mothers or babies surviving and they only do because of medical intervention and so no, it’s not just “meAnt to be this way”. We were also meant to lose blood. Lose consciousness. Lose babies. Lose lives..

I think this whole issue is just women trying to have a one up on men, and trying to push a feminist agenda of wanting men to know they’re excluded.. which is totally fine except it’s blindingly coming at the cost of 30 percent of women who feel their suffering is being silenced.

Really? That's what you take from this? Women like me who have ptsd and who are triggered regularly by perfectly innocent men doing perfectly innocent things are pushing a feminist agenda? I've heard it all now. This thread seems to think because I had the shitty bad luck to get raped that I don't deserve postnatal care because I can't stay on a ward with men and we are the selfish unfair ones?

In the hospital I was in, men had to go home in the evening - in fact all guests did. I thought this was a UK wide thing?

MaryBerriesNiece...” a selfish arse”...I actually can’t believe what I have read. Let me give you one example of why I needed my husband. I had to take DS1 to special care at 6.00am for IV antibiotics. Was at the other side of the hospital so I had to walk through a dark and empty hospital in my nightdress pushing DS1 in crib despite the fact I had almost died 24 hours later (this is not an exaggeration, my blood pressure dropped so low that my heart was close to stopping). Anyway, the lack of staff meant that they didn’t answer the buzzer to get me back in the ward. I ended up having to stand in the entrance to the hospital and shit myself as I refused to wheel DS1 into the public toilet and leave him outside the cubicle. Still think I am selfish for wanting my husband?!!!

dinosaur don't bite. Ignore those throwing around feminist agenda accusations. Not worth a response.