Inconsiderate Men on maternity ward!

[busylifebusywife]

I've had a placenta abruption and I'm currently on bed rest on the maternity ward that women go to for induction and when the are poorly during pregnancy.

My hospital has new rules where partners can stay over night which is fine I don't really mind, what I do mind is that some of the men especially seem to be so inconsiderate! Having their mobiles going off on loud constantly playing there devices at full wack, getting there male friends to visit. Yesterday two guys in the cubical next to me decided to lift the curtain completely up and go underneath it exposing me and just laugh about it.

Now I'm not a midwife but I do know for a women's labour to progress nicely they need to feel secure and relaxed. How is this creating that environment?

I really don't mind male visitors or males staying on the ward over night I just wish they would be more courteous of others.

I'm starting to get really upset by it as I'm in a lot of pain and supposed to be on bed rest.

AIBU?

Absolutely Cheesecake

DoTheHop

Your lack of empathy is spectacular.

The hospitals are failing women. There should be no need for any patient to require a relative to provide care whilst they are in hospital, but sadly that is the situation. Until that changes I can't condemn any woman who seeks help from their partner or another visitor.

This is the fault of government and hospitals for not providing adequate care. It isn't the fault of the patients or their relatives no matter how much you try to pin the blame on them.

The hospital I was in didn't allow visitors outside of visiting hours. The father could stay during labour and for a few hours after, but then they were sent away and only allowed in during visiting hours.
So the failure in my care had nothing to do with men taking up resources. But if someone had been allowed to be with me during the day, then I wouldn't haven been left in pain and unable to get up.

This is the fault of government and hospitals for not providing adequate care. CORRECT.

Again, I reiterate, the solution is NOT men on women's wards!

I could argue that your lack of empathy for women who don't relish the fact of your husband being there is also quite astounding. Zebra

If you're on a regular, standard post birth maternity ward after giving birth, then you're not unconscious.

You may well be semi conscious if you've had a GA.

You may well be bed ridden, unable to walk if you've had an epidural. How are you meant to get to your baby to feed it or change it's nappy without someone's help? If that isn't the midwives or HCA who is it going to be?

And no, it doesn't have to be a man demanding pain relief. It needs to be someone not vulnerable, unwell or in pain. And of course they can argue for more pain relief even when the midwife is saying no. If you've had whatever is prescribed but it isn't adequate then you need to be reviewed and different medication prescribed and someone needs to be insisting that happens.

Would you have a smear test in a GP waiting area?

Would you establish breastfeeding in a GP waiting area?

Would you allow men to see you bleeding through pads walking to the toilet at work?

No?

Then, please realise, that men have no place on gynae or maternity wards. Whether he's the most eloquent angel of a gift from God of a husband TO YOU or not.
He's not my husband, so I don't care if he's the Pope himself - I don't want him there.

I could argue that your lack of empathy for women who don't relish the fact of your husband being there is also quite astounding. Zebra

Good job he wasn't there then isn't it? Read my posts. Very clearly pointed out that when I had my children husband's weren't allowed to stay. I discharged myself against medical advice because the care (or lack of) was so terrible.

Why don't you share a link to this thread to your newly elected MP?

Might be somewhere to start zebra.

And what sort of mystical solution would your husband have been zebra?

DoTheHop

Do the us how you intend to ensure that all the women on antenatal and post natal wards right now are getting food, drink, pain relief, monitored properly, taken to the toilet, given help picking their babies up then?

In fact, how are you going to get that help in the future? Why should any woman have to labour on an antenatal ward without pain relief and without anyone to support her either? That's what happens though. What's your solution to that? So far, your answer is ban men. Then what?

DoTheHop

I'm doing plenty to try and improve care at my local hospital.

What help would my DH have been? He would have gone and git my food, helped me to the toilet, changed the baby, passed her to me to feed, changed her clothes, git me pain killers, told the staff that my other medication was needed when they forgot, repeatedly, to get it for me.

Had my sister been allowed her husband on the antenatal ward when she was in labour I wouldn't have had to get up from bed rest, whilst pregnant and with pre eclampsia, to sit with her while she had a bath because no midwife available to do it, no bed on labour ward and no pain relief allowed on antenatal ward.

Men weren't allowed on the ward when I had my first in 2006 (other two weren't born in the UK). The midwives/HCAs still weren't answering call bells and still didn't have time to help. I had severe pre-eclampsia and was on magnesium sulfate and was left alone.

I'd love it if there were proper staffing, but it's not like partners are replacing staff. There weren't enough to start with. It doesn't help that so many women are in one bay either.

Funny that those who insist their husband should be there - and is Florence Nightengale herself reincarnated - are all bizarrely on this thread.

And yet actual, real maternity wards seem to be populated by clueless, snoring, oafish buffoons.

Some serious cognitive dissonance going on.

I am just thankful that even 10 years ago, there were no overnight visitors. I'm so sorry for the experiences too many women seem to be having now.

So do we agree that more staff is the solution then?

Or are we still divided on whether men are the solution?

So do we agree that more staff is the solution then?

Obviously more staff is the answer but that isn't happening anytime soon, if at all, so how do you make sure that women in there right now get at least some help?

Are you going to go in and make up the short fall?

Good. Finally we agree on something.

so how do you make sure that women in there right now get at least some help?

By 'help' do you mean lifting up the dividing curtain to laugh at the neighbouring in-patient, hogging the bathroom, and keeping everyone awake with their snoring?

What are we agreeing on? How are you going to make sure that women are looked after now? When you succeed in banning men what do you think is going to happen?

As I said, are you volunteering to go into hospitals to fetch and carry food, help patients to the toilet, help change nappies etc?

By 'help' do you mean lifting up the dividing curtain to laugh at the neighbouring in-patient, hogging the bathroom, and keeping everyone awake with their snoring?

Don't be ridiculous.

By helping I mean actual help.

As a matter of fact, when I was in we were kept awake every night by a snorer.

I wonder how many complaining mums here voted Tory 🤔🙄
Had my DC in Scottish hospitals and have only praise for my care received.

Definitely not me.

**

Don't be ridiculous.

By helping I mean actual help.

But that's the entire point.

The actual living, breathing, snoring men cluttering up maternity wards overnight are not helping.

They're making a nuisance of themselves, and getting in the way of the actual staff.

No, some of the men are being a hindrance. Some of the men are actually decent human beings who are doing all they can to be helpful.

I was a patient in hospital earlier this year. My room was opposite the ward kutchen and a toilet. Every day for the 7 days I was in, a woman brought 2 children in to visit their dad who was a patient. Multiple times she brought the children down and let them go into the kitchen to help themselves to the breakfast cereals. Then they would be running in and out of the toilet. Some people are just inconsiderate arse holes regardless of sex. They don't seem to think that rules apply to them.

I don't think that there should be a need for any relative to have to stay in hospital in order to fill in the gaps in care. That is a terrible indictment of the care happening in the NHS.