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?

Thing is in the ‘old days’ when men strictly stayed out of postnatal wards wasn’t it standard that babies would be cared for a lot by the nurses/midwives so women could rest?

It feels a bit like they sort of rely on women having their partners there to do a lot of help that previously hospital staff would have done.

Tbh shared postnatal wards are horrendous. So many seem to have shocking experiences with them and they can make the experience pretty traumatic. It would be great if private rooms were the norm after a having a baby.

I think the only way for women who want their partners to stay is if they pay for a private room

There has to be enough private rooms in the hospital in the first place.

I had to wait for one to open up because there were only a handful of them. I had had enough after listening to 12 hours of visitors loudly talking, couples “quietly” arguing, not being able to use the loo or feel comfortable to because there 8-12+ people (not including the 6 other pregnant women already there) in the room as well as people walking in and out. Not even headphones can drown out the sound. The postnatal ward is not a place you can easily heal and rest with a newborn.

That private room was f-ing bliss and it was nice to have a quiet room with a tv, an en-suite bathroom with a nice clean shower, and a large couch for my husband.

Either more private rooms or even keep the wards and have an area just designated for visitors or at least a set number of how many visitors can be in at one time.

My experience was ok but we did have just the one bloke who snored all night. Why go stay overnight if your going to sleep through? May as well stay at home...

I spent 3 weeks on an ante-natal ward. The selfishness of some people! I remember the couple of days before my planned C-section, the woman in the bed next to me had about 10 visitors at a time, nicking everyone's chairs and crowding round her bed to watch EastEnders. I was in bed in my pj's and they'd decided as I was on bed rest I needed a anti-coagulant or summat, so stealth nurse would appear, pull down my jammies and stick a needle in my arse at a random time, no curtains or anything! It was dreadful. No bloody privacy at all.

Lots of sympathy. One of the low points of my labour was the bit where I was screaming with pain in the day pregnancy unit, begging someone to examine me because I needed to push, and the guy sat by the bed of the woman next to me very loudly sighed and turned the football playing on his phone up higher.

A high point of the whole thing is that they ran out of space in the postnatal ward so I stayed in the labour room overnight - I was elated because I'd heard such bad things about it. It's pretty awful if spending the twelve hours after you give birth in a room that has no proper bed or cot (DS spent his first night sleeping on a resus table!) and which is spattered with your blood is the good option, but everything I heard about the postnatal ward at my local hospital before and since convinced me it was, because at least I was on my own.

Y'all have massive issues you need to sort in regards to privacy & basic human rights.

It would seem that y’all have even more massive issues if your doctors would stand back and let you and your baby die if you don’t ‘sort out’ insurance.

My lasting memories from the post-natal ward (each time) aka hellhole, are of entitled, shitty men. Was finally discharged the last time after breaking down because the whole thing was so undignified.

Who, in their right mind, decided that it would be a good idea to have men staying overnight on maternity wards. I had a CS and it was bad enough that the women next to me had about 8 relatives come to visit with smelly Indian takeaways. If they had stayed any longer I would have discharged myself CS or not!

I had useless male partners of other new mums coming behind my curtain to have a chat when I was trying to learn to breastfeed - I was very snarly.

As others have said ..complain to PALS ....!

LemonPrism -
Camping stove on a ward, I've seen one set up and lit on an aeroplane before now, in mid-flight in the Middle East.

I had a c section with DS2 One of my most vivid memories is off having to find the patient toilets after having my catheter removed and encountering men just wondering around the ward aimlessly. I remember feeling incredibly vulnerable and just hated it.

When my DH visited DS2 and I, he stayed in the cubicle with us and promptly left when visiting time finished he didn't loiter around the ward like it was a shopping centre. The total lack of awareness or realising they are in a shared space with vulnerable women is astounding.

Sounds vile op.
I don't agree with men being allowed to stay over full stop.

Why doesn’t it make sense @MyDcAreMarvel? Do you not realise other people’s experience might be different to yours? I wasn’t induced. I went to the hospital having had 12 hours of contractions but was only 2cm dilated. They wouldn’t admit me to the delivery suite until I was 4cm dilated but wouldn’t let me home as I’d had severe high BP in my previous labour. So the plan was to admit me to the ward because I had to go somewhere but that would have meant my partner had to go home at the end of visiting had I not been ready to be moved to delivery suite by then.

So sorry if it “makes no sense” but I can assure you it’s what happened.

I sent dh home each time there’s no way I wanted him there not being horrible but he needed to go home and tidy the house and get a few full nights sleep so when I was discharged he could help properly and everything was in order at home

I had a spell on an ante-natal ward before I had DD2. There was myself and another ‘long termer.’ We never minded the ladies in early labour/induction and actually most of them apologised for any noise they made which we didn’t care about, but what we both bonded over was inconsiderate birthing partners (male and female to be fair.) There was the night of white trainer man, who complained he was tired, bored, cold - his partner just wanted to walk the stairs but he whinged and moaned and eventually got into her bed and had a kip, leaving her to the midwives. There was the two birthing partners of one lady who had loud conversations all night. Another one who kept bringing McDonalds in. (We wouldn’t have minded if they’d offered to get us something!)
The midwives were great and did tell them to keep the noise down, but it did keep going back up louder again.
I didn’t mind so much when it was just the ladies, especially when you have to have the conversations about piles etc. and the day a consultant with two medical students did the ward rounds, it caused almost everyone to wet themselves laughing when they’d gone but you are all in it together so to speak and once the husbands/partners came in you lost that and the camaraderie that went with it. I actually liked having company when I was in for a while before DD2’s eviction, just wish people would be more considerate and either ask partners to leave during ward rounds as a minimum, or have private consulting rooms, (they could come back in during their partner’s consultation.)

Thank goodness that I had my DC before this became a thing. My DH is a world champion snorer so I wouldn’t have wanted him there either.

@MyDcAreMarvel I was induced and had a pessary it didn't do a bloody thing! Ended up being 24hrs before I was put on a drip and labour actually began for me. Labour is different for everyone.

I couldn't wait for my DH to bugger off once I was on the post natal ward tbh. I think he felt the same too. I couldn't really move much by myself (30+ stitches, 2nd degree tear), but I was knackered/elated and just wanted to lay in bed with my baby.

Completely out of order. The staff should put a stop to it but they probably don’t want the aggro. After my second I remember the noise levels on the ward, for example the partner of the woman opposite me had nothing better to do one his daughters 1st day in the world than watch the footie at top volume. There’s a lack of protection of the post partum woman. I also had to hobble to the end of the ward and queue up for supper. Which was barely edible and god knows I was hungry.
You promise yourself you’ll write a letter, but in reality you are just too tired and emotional post birth to put pen to paper.

Fuck. I would absolutely hate this. This bullshit is why men should not be on communal maternity wards! Private side wards- fine. But not where other women are. This crap is just proof that there will always be an arsehole man disrupting women in labour/recovering from labour.

I stayed in for 14 nights and went mad with this.
I had a particularly bad offender in the cubicle opposite me. He had his phone on loudspeaker 24/7 facetime ring people around the world. I eventually list it after about the 3rd night. When I hot out of bed and whipped back the curtain I found his wife on a chair, him reclining in the bed. I shouted like a maniac and grabbed his phone then put it down and hot back in bed. He rang the emergency button and complained!
The midwife said there was nothing they could do about him, I pointed out that I would do something if they didnt. Something was said, he left.
OP you need to be REALLY persistent. Repeatedly tell staff all night it's making you feel ill. Press your bell non stop if you need to. Keep asking them to get the men to shut up They'll get the message.

I found it made me feel very vulnerable especially at night when I was walking around yo have random men wandering the ward. Midwives had apparently repeatedly complained about the men staying policy but this had been made by the trust in a bid to consider mens equality. They all thought it was ridiculous too. Most of the patients complained. Nothing happened.

Go straight to PALS.

Why on earth are men allowed to stay overnight? I'd hate that if I'd just given birth.