To not have to Be stressed on post natal ward?

[ifeeltheneedtheneedforsleep]

I had my baby earlier in the week and after a very traumatic delivery he's in SCBU while I'm on the post natal ward (trying to recover from emergency surgery AND going back and forth to be with baby).
The staff have been amazing so this is in no way a criticism of them but it is a criticism of the idiot pen pusher who no doubt deemed it a good idea to implement a policy allowing partners or friends or family to stay over with mothers on the post natal ward!
The ward is full tonight and it's like a freaking zoo! Next to me I've got a woman who has her mother staying who repeatedly rings the midwife asking for food, pillows, water etc etc for her MOTHER because you know, she's travelled a long way! I've lost count of the amount of times they've bashed through my curtain and sent everything flying!
Opposite is a woman who at the moment has a partner and his male friend (who the midwife is trying to evict to their protests about it being too late at night for him to leave) - they are busy watching bollywood movies on an iPad at full volume and have their own picnic going on so it's non stop crinkle, rustle munch munch on top of their cackling, loud chatting and movie!! That's just two or the finer examples but the rest are having full on conversations at nearly half past midnight!

Is it too much to ask to recover on a ward where you don't feel like you're in party central, where you can actually speak to the midwife about bleeding or leaky boobs without having just a curtain between you and some randoms? Or even to be able to change without worrying that some idiot is going to pull your curtain back because they've barged it constantly? 😡

I have every sympathy for you.

Partners have no place on a post natal ward outside of the usual visiting hours. I am so glad none of this nonsense was a thing when my babies were born, and yes, I did have an emergency c-section with an epidural that took 12 hours to wear off.

@ChardonnaysDistantCousin talking of slouching dads in chairs while pregnant women are left standing, this happened to me recently at a scan. One dad was on his phone, cap pulled down low, slumped down, legs out, taking up a large two-seater sofa on his own. The waiting room was packed. He was sat slap bang in the middle of the sofa. I stood in front of him and asked him to move and he didn’t. He just ignored me. I got called in at that point or I’d have been tempted to kick him in the shins and tell him to get the fuck up.

There were signs all over the place saying seating was for mums as a priority. But all over the waiting room were hoards of kids and families filling the seats and pregnant women left standing awkwardly. I actually gave my seat up at one point for a great granny with a walking stick. She was with a huge family group of about 27, all there for some kind of massive gender reveal.

When did manners, common sense and consideration for others go completely by the wayside?!

winter if that happens again, ask reception to intervene.

They should be doing it unprompted, but are usually too busy.

it has nothing to do with whatever 'generation snowflake' is

Of course it does!!

Yes the need for partners/family to stay overnight is absolutely down to understaffing/funding of the NHS, but the selfish entitled behaviour of those individuals is fuck all to do with the NHS and is entirely a symptom of the "I want it now and I'm most important" society that we live in today!!

Nobody gives a flying fuck about anyone but themselves anymore, MN is rife with it.

OP I'd be complaining, very loudly and not giving a shit if I offended any of them

When did manners, common sense and consideration for others go completely by the wayside?!

around about 2005 I think......

Partners should NOT be there overnight. I have had 3 emergency sections and I managed without my other half there. Everyone in the ward managed. Nobody is saying it is easy after a section but Christ women have been doing it for decades without drafting in partners to "help" and have a feckin sleepover and the rest of the ward just have to put up with it.

You want your partner to stay ..pay for a private room where you are bothering nobody.

My heart goes out to you OP, that sounds horrendous.

OP I really really feel for you, when ds2 was born 4 years ago I was on a ward where we were separated as our DC were very very poorly in third level SCBU and frankly none were doing so well (to reassure you he is currently a wonderfully cute bouncing sociopathic little dictator who the dog just escaped from into my study) and one or two of the partners stayed and my God I could have strangled one with my bare hands. the rustling and whispering and pushing through the curtain " accidentally " (more like the arrogant twit couldn't be arsed to think about anyone but himself).

One prick nearly got himself gutted when he tried to bogart and keep behind the curtain one of the only two breast pumps on that ward (even his DP told him not to) I suspect the only thing that saved his life on that occasion was that we had all had C Sections and couldn't move fast enough.

Really hope all quietens down and the midwives step in ( for an unrelated to partner reason our had to start getting really firm and it was fun to watch her go scary on people )

God knows what the "normal" wards were like. I do believe it's fair to have the partner support in some way but the second they start causing any level of nuisance....out and zero tolerance.

Are there really big groups going into nhs medical scans? Or is this in private scans?

I didn’t have my dc too long again but this change and the newly arrived overnight visitor issue makes me feel as if I had mine during Call the Midwife era!

When my first child was born 20 years ago the ward was held in firm check by a sister complete with starched aprons. A baby became very ill really quickly one day, literally was feeding and went into a state of collapse.All visitors were refused entry and the baby was airlifted to hospital.Total priority was given to the two people who needed attention and no visitors were allowed entry until everything had been sorted. I made lasting friendships on that ward and some of our children grew up together. There really was a feeling of sisterhood, if that doesn't sound twee.The ladies supported each other throughout the pains, stitches, breast feeding issues etc.
Fast forwarding ten years, when my son was born the ward had changed beyond belief.The partners had moved in and they dominated the ward. There was rarely any opportunity to talk to other women in the ward and they functioned as family units really.
I always remember one father checking out my son and asking his weight.He was large, almost 11lbs but the Dad said he didn't look that weight, he looked much smaller than his 8lb son.I genuinely believe these wards need reclaimed and also appreciate how important it is for partners to have that contact.

You have more than one midwife on a postnatal ward? What hospital are you in??

I tell everyone going to have babies at my local hospital to have someone with them every minute they are allowed, but that is because staff are nowhere to be found. But then I was treated abysmally in hospital and just left in labour ward with my newborn, alone and with no food or water for 13 hours despite staff knowing I was feeling faint (I was very anaemic).

What all the ladies who have experienced this need to do is to write to the PALS team for their hospital/trust. Nothing will change unless a lot of people speak up about it.

That sounds horrific....and any visitors not needed should be kicked out.

I did have my dh stay on our first because we were kept in for a week and my iv antibiotics were at the same time as my dd. He had to wheel her over for them to the nicu and we were told we had to do it with no help....so we had no other choice. He slept on the chair for a week and helped others when the midwives didn't answer the bells. One woman in particular got up and left her baby alone screaming in the middle of the night. She went for a cigarette and they didn't know and the poor kid was losing it. I could barely move. He went and alerted the midwives.

When she was screaming in pain, he also alerted them. I was on that ward for 2 days before being moved to a private room as it was horrific.

If you can, badger them for a private room. If you're there for a while they may allow it.

Second child was different. And in ireland, not the uk. Men aren't allowed but I so wished he could've stayed one night to let me sleep. During the day there were kids running riot and the midwives trying to stop them (also not wanting to freak people out about a potential flu case!. But I got set free after 2 nights once I agreed to take the rest of the antibiotics orally but if I was a first time mother, I would've been stuck in there for a while. My child second time round was the child who screamed non stop and I was walking the corridors to comfort her. So didn't sleep from the minute she was born until we went home😂

Beg for that private room. And don't be afraid to ask for it. Stating what you've said above

Thanks for all the responses, I'm glad it wasn't me overreacting. Ended up with the midwife finding me in a frazzled teary mess around 3.45 this morning when I just couldn't take it anymore - when my own dh came in today he was furious because I he could see how exhausted I was. The midwife did try her best, even waking the snoring mother and telling her it was unacceptable ( but of course when she went back to sleep it started again 🙄. Thankfully the majority of the nuisances seem to have been discharged today and the ward isn't full tonight so it's much quieter - going to take advantage and hopefully get a good nights sleep as still no idea when me and little one will be discharged - so tomorrow could be more of the same

I just cant believe this happens now. Its utter madness! Men staying overnight on post natal wards?? When I had mine woman got on with the job in hand. They didn't bloody well want men there at every tiff and turn!

it’s difficult isn’t it. I’ve heard stories of back a few decades ago- women not being ‘allowed’ their partner at the birth when they desperately wanted them there (not to mention forced baths/enemas/shaves), babies unwillingly separated from perfectly healthy well mothers and taken to the nursery for mum to have a proper rest as recover but not really wanting that separation and finding it distressing I had all that, just 18 and it was scary. To be honest it was the other mums on the ward who got me through.

I joined NCT we capaigned for men to be allowed at the birth. I can remember us all being stunned at the school gate one day when a new mum disclosed you no longer had to have the shave and enema.

I had my youngest 20 years later and it had changed so much, to the point that I wanted my husband at home with our little girl and they kept hassling for him to come in. I was a mature women, been through it all before, 3 times, and I knew what I wanted. I discovered they still don't listen to women, they just have a different script.

I think it has just got worse since then. All I can say is sorry, we never meant for it to go this far and the only way to get change is to put pressure one.

Also I know private rooms are seen as the best now but there were lots of advantages to the old Nightingale wards, one midwife in the middle of the ward knew exactly what was going on with 24 of you, could see who was struggling who was having a cry and of course the support of the other mothers. To me that was priceless but I didn't value it at the time.

I'm seriously thinking of trying to get the money together so my daughter can go private.

Night 4 on this ward and it still doesn't fail to amaze me how shocking some people's behaviour can be! Tonight I have a woman and partner in the next bed along who are stinking out the entire ward with fish and chips at 11.30 at night (not to mention he's repeated belching 🤮). Now have to attempt to sleep through the smell of grease and fish all night! My son visits with my husband and he doesn't even let him eat a sandwich on the ward in the afternoon (takes him downstairs to eat) and he's a child.
Apparently some people just have no sense of right and wrong these days 🙄

FFS he should have been fielded when he was buzzed in and told they’d have to be eaten off the ward. It’s like schools, you have to set the boundaries at the outset and be consistent. Sisters and midwives used to be incredibly protective of their “ladies”. There seems to be no leadership now. I also think something is wrong culturally in midwifery training, I think it was a reaction to historic over medicalisation of birth, but there now seems to be wilful denial that actually most post natal women do need medical and nursing care, because most of them haven’t “breathed out” their babies with barely a graze after 5 hour labours. This dogma that only the newborns are patients and the catheterised, torn, numb, dehydrated and sleep deprived mothers are irritating shirkers who need to buck up without all the pesky pain meds they’ve been prescribed, - is kafkaesque. It’s inhumane and surely massively contributes to our poor breastfeeding rates and to the incidence of PND.

I agree, Light. Prisoners are given more privacy.

woman birthing with her midwives (literal translation - With Woman) and then resting up being looked after is not some archaic idea but a Utopia that we had and threw away

This x1000. Men were allowed on the post natal ward twice a day for two hours when I had mine. It was blissful.

I mean you’re not ill you know, you’ve only had a baby. Women all over the world do it without any pain relief and are straight back working in the fields [and die in huge numbers, or survive with fistulas, incontinence and other injuries]
Also most cultures and religions have or had traditions and taboos around birth that involved the mother resting and being under the care of other women for at least a month. Women on slave plantations may have been back in the fields but I don’t think that’s a model to aspire to.

I'm.very thankful that when I had my last five years ago partneres couldn't stay over night in my hospital. If I had another child I would book a side room as no one seems to understand that some partners cant stay. I wouldn't feel safe sleeping in a ward full of random men.

most cultures and religions have or had traditions and taboos around birth that involved the mother resting and being under the care of other women for at least a month.

Exactly! Now if you don't leap out of bed 24 hours after a section, you're a lazy slacker who's not trying hard enough. This while they ignore the male visitors with their feet up eating crisps and getting in the way.

24 hours after my section a nurse/HCA on the post natal ward had me lifting my suitcase and baby’s bag from the floor to the bed, as I was moving bay (for no apparent reason). I asked (through the sleep deprivation and wearing off of morphine) if they had a porter to help. Her words “oh no, you’ll need to do it, they won’t because of health and safety”. She did eventually “allow” the bags to be put on the bed while it was moved, rather than me carrying them though.
Fucking hell the bar is low.

This dogma that only the newborns are patients and the catheterised, torn, numb, dehydrated and sleep deprived mothers are irritating shirkers who need to buck up without all the pesky pain meds they’ve been prescribed

That's exactly what my second postnatal ward stay felt like. Having to plead and wheedle for hours for anything stronger than paracetamol, having no rest at all during the day because the ward had open visiting and the place was filled with hordes of noisy visitors. It was totally different to when I was staying on a surgical ward before pregnancy, even though that was for a much more minor op. Felt like the ranking system of importance went Babies > Dads and visitors > You, you shirker, be grateful we still give you beds these days.

Sorry you are still dealing with this OP. Selfish sodding arses.

women not being 'allowed' their partner at the birth when they desperately wanted them there
I don't think this is true for the majority of women. Most women accepted their partners wouldn't be allowed in the delivery room. It just wouldn't have occurred to them that it should have happened any differently, or even that they wanted it to.
Same thing with partners visiting really. I was on a post natal ward with extremely restritcted visiting (2 hours in the afternoon, 2 hours in the evening) and I don't recall anyone wishing their partner could stay for longer. We just got on with looking after our babies and resting when we got the chance.

Majority midwives now are direct entry with no nursing qualifications first so how they look after people who actually need nursing I have no idea