To think it's not ok to make women give birth alone?

[WhoToTell]

A hospital system in New York is now not letting women in labour have their partner or support person present. This seems absolutely cruel and goes against WHO recommendations. AIBU to think that this is not OK? There is no way I would feel safe and comfortable giving birth with only complete strangers around and no one to advocate for me if I was unable to.

edition.cnn.com/2020/03/22/health/coronavirus-new-york-hospital-childbirth-no-visitors/index.html

Personally, I’m ok with not having the ‘ideal’ birth experience with DH present, in order to protect other people however what I’m not ok with is putting myself at risk of dying (I have a post partum condition where there is a fairly high risk of stroke and maternal death in the first few days after birth). I know from previous experiences how long it can take staff to attend. I will have two young babies and the idea of becoming permanently disabled or dying because no one is there to get me immediate help really distresses me.

OP , really sorry didn’t realise you were pregnant and anxious

If this happens , you will be OK
The staff will care for you
You can do this

Sending all my best , i know what it’s like to be anxious about childbirth and looking back I wish I had relaxed more

Sending

@mitzik how's about you stop making assumptions about other people's situations?
I have reasonably rare blood clotting disorder that I found out about AFTER I got pregnant

That's the entire point of my post, @anotherypasswordtoremember. After all, it's pretty bloody difficult to find out you have gestational diabetes or a fetal chromosomal abnormality before there's a pregnancy.

Things change for tens of thousands, if not millions, of women after they get pregnant and they find that their image of the 'standard pregnancy and birth' isn't what they are going to get. And it's shit.

Your husband/partner might be great - but he's highly unlikely to be able to perform any vital medical procedures if those or any other complications occur, so if it came down to it, having a medical professional available - and healthy - with you would be of more use to you, your baby and all the other women and babies that, in years gone by, would have died as a result of complications in unattended births.

That's not be moralistic or altruistic. It's pure simple logic of what is most likely to ensure the survival of any one woman and any one baby.

Is an individual woman and baby more likely to survive a serious complication requiring medical attention if she is treated by a medical professional with the equipment, knowledge and experience with which to do so - or not? In your case, whilst it's nice to think your husband is there to speak for you, he really isn't going to be giving you a blood transfusion or performing a crash section if something happens during labour.

It's not even happening over here yet - the only change so far is that some hospitals are going back to the one birth partner only. But if it becomes necessary to ensure the survival of multiple women, multiple babies AND multiple doctors and midwives, then they will have to say it.

And if that happens, whilst it's not nice and cosy, fewer women and babies will die if they give birth with doctors and/or midwives attending them than if there are no doctors and/or midwives to attend because somebody else's husband gave them COVID-19 last week and they're dead now.

Well I am pregnant and living in a country with these restrictions in place can I have an opinion?

Op I get it. I am scared too, but unfortunately it really can't be helped. The best way I found to deal with it is too list out my anxieties and to deal with each one one by one. It's helps to name each problem and look at what I can realistically do about each one.

Take deep breaths. Try not to dwell on it at all, easier said than done I know. All that matters is that you and baby are healthy. It seems like everything is awful right now but I can guarantee that when you see that lovely baby you will find love and strength you never knew you had.

Good luck OP. It sounds like it hasn't happened your way yet so maybe it won't.

Midwives are human, some might be horrible, some might be grumpy but most are nice people in my experience. I did have a grumpy doctor doing my induction with one of mine, the midwife asked him what was wrong with him and he said he had just got divorce papers served on him. He wasn't horrible or anything just a bit grumpy but you know he'd had some bad news and he was human, he did his job and midwife was lovely. Actually all my midwives were lovely although one was pregnant and had such bad backache that I suggested we swap places and she could have a lie down.

I have a family member who is a midwife. They don't have the right masks or gowns available in the hospital and she knowingly puts herself at risk every time she goes to work. She has had to move into temporary accommodation rather than put her household at risk. Yet she does all of this without any complaint as midwifery is her vocation and she wants to do her very best for every mother and baby. Having someone there to hold your hand is not essential. I know it's a scary time but you have to think about other people too. They don't put these measures in place without good reason. If my family member were to become ill and die we wouldn't be able to visit her either.

I think minimising OPs feelings because “great grandmothers gave birth this way” is unkind actually

Fuck off, I last gave birth in 2011! I wasn’t even born in the 70s! My partner was there, but only just. It would have made no difference to me if he wasn’t - there was a support woman who held my hand while he wasn’t there.

Like I said, I’m sorry this is making you worried. But many hundreds (maybe thousands, quite possibly millions) of women will give birth with only a midwife present.

I've had 4 babies 2 I was alone! Not really as I had amazing midwives with me, you will be fine, my own daughter is a midwife and I am now terrified for her !! The less people she has contact with the safer she will be, in England partners are still allowed, but many of them have not been self isolating, this is a huge risk to my daughter/other hospital staff, the new mothers and the new born baby, so your hospital is helping to keep you and your baby safe, be glad of it, I wish they would do it here, soon you will have your darling little baby, and you both will be safe, it's not ideal, but it really is the best thing for you both, put your trust in your midwife/doctor as they are amazing people who want the best for you, hope it all goes well, take care, xxx

Unless the birth partner is tested as Covid free would you want to risk the partner passing on the infection to the newborn or the staff?

I understand your worry but there are people in hospital dying who can’t see their loved ones so giving birth alone and getting to come home isn’t as bad really. Women did it alone until fairly recently so I’m sure you will be ok. The lives of the NHS staff are of top priority right now. I don’t blame them for not allowing anyone I’m apart from the mother and medical staff

Chin up and dig deep!

Don't mean to sound flippant but those 'strangers' have delivered more babies than your support system.

Possibly because we're secure in our comfy homes we don't realise that conditions in our hospital are such that these clinicians shouldn't be distracted by what multiple partners are doing/touching /feeling. Whether they're about to puke or faint!

I’ve had confirmation today that for the current moment our trust is allowing one birth partner

That may change they say in the coming weeks but for now we are still ok to have a birth partner there should we wish

We are not allowed visitors

Wow. What the fuck happened to be kind?! I am due in 9 weeks and this absolutely terrifies me. My DH rubbed my back the entire time and only left my side when I was transferred to another hospital. The midwives wouldn’t listen to me when I said I was pushing and it was my husband who put pressure on to check me again. They would not listen to me. Yes we don’t need men to give birth but I am petrified of giving birth without my DH present. Just because this pandemic is happening, doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t valid. I have been in tears over this so yeah, I think it’s pretty important. It pisses me off seeing people not taking this lockdown seriously and it scares me that this could continue and mess the labour up that I envisaged. I know labour is unpredictable and things could change anyway but why can’t I feel sad or anxious about it?! So much for support you absolute pack of wolves!

Very sensible given current situation. Women don't actually need someone there. They had babies for millions of years without someone aside from the person delivering the baby.

Not good but I understand it is what happened at least until the 1960s

The danger now is there are less midwives than then

You don’t get continuity of care any more

You don’t even have a midwife there the whole time and are often left alone

And that was before the pandemic

My trust have already pre warned us that the midwifes are being redistributed and there will be less available to go around and they will do their best to offer safe care

I’m sorry, I HRTFT but this gives me the chills. My mum did this and couldn’t advocate for herself and was neglected as a result, possibly contributing to her lifelong health issues. I wouldn’t have had the strength to get through birth without my partner. It’s horrifying

Some women don't need a man there. Some of the posters though have pointed out it was there partner who got the midwife to listen.
In the end I suppose it doesn't matter because if the government decides on a total lock down and that includes only mum going in to the maternity ward then we'll have to comply. Doesn't stop me being terrified or wondering how practical it will be.
If only people would take safety measures now (or even better several weeks ago) it wouldn't be an issue. Sadly I think that things are only going to get worse

I most definitely would not have coped without him, and my son would have been alone for hours whilst I ended up in surgery. It's a really scary time just now and we need to do what we can to stop this virus spreading though.

Just think how fortunate we are to usually be able to have our partners in with us whilst giving birth. The are plenty of women all over the world who give birth alone, without hospital treatment even. It's a desperate time and I think we should remember how lucky we are.

I had my first baby alone . It was 1973 I was married but my soldier husband was abroad . The midwives decided that I was a single mother and were awful to me I was in labour for over 40 hours . Baby was back to back and the midwives left me alone for hours on end. I eventually had a forceps delivery and poor baby had a very squashed and bruised head and face.
I made sure that my husband was with me for the next two .

I wouldn’t mind. DP was pretty annoying when I was in labour and I think I’d have rather been on my own.

They’re not making women give birth without a medical professional present and we’re in the middle of a pandemic.

No one is saying you can’t feel sad and upset.

We’re just saying that there is more at play than your feelings.

I was completely alone when I birthed DD. I had an unassisted birth, she came very quickly while her Dad was laying plastic for the birth pool. It wasn't scary in the slightest. I found the pain was more manageable, because I could do as I pleased to make myself comfortable, without a midwife sat over me, only speaking to tell me off for what I was doing.

Research the statistics, in a typical pregnancy, a home birth carries less risk the a hospital one. Avoiding a hospital i a pandemic where possible can only be a good thing.