So pubs and restaurants can open but partners coming to scans are still a big no no?!

[Dee96]

I'm just so infuriated by this and cant believe no one else has picked up on it. I'm not one to complain, and I understand that the economy needs the pick me up but I just think the government has their priorities all wrong. Yet again their actions are based on their best interests, and are completely money orientated. I dont understand how pubs have opened up without the compulsory need to wear a mask or take any precautions other than a pathetic attempt at social distancing that lasted no time at all, yet my partner still cant come with me to my scan? And before people argue that this isnt a big deal, maybe not for some no. But for some women scans are an anxiety driven time during an already scary situation, and the need for emotional and physical support of a partner is crucial, especially for those that dont get good get news. Why is the farther of these babies still viewed as a plus and an outsider to these medical needs, they should be included as part of the package deal along with the mother. They have every right to be there. I understood and had patience at first when everything else was on lockdown and this restriction was implemented, but now I cant rationalise it anymore. Surely someone going out to drink and standing next to a complete stranger of a different household poses more of a risk than my partner being allowed in, at a safe distance, wearing a mask whilst I have my scans. I really just had to get this off my chest since I feel it's so injust and us first times mums really mean nothing. It's bad enough were so vulnerable during this time, and miss out on certain appointments/care but for our needs to be pushed aside for the sake of a pint really gets to me. I had my 20 week scan yesterday and felt like walking right up to the reception to demand an explanation, the only thing stopping me was I knew it wasnt right to take out my frustration on the poor people that are doing their best to work for us during this time.

I agree, I really feel for first time parents. My DH waa ok about sitting in the car with our DD while I had both scans (diff hospitals for some reason). First hospital I went to was small but really quiet only 1 other lady waiting. Second hospital also 1 other lady sat in a massive waiting room with me. I got some unexpected news (someone should have told me sooner!!) in my scan and was really upset, would have been nice to have DH there. I appreciate the need to protect the NHS but there was only 1 other lady waiting. I've been for appointments at the second hospital before and the waiting room was always heaving so they must be offering less appointments so why not let 2 dads in at a time?!

Our hospital started letting partners in for the 20 week scan last week. I’m really surprised others haven’t done this.

It's not just about the risk to other pregnant women in the clinics, it is also about the staff who of course need to be protected too. Who is going to provide your care if all the midwives contract the virus? There isn't a surplus of them waiting to cover.

I know it must be scary, we are TTC after a miscarriage in March and I have terrible anxiety and its daunting to think I may have to go through things alone. But your point about the fathers missing out on these moments is, I'm afraid, insignificant in the face of what is going on.

Do you not think it is because the impact of carrying infection into a hospital is potentially so much greater? Hospitals need to isolate themselves as much as possible.

Not really, maybe I'm cynical but I think all of the lockdown easing has focused on money rather than people's wellbeing. As an example, they allowed commercial house viewings before they allowed people to see family (at a distance) in their own gardens.

I agree with your point about hospitals but I don't think it's been left as it is deliberately, I think it's just being overlooked, and there are huge loopholes that make banning birth partners redundant anyway. For example I could go and have a meal in a pub, get a haircut, do a bit of clothes shopping and then go to my hospital appointment straight after. If it was about isolating hospitals shouldn't they be asking people to self isolate prior to an appointment?

I'm more focusing on the birth aspect; I don't really mind going to appointments alone, but I do have huge problems with having to go through birth alone and my DH having to leave straight after.

I really do get a lot of the comments saying YABU, my best friend is a midwife at our hospital and I’m so worried for her at the moment. But no ones answering the point about partners who are of the same household... as I said upthread, DH and I share a bed every night. We’ve been in the same house together for 4 months now! I don’t get how me, being physically touched by the sonographer, is more of a risk to them than DH, in the corner in PPE. If either of us are Covid positive the other one is, and if the sonographer’s getting it from anyone, it’ll be me, not DH. So I don’t understand why I had to attend a serious appointment about the health of our unborn child while he was barred from it, on those grounds.

my local hpsital were letting partners in theyve just announced they can no longer do this as people were just not social distancing whilst waiting

@Notfeelinggreattoday I cant speak for everyone but my maternity unit is separate from the hospital. Otherwise this I would completely understand

It’s an awful situation but I find it helps to think that everyone is missing something. And it’s ok to be sad about that, just because other people have it worse it was still ok for me to feel sad that my ds won’t have his first ever sports day in his school when he is in reception.

People are sad when they have had to celebrate birthdays alone. People have had weddings cancelled, christenings, honeymoons. And we all know this is nothing compared to the grief of losing someone from covid but we are human these things are significant too us and feeling angry or upset is reasonable. Even when we know the reasons why.

I see what you say about how much more risk would dad be if he was from the same home. But it’s also about footfall. Keeping bodies to a minimum so there is maximum space between them.
Also you have to think if there was an outbreak in maternity, they may become even stricter and not allow dads to the birth at all. So I really think it’s probably for the best. But I understand your sadness and why you feel aggrieved that others can pop down their local for a beer.
In reality the two situations are just not comparable.

Good lick with the rest of your pregnancy.

@Beebee8 and I totally understand and respect that. My mum is a district nurse in the NHS and I completely get their line of work is selfless and every work shift they do they potentionally sacrifice their health. However if your partner is of the same household, and as a previous poster said if you literally share the same bed as them that same day, I really dont think it can be considered jeopardising the midwives health when they'd be at a 2m distance with a mask.

@Catmanduu “ I see what you say about how much more risk would dad be if he was from the same home. But it’s also about footfall. Keeping bodies to a minimum so there is maximum space between them”

For the hospital antenatal appts, I’ve been asked to wait in the car until my appointment and then go straight up when they ring me, I haven’t even been in the waiting room. They could do that for scans. They’re choosing not to.

This is a moot point for me as I’ve already been through my 20 week alone but I feel really strongly that it’s not about ‘missing out’ or ‘getting to see baby’, it’s an important medical appointment for your child and both parents have a right to be present, especially when there are spurious grounds for refusing entry to parents of the same household.

Hospitals can refuse access to whoever they feel necessary, in a pandemic situation, if they have reasonable grounds to believe that it reduces the risk to others.
They have a whol hospital of patients to consider.
There are many people stuck in hospital wards not allowed visitors.
If they all insisted that they should have someone visit them or come in to discuss their treatment with the staff there would barely be any restrictions at all on who was in and out.
Hospitals only have a duty to patients, and unfortunately in a pregnancy, patient is not dad or anyone else. It’s the mother and baby.

In general, people in medical appointments should be able to have a support person. My MIL has been going to appointments for her cancer, which was diagnosed less than a week before the pandemic. She's just been in for surgery and now is seeing some doctors about further treatment and her husband has not been allowed to go with her. She has a lot of health problems and usually he is the one who remembers to ask questions, writes things down, and all that, as she struggles to remember.

That kind of thing is common in medical care, many people need help of some kind.

If it were a situation where hospitals were being so overrun they could not fit people in, or their was infection being passed all through the hospital, that might be different. But in that case they would probably not be having people in for scans anyway.

I'm shortly going to be visiting out patients to find out if I have a life changing health condition. I'm disabled & Autistic, as well as terrified, they have already told me I can't take a carer with me. I wanted to take 16 year old ds with me as he is my carer & also as I know that if I get upset any information they give me will go straight over my head.

"but it's not just scans being restricted. It's also births. Women are going through labour alone and only being allowed company during the final hour."

Yep - I recently gave birth to my first (and after this experience last) baby. Had the most horrendous induction and was on my own on a ward terrified and in horrendous pain all day. My husband was only allowed in when I was moved to delivery and made it just in time to see our baby being delivered by forceps. The whole experience was so traumatic and I know for an absolute fact it would have been an entirely different experience if he'd been there to advocate for me. I really do understand the need for caution but really don't get the rule about not being allowed in until the woman is in established labour. We live together and he was there for the actual birth so would it have really been any riskier? They didn't even ask him to wear a mask. I was the only person in a room on my own all day, being checked once an hour by a midwife.

If they want to wait for established labour I don't understand why they wouldn't ask people to stay at home until then? Most people don't really need to be in hospital in early labour, especially without support.

The decision not to allow partners to scans is usually made on a local level, by the Trust or department itself, not the Government. It has been made following advice from the British Medical Ultrasound Society and the Society of Radiographers ( most sonographers are radiographers, not midwives).

Our department has chosen not to allow partners as social distancing is hard enough as it is in our waiting room where capacity has been reduced from 18 people to 6. At least many pregnant women have been shielding if possible. Not all partners have been.

Our scan rooms are small. I scan 18-20 people a day. Why increase my exposure to say 35-40 people a day, all in very close proximity if it is not absolutely necessary? Now mask wearing is compulsory in hospitals I am constantly having to tell women to cover their noses with their mask, they don't work around your neck. I wear my mask to protect you if I am unknowingly carry the virus, many people do not pay me the same curtesy and don't want to wear them.

A hospital in a neighbouring Trust had started to allow partners again but reversed their decision last week. Social distancing was impossible and ignored by patients and masks were being incorrectly worn or refused by patients/partners.

I think it's ridiculous comparing having a scan with going to the pub or Primark. I also don't see the relevance of you sharing the same bed with your partner, I'm not sharing it with you and nor are the other women in the waiting room.

I've been doing ultrasound for 25 years now and I completely understand the bonding experience for the partners and the support they can offer the pregnant mums. I truly sympathise and think it's a shit time to be pregnant, but unfortunately the partner being present for the scan is not going to affect the outcome of the scan/ pregnancy and so is not iimportant during these unusual times.

I think it's ridiculous comparing having a scan with going to the pub or Primark. I also don't see the relevance of you sharing the same bed with your partner, I'm not sharing it with you and nor are the other women in the waiting room.

I think the OPs point is that it is ridiculous.

I am not sure how you don't understand the relevance that the two people come from the same household.

@Dollywilde

I really do get a lot of the comments saying YABU, my best friend is a midwife at our hospital and I’m so worried for her at the moment. But no ones answering the point about partners who are of the same household... as I said upthread, DH and I share a bed every night. We’ve been in the same house together for 4 months now! I don’t get how me, being physically touched by the sonographer, is more of a risk to them than DH, in the corner in PPE. If either of us are Covid positive the other one is, and if the sonographer’s getting it from anyone, it’ll be me, not DH. So I don’t understand why I had to attend a serious appointment about the health of our unborn child while he was barred from it, on those grounds.

That may be the case that you partner had largely been at home. However, there may well be many partners who have been popping down the pub or not social distancing who would bring increased risk. Therefore, no partners. And yes, the pregnant woman may also have not been practicing social distancing but they have to be there for the scan - partners don’t.

As a post menopausal MNer I must admit that this is something that I hadn't even thought about. But now you mention it,it does sound a bit crazy! As a previous poster said, money motivates more than morality.

Hospitals only have to consider the welfare of patients and staff
and in any epidemic, hospitals are a known source of infection which they have to minimise

Stopping extra people coming in is the most obvious way to reduce infections in hospitals - fewer people potentially breathing out virus particles

Governments have to think of the economy and atm they want people spending as much money as possible

As someone who has had the worst possible news at a scan on more than one occasion, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to go through that alone. Hopefully, they will be allowed very soon.

www.change.org/p/us-government-to-allow-pregnant-women-a-companion-for-medical-appointments-12831458-db6b-4618-b1d9-4fd61fc572da?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=9d838e80-bd1c-11ea-9f60-130872710838

I agree with @ponoka7 in that unfortunately there are 2 many people who won't follow guidelines and this makes it dangerous.
My daughter was born on day of lockdown. There were signs all over the ward to tell people to stand apart when getting food/ drinks and signs which clearly said this was only for women, but still on a number of occasions I had a man standing right behind/ next to me while I got food or a drink. It made me really uncomfortable

Those saying partners are an additional risk- if they're a partner who lives with the woman, what is the chance they have it and she doesn't? It's possible, but surely a low chance.

It's purely down to local decisions. My hospital has allowed one partner to the 12 and 20 week scans throughout, but not to any other scans/appointments.

I'm pregnant - I totally get that it's scary. But I don't think I could justify having my partner there when people receiving life changing news - cancer diagnoses etc - can't have support either. My worries are more around the lack of postnatal support. Lack of in-person HV visits, GPs not providing the six week check for babies, lack of breastfeeding support.

I read on another thread about a dad who wasn't allowed to visit his wife after their baby was stillborn and he wasn't allowed to see the child. It's barbaric. I also think the priorities are all wrong here. It's all about opening up shops and pubs and letting people go on holiday, while people can't visit dying relatives or watch their chid being born.

I think your deliberately misunderstanding the rule here - this isn’t about depriving your partner this is about keeping the other patients in the hospital and the staff safe by eliminating any unnecessary footfall in and around the hospital.

The ultrasound department is very, very rarely just for pregnant women. There will be all sorts of people there for all sorts of things.

As for labour, active labour is not “the final hour” it is when you are beyond 4cms. So for a first birth, that’s on average a minimum of 8 hours before birth. Again, this is not to deprive your partner but to reduce the number of unnecessary people coming into contact with other patients and staff. You will have read regularly about women arriving at hospital/birth centre and being sent home multiple times as they are too early on. A hospital generally wouldn’t allow you to stay until you are 4cms anyway - they are just trying to avoid the unnecessary visits with extra people.

I’m also afraid that this is a medical issue so yes, your partner Is a “Plus one” for this. It’s not his body, his health or his safety the Team will be working on.

Beyond this, many trusts are now beginning to relax their rules at the moment so this is very unlikely to be the situation when you do give birth.

Please stop comparing this to going to the pub and primark. The staff in these places will be the ones you are relying on saving your life and that of your baby should you need it - they can’t do that if they are sick. Those same staff will also be the ones handling your precious newborn baby once they are born - with no immune system. Would you really like to risk an asymptomatic partner passing it on to a staff member, who is also asymptomatic then passing it to your baby?! Didn’t think so.

Whilst lockdown is easing, that does not mean that the virus has gone away. Far from it.