To want my husband at our baby scan?!!

[MrsBonnie]

I have our first scan on Monday and have to go it alone... I'm so worked up worrying about getting bad news and having to hear it on my own.

You can do SO many things with other people, yet I can't go into a baby scan, both wearing masks, with my husband?!!

Am I being unreasonable to whinge about this?

Plenty women go alone for a variety of reasons and have no choice, stop the panicking.

I also find it interesting that my GP surgery has got rid of chairs in the waiting room as they would have to be cleaned down after every use.

In the antenatal clinic, I sat there for two years and watched multiple women sit in chairs and not get cleaned at all. I’m guessing they get wiped over at the end of the day.

Just thought it interesting how different policies apply in different settings dealing with the same virus.

@MyMyMrThumb

Exactly. LOVE these performative tough girls. I mean anyone who can't argue their case against a consultant and two midwives all urging her to have her perfectly healthy baby extracted via surgery because she's overrun on some arbitrary 'clock' and they need the bed, using emotional blackmail and authoritarian pressure, all the while labouring to deliver a child - well you're clearly just a bit of a pussy, aren't you?

Yanbu to be upset and disappointed. If I had wanted dh at my first scans and he wasn't allowed I would have felt that way too.

@mincepiesalready

*I’m certainly not mocking anyone’s mental health. This is where it’s difficult with something like anxiety though, because person X has anxiety related to previous losses and person Y has anxiety due to being clinically vulnerable. So they each ‘need’ different things for that which can’t be compromised on.

In cases like that decisions that benefit the majority clearly need to be made.*

I agree with that. What I objected to was you dismissing the person you were speaking to's perfectly genuine medical issue as 'anxiety' in order to shut her down (inverted commas I now notice you've dropped because you are aware it makes you look like an utter arsehole).

DH is in the military and working at a different base quite a drive away but he’s been able to take a whole day off (no annual leave taking required) for our next scan. Even the bloody armed forces have some kind of empathy for pregnant women and families. There are some things I dislike about the armed forces but where they can, they can be pretty compassionate.

It's not just you and your husband though. It's the sonographer, if they have one - the assistant, the admin/reception staff, it's the other ladies in the limited waiting room, the other patients in the hospital you will come into contact with...How about you book a private scan together? They can often take more time to show you things as well.

Our trust is now allowing 12 week and 20 week scans to bring partners that live together. They have to wait outside to be called through for the scan and have to leave immediately after. I admin it's been lovely not having partners/mums/sisters in scans with our ladies, asking unnecessary questions, laughing at 'boy bits' and saying silly things...

I get that it’s a safety issue and currently necessary, and that many other restrictions are in place across healthcare in general.

However, I really wish people would stop trivialising the issues of women attending scans/appointments/inductions alone and also being alone for a duration of labour and the postnatal period.

There have been women learning their baby has died or has a serious disability completely alone. There are women being left even more traumatised from labour and the postnatal period. The biggest killer of postnatal women in the year after giving birth is suicide- I don’t think this statistic can be ignored when we look at restrictions that will potentially make the experience of pregnancy, labour, birth and the postnatal period even more traumatic.

Again, these restrictions obviously need to exist at the present moment but they need to be weighed carefully against the potential harm they may cause. And it’s possible to understand why the restrictions are important and necessary but simultaneously feel sympathy for all the women effected by them...

I’m another one who had to go through a scan with bad news on my own. It’s terrible.

It’s interesting you say that actually venice as I find mental health is used to manipulate and to try to shame others just as has been done to me here.

Mental health is important but it shouldn’t automatically override anything else and a lot of the time mental health is a shorthand for how something feels. Feelings are normal but they aren’t all indicative of a mental health issue.

Some women want their partners in scans with them because they might get bad news and need the support for their mental health.

Some parents wanted their children in schools because they were concerned about them being isolated and therefore their mental health being negatively impacted.

People are understandably distressed about being isolated from friends and talk about the impact on their mental health.

All of that is valid. But there is a flip side to it too.

If by allowing partners into maternity services coronavirus spreads a vulnerable woman in the third trimester could end up being very unwell indeed: that would undoubtedly impact her mental as well as physical health.

The more children in schools the more the virus spreads - we are seeing evidence of this now sadly. And that has something of a domino effect on everybody’s mental health.

I sympathise with people apart from family, but having to isolate for a few weeks is one thing compared to dying and never seeing that person again.

My own mum died when I was 13. Believe me as far as your mental health goes there is nothing quite like that to pretty much ensure a certain level of being fucked up It also meant things that you’d normally expect to have an parent around for, braces being fit and picking up GCSE results and so on had to be done alone. And I know that sucks. I also know it’s doable.

And I’m calling it a global pandemic because it is.

picklecustard - ah but don’t you know, only Covid deaths count. A woman with postnatal depression killing herself doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t be surprised to read that women with postnatal depression are told to pull themselves together “cos there’s a global pandemic” or “my work colleagues cousin died from Covid so you should be grateful you don’t have Covid.”

I fell pregnant in May, and had to attend both my 12 and 20 week scans alone. We paid for a couple of private scans so my DH could attend.

At my 20 week I received bad news, and was sent to a specialist hospital the following day for more tests. DH was allowed to be there for those, and the consultant diagnosis, although not when I had to have an amniocentesis.

Devastatingly, we had to have a TFMR. DH was allowed with me for every stage of that process, including induction and labour. The process was handled incredibly by an amazing team, and our daughter was born with both of us present.

I do understand why he couldn't be there for 'routine' scans, but am eternally grateful that he was allowed to be by my side for the horrific process that followed. That said, there is no way we would consider trying to conceive again until the rules around partners at scans change.

This is really becoming over dramatic now. Would any of you really think that closing down an entire maternity service due to an outbreak of Covid is a price worth paying for fathers attending scans?

Is someone really putting anxiety in inverted commas and then arguing that they aren't a complete arse?

We have a depressing amount of work left to do when it comes to mental health disorders.

Just so you know, when you put something in inverted commas the way you did (scare quote), it implies you are sceptical of said quoted thing or you somehow think it's inaccurate.

I'm sure most people will agree it's a wholly inappropriate way to describe a mental health condition.

Shame on you.

This is really becoming over dramatic now. Would any of you really think that closing down an entire maternity service due to an outbreak of Covid is a price worth paying for fathers attending scans?

Eh? Sorry... who’s being over-dramatic?

@mincepiesalready

You are so utterly missing the point. I'm not saying mental health concerns should override all else. I'm saying they should be a factor in decision making. And I'm also saying that when, as is the case with COVID and pregnancy scans, other concerns outweigh mental health concerns, we can still treat the people affected with empathy and respect.

I'm sorry you lost your mother so young, that is very hard (and actually one of the roots of my mother's trauma was losing her father traumatically at 16, so I really do sympathise). I also know it made her struggle to trust and try to pretend to herself she didn't need help from anyone else - it was a reflex to try and protect herself from any more pain she couldn't control. It didn't work. Maybe it does for you; but for most people, being able to do all the tough stuff all by yourself is neither desirable nor possible. We are social creatures, the basis of our evolution is co-operation and relationships. These things matter; not more than everything else, but they matter. And the people they matter to aren't inherently weaker than you.

@VinylDetective

This is really becoming over dramatic now. Would any of you really think that closing down an entire maternity service due to an outbreak of Covid is a price worth paying for fathers attending scans?

The issue is moreso labour imo.

Women absolutely do deserve to be supported during labour and to have a trusted person there to advocate for them at all stages when they are extremely vulnerable.

Why is 4cm the magic number? What difference would it really make to have the same person there from the onset?

Serious things can go wrong in childbirth, serious decisions can sometimes need to be made and women are not always in the best position to make those alone during that time.

@VinylDetective

This is really becoming over dramatic now. Would any of you really think that closing down an entire maternity service due to an outbreak of Covid is a price worth paying for fathers attending scans?

looks all over thread for evidence of this, finds nothing

Um, no. No-one would. HTH.

Also important to consider how much an extra person from the same household increases the risk of corona spreading with social distancing and PPE.

Also interestingly a friend paid for a private scan so her husband could attend. The sonographer was actually an NHS sonographer who picked up extra work at a private clinic for more money. Apparently this isn’t uncommon. So the sonographer doing your NHS scan may also be going off to a private clinic in the evening and doing scans with partners allowed in.

@picklecustard

Yes this is pretty standard - at the private maternity services place I used - both the sonographers and the nurses also worked at the NHS hospital where I'm due to give birth

[quote VeniceQueen2004]@VinylDetective

This is really becoming over dramatic now. Would any of you really think that closing down an entire maternity service due to an outbreak of Covid is a price worth paying for fathers attending scans?

looks all over thread for evidence of this, finds nothing

Um, no. No-one would. HTH.[/quote]
Here you go. HTH.

if the staff in a maternity unit catch it, they can’t provide maternity care. They are already understaffed due to staff having symptoms, testing positive, self isolating, too vulnerable to work etc. Some services are on a knife edge already.

Oh totally and I’m honestly not sure why you think I’m not advocating treating people with empathy and respect - I like to think that’s a given! I actually think our positions aren’t as far apart as all that.

It isn’t that it doesn’t matter, it’s that sometimes you have to weigh up potential hurt. Sometimes decisions are just going to negatively impact on someone and unfortunately there’s no way around that. In those cases it’s about both the extent to which someone would be affected and also how many people. And all of us (including me!) have to recognise that it’s something that goes beyond us and our own wants.

@VinylDetective

if the staff in a maternity unit catch it, they can’t provide maternity care. They are already understaffed due to staff having symptoms, testing positive, self isolating, too vulnerable to work etc. Some services are on a knife edge already.

Surely that quote supports the opposite position - that it is an unacceptable risk?

@mincepiesalready

Oh totally and I’m honestly not sure why you think I’m not advocating treating people with empathy and respect - I like to think that’s a given!

I think that because you didn't. You mocked and belittled her diagnosis with inverted commas.

@mincepiesalready

Plenty of women get pregnant and split from their partners.

Or they choose to have a baby as a single woman.

Or their partners cannot get the time off work.

In normal times, fine. In pandemic times your ‘anxiety’ doesn’t mean pregnant women should have the numbers of people they are coming into contact with doubled.

'Anxiety' in quotation marks?

Oh do fuck the fuck off and then fuck off some more