Being drove insane on the postnatal ward

[TrappedWindArse]

I gave birth yesterday via section, had a nasty hemmorage and am now stuck on the postnatal ward with a very lethargic and jaundice DS. I haven't slept properly in days. 20 mins here and there. I'm fucked.

There's a seemingly pleasant couple in the bay opposite me with their own newborn who is quite difficult to settle, so they do have my sympathy.

The problem is the dad has adopted a method of trying to sooth the baby by making that noise you make when you're trying to beckon a cat "click click pspspsps click click pspspsps"

Obviously it doesn't work, but that doesn't deter him.

Now imagine that on loop constantly, alongside not instead of, the poor grizzly newborn. All night long. Into the morning, then afternoon.

"Click click pspspspspspsps"

Another lady on the ward kindly introduced the mum to white noise on YouTube. It helps the baby a little, hurrah, mum is very thankful, but the dad is still doing that bloody cat noise.

WIBU to strangle him and cite temporary insanity due to hormones and extreme provocation? or at the very least ask him to bloody stop it

@TrappedWindArse

No side rooms available unfortunately

Dad's/husbands are permitted to stay for the duration of the mum/babies stay which is great in theory, not so much in practice (for the other patients!)

To top it off I've got a terrible snorer in the cubicle next door.

I have endless patience for the babies, just not the irritating dad's and snorers

Good Lord. Why, why, WHY are women expected to tolerate this?

I hark from an era in which this didn't happen and fathers were kicked out at 9pm (child is 7). It would happen on no other medical ward in no other hospital, that I can all-but guarantee. I don't even want to put up with my own husband snoring, let alone other people's. Why are the patients not given paramount consideration here?

No, on the other hand, I think I can answer that question only too well. To coin a well-worn MN truism, it boils my piss.

I remember being on the high dependency ward after a very bad csection and scary blood pressure crash. First night was lovely but the second night there was a lady with her family in the bay next to me. It was around 8pm and I was just drifting off to sleep when her mother decided to turn the main lights on in the ward, they then proceeded to eat vast amounts of food the mother brought in and her 2year old kept repeating "baaayyyybeeeee" over and over again while the guest chair creeped closer and closer to my curtain, bashing into my baby's crib. This carried on until 11pm (the midwife tried to get the visitors to leave but they wouldn't).

The midwife saw me in floods of tears and moved me to a private room which would have been nice, except that late at night when it was dark, I thought they had moved me into a little broom cupboard I was terrified of being left with just the baby as I couldn't move at all and cried even more until the midwife brought me some Oramorph, and I had a lovely sleep.

The next day with the sun shining through I could tell it was indeed a proper room, not a broom cupboard!

I am the only one on this thread that is goiNg to go against the grain and say I bloody loved it.

Each time. I loved bonding with the baby and being away from home just me and her/him for a night or two and being fed and watered was such a special time In me and baby's loved up little bubble.

But I must say my Husband was an abusive twat so maybe I just
Enjoyed a
Few days away from him.
Come to think of it maybe that why I kept repeating the experience lol

@Mosky

If I was in charge of maternity services I would commission Travel Lodge or similar to build a block next to the hospital. All women who had uncomplicated deliveries would go to a family room there. Care to be provided by community midwives as if they were at home

They used to do this in the 50s and 60s. They were called maternity homes. No visitors allowed.

This is why All Hospital Visitors should be banned.
Have your partner there for the birth but no more.

I think there will never be enough staff to be able to ban all visitors. The family room would allow for whatever visitors the mum would like, without disturbing anyone else.

When I trained as a midwife, we hade limited visiting and only 2 1hour slots per day. The whole ward closed for an hour after lunch and the lights were switched off and curtains drawn.

Then open visiting came in and it was like bedlam with entire families and friends arriving with their picnics, kids rampaging around the place. You couldn't deliver any care because nobody wanted to leave so the mum could have privacy.

Now you have male partners staying 24/7, using the toilets and showers and watching loud stuff on their phones. It is awful.

It's almost like they deliberately make it as horrible as possible for women so they fuck off home quicker.

Unfortunately women absolutely hated it, campaigned to change it, petitioned, and we received 100s of letters a week about it.

Are they quite mad?

They're in hospital such a short while as a rule (I had an EMCS so was in longer), surely they can manage without partners between visits for a few hours. Fellow patients are recovering from a nasty procedure and major trauma to their bodies. They are the ones should be put first, and I well understood that meant not having my partner at my beck and call 24/7.

@RobinPenguins

Postnatal is the seventh circle of hell.

Hear hear

PS. Forgot to say it, how remiss of me. OP, you have my full sympathies. And also congratulations

It's been 14 years since I was on a post natal ward. Do the fathers actually sleep in a bed in the bay, genuinely interested.

Flashbacks here, too. And it was 20 years ago, and there were strict visiting hours.

@cuttlefishgame DP's cat learnt quickly to cry like DD after she was born.

Prior to that the cat would cry like DP's eldest as a baby.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Unfortunately women absolutely hated it, campaigned to change it, petitioned, and we received 100s of letters a week about it.

Are they quite mad?

They're in hospital such a short while as a rule (I had an EMCS so was in longer), surely they can manage without partners between visits for a few hours. Fellow patients are recovering from a nasty procedure and major trauma to their bodies. They are the ones should be put first, and I well understood that meant not having my partner at my beck and call 24/7.

I think that allowing visitors helps understaffed units! My DH stayed with me when DS3 was born, If he had not been there I would not have been able to feed and change the baby (post section) without numerous ringing of bell. It's not the answer but a possible explanation?

Postnatal is what I fear the most if I ever have another baby and that’s saying something.

First baby - was alone in postnatal ward for days until I was sent home finally as baby was in NICU. No one seemed to realise this and people traipsed into my cubicle day and night wanting to check me and the baby and I’d have to explain where the baby was again and again.

Second baby - baby was fine, I was not, very bad birth made worse by lack of sleep on postnatal ward (the fact that the full lights switch on as they come to check on you and give you drugs every few hours being part of the reason!). Eventually after about 3 days of no sleep I couldn’t take it and discharged myself “against medical advice”. I just couldn’t do it.

@DumpedByText

It's been 14 years since I was on a post natal ward. Do the fathers actually sleep in a bed in the bay, genuinely interested.

They could stay on a chair next to the bed when I gave birth 4 years ago. I sent DH home. Wish the other husbands/partners had done the same - selfish, noisy, snoring, shouting, toilet-hogging arseholes the lot of them.

@RedMarauder

Get your OH to engage him in conversation then tell him to STFU.

You have my sympathies. I was so glad when I was chucked out of the postnatal ward.

The couples with the really ill babies or where the mother had extensive surgery then was told by the health care professionals she had to walk, were all really quiet in comparison.

The couple next to us were a nightmare.

The mother refused to allow the father to pick their baby when she cried. She would then start having a go at him for random things like trying to think of other ways to stop their baby crying e.g. touching the baby's hand. These conversations were conducted in loud whispers. Eventually after about 8 hours a health care worker came in and told them both off for not picking up their baby and comforting her. (I suspect the couple on the other side who were discharged complained about this.)

The father snored and grunted very loudly in his sleep. My partner was so scared of snoring he wouldn't sleep so he disappeared for a few hours home to get some sleep.

That's very poor telling a new mother off, where's the support?

@DumpedByText

It's been 14 years since I was on a post natal ward. Do the fathers actually sleep in a bed in the bay, genuinely interested.

No.

The beds are for the mother who is the patient.

Fathers get an easy chair in lots of hospitals.

Many midwives, nurses and health care assistants are good are telling fathers to get off the bed.

DP's chair was broken so he tried to sleep on the floor. Unfortunately loud snorer and grunter next cubicle stopped us both from sleeping.

@DumpedByText

It's been 14 years since I was on a post natal ward. Do the fathers actually sleep in a bed in the bay, genuinely interested.

It was allowed 6 years ago when my last was born. DH had a reclining chair thing. We were in a room with another couple. and actually in our case it worked very well. The men were not allowed to use the ensuite, they had to go to the visitors loo down the corridor. We had curtained cubicles and were respectful to each other. But I understand why some people would not like this at all.

I’m genuinely stunned that so many places allow Dads to stay!

My hospital will not, it’s made me feel really anxious about giving birth. You aren’t allowed to use the private rooms for maternity to avoid a “two tier system of maternity care”, and DH is allowed to be with me from active labour at 4cm until an hour after baby is born; or until I leave the recovery ward if it’s a c section. That’s all. Then they can be around at visiting times, which is currently limited to two hours a day at alternating times to the beds next door, and only one visitor.

Hence why my next two babies were homebirths!!

Urghh, I was in a pre natal ward (getting induced) & my "neighbours" husband/partner used to turn up at about 7pm, lie on the bed (she would move to the chair). He would switch on this shite mini tv thing which was simultaneously noisy but inaudible & then move back onto the chair & start snoring all night long. I used to kick the chair but it wouldn't stop. One night I left the ward to sleep in the waiting room, I complained to the midwives but they just consoled me. I was this close to killing him.

after giving birth I luckily got a private room

I think dads are allowed because unfortunately there isn't enough staff & it plugs the gap.

The postnatal ward is hell on earth.

After I had my DD by crash c-section and she was taken away for the night, I was put in a small side room with one other person. She smoked a cigarette out of the window!

I then moved onto a general ward. The woman opposite me had had a c-section and was deeply upset as all her previous births (about 4 or 5 of them) had been vaginal. Her husband came to visit with the little siblings ... and then fucked off for the afternoon, leaving her to try and control them whilst lying prone in a bed after c-section. The staff were trying to persuade the mum to give them his number to get him to come back and collect them. But she wouldn't. Presumably he'd gone to work or something.

Sympathies OP!

@MistyFrequencies

Oh god definitely yell at him to shut the fuck up. If he seems angry cry and blame hormones.

I had a 55 year old first time mother next to me with one baby who cried all day and night about "what have I done" "I'm too old for this" etc etc. It broke my heart and my will to live. I asked to be discharged early because of her. 2 years later we met at the 2 yr health check and she and baby were thriving thank god.

55? Shit! I’m 53 and thinking I threw those condoms out too prematurely 😬

The postnatal ward was hell on earth 20 years ago. I couldn’t cope in my 30s. How you cope with it in your 50s I’ve no idea. I’d be weeping too.

You have my absolute sympathy, OP. As I say, it was 20 years ago and I still remember the sheer hell.

Congratulations on your baby. I would speak to the staff and threaten to discharge yourself. Tell them you’re going home unless they make him stop.