Maternity ward visitor is driving me mad

If he's snoring like a pig all night, he's not helping or doing anything to relieve pressure on staff. He's just pissing off the other patients!

If you can't face asking her to send him home, then please ask a nurse or ward matron to.

@Inertia We know that the NHS is underfunded and there are insufficient hospital staff. The answer to that is adequate NHS funding, not stripping exhausted new mothers of their privacy and dignity.

You’ve quite literally proved my point. The answer is indeed adequate NHS funding but until that happens, men NEED to be on the ward to help women as HCP aren’t able to help as much as they should. Ofc women can pick another woman to be their birthing partner but for many, their husband or partner is their first choice.

If no one’s able to help new mum’s who have just given birth then it doesn’t make sense to say ‘oh men shouldn’t be there.’ You just have to look at the comments to see that women have had their partners there to change nappies, hand over babies etc. Women are indeed in their most vulnerable state yet there’s no help from midwives because they’re rushed off of their feet. Should those women just struggle for the sake of having no men on the ward then?

Men don't belong on the post natal ward at night.

Its supposed to be where women can recover from the birth, maybe new mothers share a bit with the other women who are not first timers. They need a bit of privacy, dignity even if not much actual sleep is possible.

The real issue is the lack of staffing and the attitude of many HCP who make people’s experiences much more difficult than need be. Not men staying on the ward/overnight

This!

I think it also feeds a vicious circle where because men are allowed to stay, women feel they couldn’t cope without them there, and the midwives are so busy they want them there to do the non medical jobs, when if they weren’t allowed women would cope and the midwives would step up. I sent DH home overnight as I’d had a 51 hour labour so he was totally sleep deprived, and I was just super aggressive with the call button as I couldn’t even move after my section for the first 24 hours so had to have the baby passed to me for feeding and couldn’t do nappies. It was totally fine, I found the health assistants and midwives very responsive and it meant DH could then be present and awake during the day for us.

I hope to god they’ve kept the Covid rule of one in one our visitors, that was brilliant, meant the ward was so quiet.

And as long as women accept this situation the staffing won't change.

Women are in their most vulnerable state as you say. Most maternity units have door locks and and checks on all staff for this reason. But birth partners, even if not the parent, are subject to no checks.

Perhaps the answer to staffing issues on every ward is to let unchecked volunteers onto wards.

@starbaby858 so what’s your solution for single mothers, or women whose partners have to stay home overnight to look after older children, and who don’t have family or friends nearby ? They have to struggle alone AND face the risks and inconvenience?

There are hospitals where men are not allowed to stay overnight on wards. How do they make it work?

I discharged myself early exactly for this reason, men shouldn’t be allowed to stay on postnatal wards at all IMO.

I wonder if it's because of cutbacks in the number of staff in the hospital.
When I had my babies, 40 years ago, visiting hours were strictly limited to 1 hour in the early afternoon and 1 hour in the early evening. All visitors, including the babies' fathers, would be kicked out after an hour. Most dads only visited in the evenings, after work. The purpose of visitors was for the families and friends to see the baby, congratulate the mother, chat to the mother etc: they were not there to provide help, that's what the staff were there for.
I had my babies in a small maternity hospital. The postnatal wards were staffed mainly with NNEB nursery nurses who had specialised in newborns. They supported us mums by assisting with breastfeeding, demonstrating nappy changing and bathing a baby, giving us a hug when everything got to much and bottle feeding the babies at night if the mother was too exhausted to get up to feed.
Nevertheless, in the 5 days I spent on the ward, I hardly had any sleep! Even though all the babies were taken off the ward at 10pm to the nursery, it was still impossible to sleep with all the comings and goings going on - and one of the other mums on my ward (5 beds) was a loud snorer. The rest of us didn't have the heart to complain about it. Nothing much that could be done anyway.

He shouldn’t be there. Partners shouldn’t be allowed on wards overnight, and visiting hours should be strict. Only actual mothers should be allowed to sleep on the ward at any time - no men turning up and napping on their partners beds during the day, which also happens.

They seem to be allowed with the idea they will help, because they are so short staffed midwives/ nurses can no longer do anything to help their patients care for the babies. Which is madness.

When I was born, babies were taken to a nursery during the night and mothers left in peace to sleep and recover. This should be an option still - women need to recover from my giving birth, whether vaginally or via section - it’s not a luxury. Fine if you don’t want to be parted from your baby, but there should be the option of suitable help, not partners staying and dominating the space.

Goodness you could hardly squeeze in the basinet with baby let alone a grown man in my post natal ward! No visitors overnight either - seems weird to allow them. Unless this other mum had section too she should be on her way home shortly.

Fortunately, when I had my 3 father's were not allowed to stay over night.

I do not understand why mixed sex wards are not allowed, but you have a baby you are bleeding, leaking boobs and it's absolutely fine.

With my first I had a PPH and was on the high risk post natal ward. Visiting was strictly limited to a few hours a day and there was a nursery for babies (they use to take the babies overnight/when you needed to sleep and would bring them when they needed feeding). It was bliss.

Partners never used to stay over. My youngest is 12 and it wasn't allowed then, which I'm glad of, I definitely wouldn't have been comfortable with a man overnight on the ward, the state I was in! What do they do with women from cultures where that is just not allowed?

I hear you op. I've had 4 babies. One was a home birth and was actually bliss!

The other 3 stays where he'll on earth.

I always think its ridiculous that you have had a baby pushed out of your nether regions or cut out of your stomach and you are expected to look after the baby with no help from professionals. Especially if it's your first I think this is crazy. Then expected to share a room with loads of other women and their partners who frankly don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. Then you have those who have endless visitors.

My last one I discharged myself abd baby at 1 am as I was promised to be home by 11pm. Then they said no sorry its too late..but for my sake and babies we had to go home. So I pushed them and pushed them and hovered around the nurses station until they gave in. Dh had to come out with th the other kids but I felt like o was losing it. They also hadn't met their baby sister as I did want to annoy other people with them coming in.

But the ladies husband next to me kept moving his chair closer and closer to my bed with a curtain in between so he had more leg room and did not stop bloody talking. Endless visitors and loud videos and they took ages to attend to the baby.

One opposite me kept staring into space but in my direction. So I closed the curtain. Midwife kept opening it saying it needs to be open so we know you haven't fallen asleep with the baby. I just wanted to breastfeed without an audience. So I ignored and kept closing it anyway.

Ridiculous.

What we desperately need is small individual rooms on postnatal wards with some sound insulation between them, and the option of the baby going to an overnight nursery. They can bring them to you for feeding if they start crying. I honestly don’t understand how women are expected to go through the most agonising and physical experience of their lives, without a reasonable night’s sleep afterwards. I would be interested to see how a lack of sleep in the week after birth correlates to things like PND and slow healing times, because I’m convinced it’s all related.

This. And in France they have exactly this.

I closed the curtain. Midwife kept opening it saying it needs to be open so we know you haven't fallen asleep with the baby. I just wanted to breastfeed without an audience. So I ignored and kept closing it anyway.

I had this. And a lady beside me was allowed hers closed “for religious reasons”. Fine, but don’t tell me my reasons are less valid.

Weird, isn't it, that wanting modesty because your god told you to is respected, but wanting modesty because it's a natural human instinct isn't.

(Just to clarify, I think both should be respected).

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing funny thing Is I tried that. I'm Muslim and cover my hair etc so if I don't like showing my hair it's unlikely I would like an audience on my bleeding body and boots out! But that wasn't accepted. But I ignored and did it anyway..it was my 4th so not like I didn't know what I was doing!

I had a similar problem and spoke to the midwife and she sorted it