Maternity ward visitor is driving me mad

How come the partner is allowed to stay ? They are normally thrown out at 9 pm

I wonder who these mothers are that they said wanted partners there? The overwhelming majority on here always seem to oppose it.

Partners in a private room, fine (within reason in terms of behaviour). Partners on a shared ward, obviously not. I mean obviously. Who wants to sleep in a room containing an unknown man?

I had my babies a long time ago (and at home thank god) and I just can’t see how on any level this is acceptable.

It's bad enough that men are being allowed and even encouraged to invade vulnerable women’s spaces, but the fact that they then can’t even respect those spaces is male entitlement at its finest. Why on earth are they walking round in their fucking boxers, demanding food, and disturbing women who are supposed to be recovering from, in some cases, trauma or surgery?? Who the fuck do these men think they are?

Honestly, in my experience most women want their partner to stay. And that is why they demand it. The thinking comes slightly unstuck when the reality becomes sharing a bay with not just their own nice middle class respectable Alistair but also Sharon and Tracey’s Kevin and Steve who snore and fart and whistle (ugh the whistlers). Meanwhile Sharon and Tracey are being driven demented by Alistairs constant pontificating on the best way to breastfeed darling and droning on about the books he’s read about getting babies to self soothe and comforting themselves with ‘at least my Kev just goes to sleep and doesn’t bore everyone to death going on about books’. Neither realising that their own ‘useful’ husband is setting at least one other woman’s teeth on edge.

The midwives are just despairing that there’s 4 extra bodies in the bay to try and navigate around in the dark and trying to work out if one of the toilets are blocked or Steve/Kev/Alistair has just dropped an unflushable man sized log that needs chopping up to get it to go down.

The postnatal ward should be a no bloke zone between the hours of 6pm and 10am for everyone’s benefit.

@Wouldloveanother when I had my oldest(nearly 18yrs ago) Even although I was on a ward the 1st night you were there the midwife’s would take the babies in to a nursery(unless u disagreed)so you could have a sleep and do the feeding and changing unless u were breastfeeding then they would bring the baby back to be fed but take them back to the nursery when they were finished.

This is what MIL said, they made bloody sure the mums got a good nights sleep. This time I intend to leave DH with a stash of colostrum while I go and get my 8 hours.

I think in hospitals generally visitors shouldn't be allowed to sit on the bed let alone stay over night.

Yes, I’m fine thanks.

As many have indicated on this thread, it’s not necessarily helpful for staff to have men staying on the ward. Frequently they are not actually helping, and often they use facilities (and even take food) intended for mothers.

My point isn’t that everyone should struggle. My point is that no-one should be left to struggle AND women and babies should be properly safeguarded in hospital wards. Are we expecting wives and girlfriends to pick up the slack in nursing care in men’s genito-urinary and bowel surgery wards, with female overnight users hogging the bathrooms and staring in at partially-clothed men in beds with open curtains? Or is it only new mothers who are expected to acquiesce to loss of dignity and safety?

Why on earth is her partner sleeping over? I've never heard of such a thing and I've had 4 dc's in 3 different hospitals!

my sympathies OP - hope you are finally getting some peace and are out of there soon!

They’re keeping quiet.

Plenty of women think that it’s essential that Dom, Paul, Matt, Andy or Chris snore and fart at their bedside after they have given birth. They don’t give a second thought to the feelings of the other women on the ward.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing @EntertainingandFactual

I want my partner there overnight if I have to stay in. Largely because the wards are hugely understaffed and I don’t want to have to wait crying and wincing for an hour for pain relief, hobble to the loo on my own or wet my bed, get out of bed to pick up my baby if I end up with forth degree tears, or wounds, or wait 45 minutes for a midwife to answer my buzzer if I urgently need medical help or my baby does. I expect plenty of women feel the same, and those who have mobility issues, conditions or disabilities, or who will struggle to demand the care they need on top of just having given birth probably need their partners there even more. I have friends who opened their stitches because no midwife was there to support them or help them get up or explain how, or who got infections because nobody was checking how they were healing or helping them care for their wounds, or started bleeding and had to scream to get attention.

Would be happy not to have partner there overnight if there were enough midwives, or to go in a private room if the vast vast majority of hospitals didn’t have them. But as anyone who reads the news or has experienced one of these wards can see, there aren’t enough staff or resources.

I agree it’s not great and is potentially traumatising for women who don’t want others on the ward, but not having partners there to fill dangerous gaps in care risks leaving other women who have also just gone through childbirth in pain, unsupported, not properly checked or monitored and with nobody to advocate for them in the face of massive staffing shortages.

Try directing your annoyance at the people responsible for underfunding the NHS and creating working conditions that are making midwives leave the profession in droves. Instead of pitting one group of vulnerable women against another.

You summed up my points much better than I did haha! This is it in a nutshell

Things were so different when I had my babies in the 80's.
I stayed in hospital for 7 nights after each baby. Visiting time was an hour in the afternoon and another in the evening. That applied to all visitors including fathers. Babies were taken to the nursery overnight and you had the choice of them doing the night feeds if bottle fed or they would bring the baby to you if breastfed. You got all the help you needed to establish breastfeeding and the nursery nurses were always on hand if you needed any help.

Poor you. I hate that partners are allowed to stay overnight. Women need to be as relaxed as possible and not worry about covering up. Horrible to bump into a strange man in the night whilst bleeding heavily and feeling rough!

I hope it gets better for you. Congratulations on your lovely baby!

How is this allowed at all? Utterly disgusting. The nurses need on that ward need to be doing some nursing, not relying on any Tom, dick or random Harry to be picking up the slack.

@PlumPudd
Try directing your annoyance at the people responsible for underfunding the NHS and creating working conditions that are making midwives leave the profession in droves. Instead of pitting one group of vulnerable women against another.

I totally agree that maternity wards should be adequately staffed for the sake of everyone. As it is, they are not so why would a couple make the stay there even more unpleasant and difficult for other new mothers just so that they are with each other? I assume that staying over is a joint decision so yes, you're right, it isn't just the woman being inconsiderate, it's both of them.

You have my utmost sympathy. I was stuck on the antenatal ward for days due to bed shortages on the labor ward. The last day I was stuck with this woman who was sniffing - loudly, all day, constantly and talking loudly on her phone. I had to wear earplugs during the day, she was that annoying. Thought I'd get some peace when she finally went to sleep but then she started snoring like a bear. I was lucky enough to have a private room postnatal, think I'd have had a full on meltdown if I'd have had to deal with anything like that!

I don’t think you’ve read or understood my post. I don’t want my partner there just so we can be together!!

I want them there because maternity wards ARE NOT adequately staffed, and this leaves dangerous gaps in care that partners should not have to, but can help to fill. If I have to stay in overnight (remember many women who are fine will be discharged the same day) then I may be at my most medically vulnerable and physically and emotionally exhausted and with a completely dependent baby to care for, potentially for days. In these conditions, I and many other women on the ward may be left in the hands of midwives who are too busy to bring them pain relief in time, help then get to the loo before they wet the bed, or help them pick up, feed and change their babies if they’ve been injured. Some women may be completely fine without support, but many won’t and will want their partners to be there to care for them, because the staff don’t have time or capacity to do so!!

Our local hospital has banned partners from staying. Visiting hours for partners are 8am-8pm. I was in tricky thankful for this when I was on the post natal ward not long ago!

I assume that staying over is a joint decision so yes, you're right, it isn't just the woman being inconsiderate, it's both of them.

Frankly my own physical well-being after major surgery with no up to date pain relief after, zero help from midwives and a baby that needs care are at the top of my priority list. I was physically unable to look after my baby, why would I be more concerned about a stranger than my own child’s well-being? It’s my partner’s child too - why should I have to care for them by myself after major surgery?
The exact same argument can be used the other way around, no consideration for women who have had a much more physically traumatic birth and are not capable of caring for a newborn while recovering.

I remember having my first baby before the pandemic and as I was getting to grips with breast feeding my baby a maternity assistant ripped the curtain open so suddenly to check baby over and a dad in the bay opposite had a right eye full, I was mortified.

I also hated the fact that a man was the other side of the curtain when I was in early labour and having a painful VE with the midwife explaining what she was doing, how far into my cervix her fingers were and how dilated I was. It was awkward, it heightened my anxiety and I just wanted out of there!

had my second during the pandemic and it was honestly bliss. I had much privacy which made me far more relaxed. The post natal ward was lovely, just mothers and their babies. No loud blokes, no chatting going on through the night, no visitors during the day.

This, this and this. When I had DD I was there for 7 days. When I had DS I was there for 13 days. Both times the care was shockingly awful. Why I’d have two newborn babies suffering all in the name of ‘no men on the ward’ is beyond me.

As said previously, if the NHS was funded properly and staffing levels weren’t an issue then I’d be happy to not have a male birthing partner with me.

I can’t believe some peoples experiences back in the 80s though. Having a nursery to leave babies in to get some decent sleep, being shown how to breastfeed PROPERLY and not just told to give the baby a bottle. That all sounds amazing. I wish it was still like that now

I remember when I had my first
i was 19 (had turned 19 6 weeks earlier) and was bloody vulnerable
they told me I had to keep the curtains open 24/7
the bloke opposite me (sat in his shitty chair-he only moved out of it to shit or get snacks for himself) kept looking at me,with a massive grin on his face
im trying to get my tits out to feed my baby-he was looking with that grin
im trying to move about-staring with that grin
im trying to change my babies nappy-him still looking with that fucking grin
im trying to have a snooze-with him gawping-with the grin that never left his face
he didn’t help with his baby-not once
he did however take over the toilet for an hour every morning and kept commenting on the womens bodies and loudly told the ward about the blood stain on my pyjama bottoms

I snapped the curtains shut-and the midwives kept snapping them open again and kept telling me off for daring to open them
i was 19 years old-frightened,vulnerable and just wanted a tiny bit of privacy

then the bloody bounty woman comes barrelling towards me-I’m too young and frightened to tell her to fuck off

top it all off,this one midwife took it on herself to keep shouting at me for being young,unmarried and I deserved to go to hell for it (she took pleasure in waking me up if I did manage to doze and twice poked me in the spot I was sore from because I’d had to have two injections in my thigh)
she also walked in,ripped my pyjama top down and grabbed my nipple to ‘help’ feed my baby-when that failed she walked off with her and I went mental as I couldn’t see my baby-she reappeared and told me I was ‘overreacting’

I discharged myself-and they where going mental shouting at me I couldn’t-it took my dad to see the state I was in to sort it out with them-he told me to get my baby and my bag we where going right now

whoever called it the 6th circle of hell is spot on

I am sorry you had to endure this. Vulnerable women shouldn't share ward space with strange men. The sad reality is that a large number of men think it is OK to behave badly and many women are too embarrassed or intimidated to complain.

Sorry to offend anyone but why are men allowed to stay? Women are so vulnerable after birth. I have never had a baby and would be horrified to have men around. I can remember there being sensible visiting hours when women in my family were on maternity wards. What changed ? It sounds like chaos