Partners sleeping on maternity ward?

[Jaaxe]

I’m due a csection in December, it’s not my first csection so I know birth recovery especially csection isn’t a walk in the park with a newborn and that having your partner in the hospital is helpful and good for bonding but aibu to think partners shouldn't be allowed to stay overnight to sleep in the bays alongside all the other female patients overnight? A side room is fine with me but a bay with other female patients at their most vulnerable, no thanks. I think the flexible visiting during the day is great but having partners camped next to your bed with just a curtain between is a no from me. Aibu?

I had my first in 2018. I was the only person overnight without a partner. Mine snores like a MF. I felt very uncomfortable and vulnerable. My second was born during covid and no partners were allowed on the ward. I actually liked it. Although, i know it had a really negative impact on some women. I also liked not having any visitors.

Problem is it's not really a healthcare facility for females. It's a healthcare facility for babies and the females who did the work are very much the afterthought...

I didn't have a CS but was bloody sore after giving birth, no core strength, couldn't sit up on my own while holding the baby etc, also near hallucinating with tiredness.

Neither of mine slept the first night either, after sleepless nights for me in labour.

I was the one rustling packets eating all the food, coz missed dinner...

After my appendix removal the staff actually helped when I needed it (dizzy as hell needing to pee) but in maternity they weren't available for helping get to the toilet when dizzy, or lifting a baby when you feel light headed!

People on MN like to imagine everyone has a smooth uncomplicated birth, spends a day or so in the hospital, is a bit sore but otherwise okay and then goes home.

In reality, I personally believe it's an abuse of vulnerable women to prevent them from having someone with them while in hospital after birth. You're at your most vulnerable, sometimes off your head on painkillers, in excruciating pain, with a small needy human to take care of. After my vaginal birth I couldn't stand or sit down while holding DS for weeks due to the pain. Could barely stand long enough to change a nappy for days. Ended up being moved from the postnatal to the neonatal unit due to complications, and was mentally broken from receiving bad news after bad news. I was in such a bad place physically and emotionally/mentally I genuinely think I would have killed myself if I had to go through all of that alone. On zero sleep, because DS couldn't sleep because he was starving, which was ignored. You can only put your body through so much before it breaks, and having partners on the ward helps staff as there's another pair of hands to help the mother/tend to the baby.

The mental and physical health of new mothers doesn't stop mattering just because the baby is out. Remove partners and I guarantee there'll be more accidents and tragedies due to unsafe accidental bedsharing, dropping etc.

If you assign every woman a one to one midwife who is there for her and her baby and never leaves her side then you could consider this, but even then that doesn't account for the emotional support of having your partner by your side, not to mention depriving your baby of their other parent at such a crucial time.

DH came in with me to be induced and other than one night at home to reup supplies he was with me for the whole fourteen days from induction to leaving. I honestly find posts like this barbaric and so fucking selfish. Brilliant if you had the sort of birth where you didn't need anyone and could manage fine by yourself, not everyone is that lucky.

Here's an example of how my DH provided care during our stay:

Did all of the nappy changing as I couldn't stand
Gave DS his feeds
Helped with bf (I was too exhausted to focus and delirious from pain and exhaustion, grinding my jaw and hallucinating monsters crawling out from the bins, so he listened to the advice and then helped me to latch/position etc.)
Helped me up from the bed and down again
Cared for DS while I got a shower or tried to go for that horrific post-birth poo (days into the stay)
Provided emotional support and encouragement at a time when I was starting to think about jumping out of the window

If it should be a single-sex facility then I suppose you're against male midwives and HCAs too, right? After all, they couldn't enter the ward.

Your own hangups would cause massive harm to so many if you got your way. If you're that confident you'd be fine without a partner during your hospital stay then by all means pay private and go for it. I will warn you that just because you had an easy birth/stay previously it doesn't mean it'll always be that way, though... try receiving bad news after bad news and thinking your baby is going to die by yourself.

People who've had 'easy' births really, really need to listen to the experiences of those who haven't. Women matter ffs.

Men shouldn't be allowed to stay under any circumstances. But allowing another woman to stay with the new num would be a good compromise.

I'm sorry you had this experience but this comment is brilliant and I agree 100%.

@Ballocks

I’m sorry if that comes across as me intentionally targeting you as it wasn’t meant to be a personal attack but more drawing attention to a theme of language arising on this thread from multiple posts, using your specific example, and how it can be minimising in its effect. This may not have been conscious intent on your part but regardless, the effect of minimisation can be the same: the idea of having partners there gets framed as something closer to a convenience than to the matter of life and death that it can be. I’m not sorry to have raised this point as I feel it was an extremely important one to make.

I acknowledge that women on both sides of this are potentially experiencing trauma. I do believe in yours and its seriousness, even though I’ve not personally experienced it so may lack depth of understanding, so I apologise if I seemed to minimise it. I didn’t quote the other part of your post simply because I’ve nothing to say about it - I don’t disagree, in essence. I am only questioning whether the overall balance resulting between the issues is fair - and I feel it isn’t because of the type of language used. That’s just my opinion. You can of course express yourself any way you like and I can’t moderate your language. I can only say what I think the impact of it is.

So just to clarify those of us who have the trauma of dying and disability effecting our babies should go through that alone.

Cold. How about reading the thread before making your I'm alright statements.

@LeningradSymphony I totally agree. Very easy to say men shouldn't be allowed when you're out within a few hours. What about the unlucky who are there for a week upwards with traumatic births and really needed their partners with them. I had this during the pandemic. I'm terrified in June of them imposing further restrictions on visiting hours if people complain. There needs to be compromise and everyone to be considered.

@LovinglifeAF How is some random partner going to be instrumental in providing nursing or medical care?

What a weird post, they aren’t a random partner, it’s the babies father.

In my case the ‘random’ partner did absolutely everything for the baby including some of the feeding by syringing colostrum into babies mouth, including dressing baby after they first came out, every single nappy change, every single nappy, lifted baby out of the bassinet every single time I wanted her, put her back every single time.
He also had to chase down a midwife every time I was in agony as it turns out I was hours overdue pain relief every single time.
I really doubt I would have to ask for pain relief after having my appendix removed but was asked ‘are you sure you need it?’ mere hours after a section.

I completely agree with that. It would be the perfect way of ensuring women get the help, support and privacy they need. What a nightmare for an abused woman to be surrounded by men when she’s at her most vulnerable. It’s barbaric.

There are some perfect examples on here on why there needs to be facilities for all women, and indeed fathers

The parents with extremely ill babies or baby loss should not be separated... and should not be on general maternity wards. That is inhumane.

Women who are too ill too adequately care for their babies should becable to have a supporter with them

Women with prior trauma which means they can't share a ward with men shouldn't be forced too.

Women who want their partner, but don't necessarily need them should be given a choice if the facility is available

Women with no one available to support them should be able to access support in hospital

None of it should be a competition.

LeningradSymphony · Today 12:58
People who've had 'easy' births really, really need to listen to the experiences of those who haven't. Women matter ffs.

I had anything but an easy birth and that’s precisely why I didn’t want random males (to me) on the ward.

Quite right @PuttingDownRoots

Ultimately we are in a situation where almost all women are being failed.

"People on MN like to imagine everyone has a smooth uncomplicated birth, spends a day or so in the hospital, is a bit sore but otherwise okay and then goes home".

Not at all, my first birth was not without complication but overall I have been lucky. I do have friends who have had a really traumatic time and I don't think anyone on this thread thinks that women should just get on with it with no support. Those who need help should get it and those who want single sex space should also be considered. The best solution in my view would be to have separate wards where partners can stay, and single sex wards. Surely that would be fairly easy to achieve.

Of course not. No woman should deal with that alone. But nor should she deal with that on a shared ward. The answer is not to open up women only spaces to men but to afford women in extreme situations greater privacy so support can be present without impacting other women. And I can assure you, its very far from an 'I'm alright' statement. Having a traumatic experience and believing in women's right to women only spaces is not mutually exclusive.

No but there are still people making it a fucking competition and it's the no men ever crew.

I think you will find that those of us who had trauma and a massive need for the father of our child(No not a fucking random, the person who ends up going through the bereavement or navigating disability with us) understand that some women want single sex wards and we think they should have them in addition to those that need partners there.

It's the other side who are unable to see the nuance. No doubt those women I was with went home and whinged about my husband and how I was hysterical.

No it shouldn't have happened but the lack of engagment and fucking empathy is really galling.

No one is saying open up womens spaces. The people saying why they needed their partner there, or in my experience a private ward to deal with trauma are not advocating for only mixed sex wards. Just an acknowledgment that mixed sex is needed.

Hated the men on the wards when I was bleeding having internal exams and with my boobs out with just a curtain that they always knock into ime
Hate them there
Should all be side rooms for this reason

And no, having your partner there shouldn't just be afforded to women who are deemed in need. Firstly, as in my case people are deemed not in need when they fucking are. Secondly dads should be able to bond with their children.

More wards, more staff, more care is the answer. Not stripping women of choices.

Until I came on MN, I had no idea this was a thing really. This wouldn’t have been allowed when I had my two. Men were only allowed to stay until you had the baby and you both got settled on the ward. As soon as both were settled the dad/ birth partner had to go.

And if you're not close to your mum (or she's dead) and only have a brother ...

I don't have any female friends who would be in a position to leave work at a random point in a 6 week window to support me in hospital, and most of the ones who would be any good have their own children to care for ...

No one had overnight partners staying for either of my births, there was still plenty of snoring, screaming babies, rustling of food packets and loud phone conversations and videos.

All the embarrassing medical stuff was during the day when partners (and other visitors) were allowed. When I was induced I was on an antenatal bay, I was very close to giving birth with a whole family in the next bay, chairs against my curtain, they certainly got the benefit of my swearing while the midwives did the inducing gel stuff and when they checked how far I'd got - lots of scar tissue from first birth made the vaginal exams really painful.

If DH hadn't been there I'd probably have given birth on that bay, as he had to go fetch the midwife when I did my usual trick of 3cm to 8+cm in 30 minutes ... In the middle of dinner service.

I was at Telford Hospital when the baby death scandal was under investigation, the biggest impact at that point was the the senior MW (who I'd been randomly assigned) also had to show multiple bigwigs around the ward and show them what was happening instead of/as well as doing her job.

Until staffing levels are sorted women need advocates who aren't in pain and are mobile, and a very large number of women don't have female relatives who would be of any use to them at that point.

Also, if there's urgent clinical decisions to be made, better there is a next of kin/parent to make the big decisions rather than whichever female friend wasn't working on the crucial day!

Then we were at cross purposes. If there were separate wards where partners can stay, while preserving women only wards, with women guaranteed the option of a ward without men present, then obviously that would be ideal.
That's different from men being allowed to stay on general wards where other women have no choice.
I haven't for a moment failed to grasp why women may need their partner present, but there are appropriate ways for this to happen. Men on general maternity wards is not the way.