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?

My husband wasn't allowed to stay overnight with baby no.1, but was with baby no.2. Second time round was a game changer and I appreciated it so much. My mental health was hugely improved vs 1st time round. DH was able to do tasks that otherwise the nurses would have had to do. It was a lovely experience and I wrote to the ward afterwards emphasising our appreciation that DH could stay to help and share the experience.

No one said it was.

But instead of advocating taking people's choice away you should advocate providing actual services fit for purpose.

Otherwise you come across like a callous, ablist arse tbh.

Exactly what @LeningradSymphony said 👏🏼👏🏼

For every woman with no female friends or relatives there will be at least one without a male partner. So yes, some women could find themselves unable to benefit from a policy to allow other women on the wards. But equally there are women who don't benefit from policies that allow fathers to be present. No policy is beneficial to everyone, it's usually a case of doing the best for the majority with suitable provisions in place for the most vulnerable.

I’ve been the person on both sides of this my dd was born by emergency C-section in 2014 when dads weren’t aloud to stay I’d had a two day labour, c section and was then told they thought my dd had Down’s syndrome, my dh had to go home and I was broken, I was in hospital for 5 days and the midwives were no help through the night I really struggled. With ds I had a planned csection and dh spent the first night at home that night I couldn’t get up to cover myself properly or close the curtain and there were other men in the room which made me feel vulnerable however the next night I was so exhausted I asked my mum to have dd so my dh could stay and it was a great help. Unfortunately, in the uk at least you don’t get any help on the ward through the night so I think the dads are needed.

If someone had been allowed to stay with me after having ds I wouldn't have left hospital with PTSD & severe PND & wouldn't have cost the NHS thousands for therapy & antidepressant prescriptions. I can't be the only one.

I think that women are generally allowed a birthing support person (partner or other) already...

No one is objecting to partners in antenatal during the day, yet there's blatantly going to be more medical intervention involving hands up vaginas there than in post natal as that's where the early stages of inductions happen and you're assessed to decide if you're ready to go to delivery if you've been induced... How is post natal more sacrosanct when there's extra people to care for (the baby) and less need for hands in vaginas on the ward...

The obvious solution would be rooms allocated to needs and choice. However this is never going to happen. But then you would get women who want their dps there for whatever reason. I don't know what the solution is really. My dh being there was just invaluable and he completely took care of the baby and I. I had a CS. He helped me in the bathroom and shower, and I much preferred him there than any nurse. When ds started throwing up and choking it was him who reacted while I was dosed up and fast asleep. We were fortunate enough to go private so we had exactly what we wanted, but I really feel for those who have no choice and have had bad experiences. I can see both sides of this. Don't know what the solution is, but I hate that women have to worry about this during their most vulnerable time.

I can see both sides and I think its tragic that its got to the point where we are fighting among ourselves for resources instead of fighting for better resources. If maternity units were adequately staffed, there would be fewer traumatic births in the 1st place, and no reason for most husbands to stay overnight. And if there were adequate private rooms, those who needed the mental support of their partner wouldn't be impacting on other vulnerable women.
In an ideal world, maternity services would come first in the funding pile, as we are literally creating the future. Financially, its incredibly short sighted to skimp on maternity services - an infant with life changing injuries is a patient for life.

It is unacceptable but they can't magic more staff out of no where.

I was the first person in for my c section, the first person in recovery and the first person ferried into the showers.

My incision tore open and I ended up with sepsis, and back in bed. There was not enough staff to help me and every one else.

It's despicable. But I did need my partner.

I hated the fact that every one else's partners were there but I couldn't be hypocritical.

Stopping people's partners staying isn't going to suddenly make the staff more attentive, or the pot for more staff full.

I didn't have easy births and, as shared earlier, almost died during one of them.

I still wouldn't want to have partners there overnight. Vulnerability aside, it is busy/loud/cramped enough in a bay with 4-6 women plus babies without adding in another 4-6 adults worth of noise and space usage. It's not a hotel, it's a medical space and the only people staying overnight should be patients except in exceptional circumstances (which most hospitals already account for). I would have the same objections to female partners staying over too.

Maternity care is shit in the UK and partners there overnight makes it even shittier as it gives the government license to not spend the money that is needed. They can justify it by partners being there to pick up the slack (of course the reality is that many of them won't be and are just there because of FOMO).

How is night really different to day in the maternity ward? You're feeding all day and night, medical stuff happens both day and night and you're not really on a night/day pattern, and baby definitely isn't.

Medical discussions about pee, shit, bleeding, stitches etc happen during partner visiting times. Most feeding consultations are day time with all the people around...

Night being for rest is an illusion, with arrivals from delivery - I was transferred at around 2am - medical emergencies, hungry babies etc

I do think there is the argument that hospitals needs to keep wards as quiet as they possibly can at night for everyone's benefit to try get some sleep, which probably means keeping the number of people on it to a minimum. But some do need the extra help.

When I had my baby, there was 4 in the ward, and they had to let a husband stay one night as the baby was inconsolable for 3 days straight and the mother was not able to mind it. They had minded the baby extremely well for the 2 nights previously but also had other patients that they needed to tend to so rang the hubby. Tbh I didn't even see him, I was not uncomfortable at all in fact it was probably the first night the entire ward got decent sleep.

I disagree that "for women's safety men shouldn't be allowed stay, it should be a woman if they need extra help"... Its the biggest stereotype ever, insinuating all men are some sort of attackers... There are plenty of bad women out there too that could potentially be verbally abusive, aggressive, thief... Wouldn't like to be sleeping on a ward with them either!

Visiting is 8am-midnight on the pn ward at my trust

Who are these people who rest and sleep overnight in the labour ward anyway? As far as I’m aware it was just a 24hr cycle of haziness. Partners or no partners I’m jealous of the women sleeping the night after giving birth, day/night/time had zero meaning to me 😂

Excellent post.

Did he push the baby out of his vagina? The staff in the hospital are employed to do exactly what you’ve said - look after babies.

Would you say the same if the patient was in intensive care? The solution is to demand better staffing levels.
a maternity ward is NOT party central.

I wish my partner could have stayed to help me after my c section. It was so hard and the midwives were short staffed (as they always seem to be these days) so no one was even answering the bell, when I rang it so many times :(
surely it would take the pressure off the staff if partners could do basic care for the mum who had given birth, passing the baby to her and feeding support.
I ended up leaving early as I needed the help and could not get it on the ward.

Literally no idea where you are going with the vagina comment. I didn’t push one out of my vagina either, does that exclude me from being a mother?
Since when does being a mother mean you have to care for your baby more than being a father? It certainly doesn’t in my relationship.

If you think the staff in a hospital care look after the babies I would be interested to know the last time you gave birth?
Genuinely.
Caring for the baby beyond the basic medical sense is not what midwives or nurses do on the maternity ward these days. They don’t feed the baby, don’t dress it, don’t settle it when you can’t rock it as you’ve just had major surgery hours ago, they don’t change the baby when you can’t even take baby out of the bassinet.
So what is the caring they provide for the baby?

You cannot compare the needs of intensive care patients to those of a woman who has just given birth.

teo completely different scenarios, hence why ITU will always be staffed appropriately whereas maternity units never will be.

People can demand better staffing all they like but that doesn’t actually do anything or change anything.

And in response to another poster….midwives do not look after babies. They look after women during labour and then generally the women and babies are left to fend for themselves.

@luxxlisbon I'm sorry this was your experience! Sounds horrific. The midwives in my hospital were amazing and did all those things you have listed, when the mother wasn't fit too!

I’m really glad your experience was different!
Unfortunately my experience is far from unique as we can see on this thread and all the mums I know in real life, a very recent nct experience for example.

I couldn’t move, I was barely conscious after a long induction and labour only to have a section in the end. We rang the buzzer in the middle of the night as my husband hadn’t put a nappy on before and was hoping it was something the midwives would help with. No one answered for ages, eventually he went to go find someone which is obviously something I would not have been able to do only to be told he shouldn’t need help putting a nappy on!! So supportive.
Eventually a student midwife came to help but it was like getting blood out of a stone and most of the staff acted like you were a massive inconvenience.

This with bloody bells on.

I'm confused by the horrified responses about how vulnerable you are at night and how awful it is to have men in the room. What's the difference between the partners being there at night and being there all day? Not much sleep happens at night in the postnatal ward or at least no more than in the daytime. People are up and down and in and out all day and all night.
If my husband hadn't been allowed to stay after my c section my baby would not have been cared for really.