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 feel really strongly that partners should NOT be allowed in maternity wards overnight. I had an ECS with my last and my first night with my baby was a horrendous memory as all I can recall was the woman in the next bed’s partner not going at the end of visiting time . He spoke loudly all night until about 3am and then fell asleep and snored. The overstretched nurses told him several times to leave. If women are so pathetic to need their partner there all night they should have to pay for a private room.

People on here tend to be more anxious than the norm, it comes out on posts like this, posters on AIBU are also often older so that will colour views as well.

No idea how you’ve arrived at that analogy given this is an anonymous forum, but whatever.

It’s not ‘anxious’ to not want a man you don’t know and who isn’t a medical professional see you bleed everywhere, potentially walk in on you in the shower, see your breasts whilst trying to feed and hearing intimate examinations and conversations whilst you have vaginal stitches examined.

What an utterly stupid post. I can respect posters who have a different view to me but those making up their own non-facts are just talking nonsense.

It's a no from me. I'm not sleeping in a room, with my breast out half the night getting breastfeeding established, bleeding and sharing the room and bathroom with 5 or 6 men. I don't want the toilet to be unisex, I don't want to hear their loud voices, their snoring (whilst they're being so helpful), and there is little enough privacy as it is, behind your curtain, which midwives love to whip open suddenly or doctors examining me with a random man on the other side of the curtain. Just no.

I couldn't have managed without DH. I'd have been fine with nurses helping me but they didn't. CS, could barely walk, had to feed every three hours, pump then give top up feed and sterilise the pump and bottles. I'd have collapsed.

My children are teenagers and a toddler. During the 3 times I gave birth I never saw a dad spend the night. I'm pretty sure they weren't ever allowed to. I had c sections and I cried when my husband went home but it never occurred to me he'd be allowed to stay.

There’s nothing pathetic about wanting your child’s father to be there. I’d say it’s more “pathetic” (to use your term) to think that your issues should override a father’s right to spend his child’s first night by their side.

A lot of that happens in the daytime though! If not most of it. Would you rather partners weren't allowed on the ward at all? Why is nighttime so special?

If women are so pathetic to need their partner there all night they should have to pay for a private room.

Wow.... Just wow... @Redbone have you read any post here from the many women who were not physically or mentally or emotionally able to look after their babies are they were recovering from a medical trauma that is child birth, be it section or vaginal??? Not being able to walk, or move, or lift, or eat, or feed is pathetic now is it?

Does that stuff not happen during the day?

@tingalayo yes nighttime is different.

@NeedSomeRelief why?

Does no one goes to the loo at night? I had a shower at 11pm after giving birth earlier that afternoon and only making it to the ward later. Massive bleed that required examination due to medication I take.

Are all babies born at the same time?

Because I'll be attempting to sleep and I don't want a room full of men. They're there all day which I've not objected to, but at night, no.

@NeedSomeRelief you said it was because you were breastfeeding, bleeding, going to the toilet etc. Which you'd also be doing in the day. So it's because you think men are noisy and you won't be able to sleep? Are men noisier at night than women and babies? This makes no sense.

You've ignored women who've clearly stated how uncomfortable they feel being forced to expose their breasts and other body parts to male strangers, or to be observed by male strangers while visibly bleeding from their genitals. Women who have experienced domestic or sexual abuse who feel intimidated and vulnerable when given no choice but to share a bedroom with several male strangers. Women who's religious beliefs mean that to accommodate your preferred option they have to sleep fully dressed after having been through the same physically and emotionally taxing ordeal that you have.

And you've reframed all of that as women being precious and not liking hearing a man snore.

Do you see nothing wrong about the way you are choosing to misinterpret what these women have said?

@Redbone If women are so pathetic to need their partner there all night
What a nasty comment to make to women who are struggling.

@tingalayo obviously women don't snore or fart or burp or laugh.... 😜

What do all these women do during visiting hours when the bad men folk are allowed in?

I can see both sides as my DD was really poorly when she was born (birth injuries, premature) but we weren’t transferred to NICU until the next day and were on main ward until a room became available. I don’t know what I’d have done without DH there.

if it all went swimmingly I might have felt differently. But honestly, it did not bother me one bit that other men might be there. We needed that support.

And to all the people saying if you are pathetic enough to want your partner there, pay for a side room a) the NHS doesn’t work like that everywhere; you have to take what you can get. If side rooms are full; they are full! You can’t slip the midwife a tenner for an upgrade and b) I hope you never have the trauma of a sick baby

And yes, nighttime is different. During the day there are no restrictions on movement around and in and out of the ward, it is expected that people will be having discussions, doctors are doing their rounds.

At night, lights are dimmed, there are rules about not leaving and re entering the ward, people are expected to speak in hushed tones, doctors are not doing their rounds, it's basic obs and urgent interactions only, even those who are being bought onto the ward having just given birth are bought in as quietly as possible.

This is all to support the goal of encouraging the women to sleep. Being asleep around strangers is automatically a vulnerable experience for many people, that sense of vulnerability is heightened for many women when the strangers are male. Anyone who can't imagine why that may be is either being deliberately obtuse or has lived such an innocent and sheltered existence it's hard to believe.

For all the "my partner was there for me and the baby 100% and never would have intimidated anyone". There is no way any person is 100% engaged in taking care of their partner and baby 100% of the time. There will have been periods of time where you and baby were both asleep and your partner was bored. What that may look like to someone who doesn't know them, is a male stranger staring at them. Now he might have just been staring into space, he might have been asleep with his eyes open, he might have been staring at them. There's no way the exhausted, scared, in pain woman would know which of those is true, she just knows how she feels.

@Confusion101 during the day the women who are uncomfortable being completely vulnerable by sleeping in the same room as male strangers stay awake.

And if they are not comfortable with this at night they can either put up with it or pay for a private room.

The NHS is not there to cater to your whims like this. They allow partners, it’s down to you how you deal with that.

@FatAgainItsLettuceTime maybe they'd feel less vulnerable if their partners were there.
Also why are the curtains not around the beds in this scenario? I don't think a bored husband staring into space can look at someone behind a curtain by accident.