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?

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

I had my daughter by c section (elective, which I think often means an easier recovery) and I still couldn’t pick her up or move very much at all for the first night. I did literally need someone with me, or I would have had a very hungry baby in a very wet nappy by the morning.

I would gladly have paid for a private room, had one been available. I had no great wish to spend 4 nights sharing a stuffy, depressing bedroom with random men OR women…

@tingalayo

Maybe they don't have a partner, maybe their partner is home looking after other children, maybe their partner is abusive or just a bit of a shit, maybe their partner is working away, or deployed in the military. maybe they don't believe that men should be in a womens hospital wards.

In my experience the nursing staff would open the curtains to do their checks and then dash off without closing them. I would get up whenever I could and re-close them but that caused a lot of pain, and was not possible when I was holding or trying to feed my baby.

It's clear enough to me, move on.

And here we have it. Men don’t have rights on maternity wards. Time was when a baby spent its first week on a maternity ward and its father was there for a few hours a day. That was when maternity services were adequately staffed. As they should be now. Hospitals aren’t supposed to have mixed sex wards for any other condition, why should maternity wards be any different?

This is rubbish. I know my experience is older, but the hospital absolutely did not take care of me when my husband wasn't allowed to.

I was never offered the option of paying for a side room; I don't know if that was an option then. I believe they saved the side rooms for women who had lost a baby and couldn't be expected to have to be in the ward with all the new babies.

As for fragile flowers, I don't care to hear an opinion from someone who wasn't given an emergency preterm section, was sweating and sleepy from magnesium sulphate, and still on a catheter. Basic safety was compromised.

Time was when a baby spent its first week on a maternity ward and its father was there for a few hours a day. That was when maternity services were adequately staffed. As they should be now.

You say this like it’s a good thing?!

I feel somewhat outraged that you’ve decided to tell so many women that their own lived experience of things that actually happened is “scaremongering”

I gave birth during the pandemic, so no visitors and no partners allowed. There were barely any midwives around and if I had needed help lifting/changing/feeding DS (I was lucky enough to be able to manage), my newborn would have gone hungry and wet.

The woman in the bed across from me had a rough EMCS where she gave birth to twins and couldn't stop vomiting. She was expected to deal with her twins by herself whilst being physically sick after major abdominal surgery. If her partner had been there, at least someone could've been adequately caring for those poor babies.

Just because partners aren't allowed to stay doesn't mean the level of care from hugely understaffed wards improves. Women and babies are left to suffer, as always.

@JennyForeigner2

men do not have a right to spend their child’s first night by their side.

and it is different during the day because there are set visiting hours when the medical staff go off and have their breaks or do paperwork whilst the women have visitors. During that time the women are aware there will be visitors for 90 mins and can pull the curtains and there are no intimate examinations unless emergency.

Many people have said about the freedom when the visitors go , the curtains can go back and they can have a bit of dignity as they will only be observed by other patients.

The best position the nHs needs to get back to is adequate staffing levels with more nursing assistants to help ladies with basic things. This would be much more effective.

So what is the threshold level of embarrassment/unease where we risk the life of another woman's baby?

@Galaktoboureko absolutely none, that's why the wards need to be staffed better as I have said in my previous posts. The answer to the understaffing isn't to invite men to stay its to get more auxiliary staff who can be present to help with basic tasks like lifting the baby, helping with nappy changes etc

The hospitals don't allow partners to stay on gynae wards or women's psychiatric care wards. That's because they accept that it's inappropriate and likely to cause distress.

Even I don't want to put up with my own DH's snoring all night long, let alone other people's.

These are patients who even with the best labour have been through major physical trauma. They need rest and recuperation when they can snatch some in between feeding their newborns. Some patients' desire to have their partners present does not trump the needs of other patients to privacy, dignity, and the chance of recuperation.

The mother is the patient. Own room: fine to have the partner present, open ward, no. And don't even get me started on the Bounty reps.

This would not happen in any other ward on any hospital, save with gravely ill patients who have their own rooms.

YANBU.

You really haven't answered my question at all...
You mentioned (and I am quoting your earlier post here) women would be uncomfortable "exposing their breasts" feeding, "bleeding from their genitals", "domestic or sexual abuse" survivors.... What's the difference between day and night for these women?

‘The mother is the patient’ what about the baby??

Yes I wasn’t in a great state, I had surgery and catheter etc but nothing compared to my baby who was in a really bad way, losing temperature, not feeding, having seizures, and we were still on the main ward. I genuinely thought she might die. We got transferred to NICU but not until the next day.

The risk of DH disturbing someone by snoring in that circumstance was pretty low. He was as worried as I was.

The hospitals don't allow partners to stay on gynae wards or women's psychiatric care wards. That's because they accept that it's inappropriate and likely to cause distress

The difference being that those patients are not there with a new born baby to look after as well as recover from varying levels of physical trauma and surgery.

I wasn't ever allowed to have anyone stay! At my local hospital there are open wards and there's no room for partners.

I remember having to get up to change DD with blood streaming down my legs onto the floor. So awful.

I would have given anything for my husband to stay. I'd not slept other than some short cat naps for 4 days, and then my baby cried ALL NIGHT. To have not only had the support of him helping with baby, but to provide me with support against the other complaining mums would have helped me so much. A wonderful consultant did get me moved to a single room after 36 hours when another Mum kicked off but husband still wasn't allowed to stay.

And what use would your husband be? Is he medically trained?

@LovinglifeAF He was as much use as the (non existent) nursing staff were.

but he helped advocate for me and my child as I was in no fit state, he filmed DD having seizures when the midwife said she wasn’t. The doctors agreed later it was a seizure.

For me the night felt scarier because there were notably less staff, there was also no visitors/feeding consults/doctors/bounty reps etc.

The night was very much left to your own devices, I should imagine that’s why the men are allowed to stay? But equally for me and my experience that’s when the inappropriate behaviour started eg the ‘tug me off’ bloke, the man who kept opening my curtain and standing there staring at me, walking around half clothes etc.

As someone who was sexually abused at night of course this was utterly terrifying for me, I didn’t get any rest, had constant panic attacks, spent all of my time there on edge and alone.

And no I didn’t have an easy birth, I had an emergency section, haemorrhage, poorly baby etc.

My needs don’t trump others but equally their needs don’t trump mine.

Extended visiting hours for dads and adequate staffing could solve all this but of course it will never happen. So those that want the men there will get that and those of us terrorised by those men will just have to lump it.

My DH stayed in hospital with me from the moment i was admitted for induction until the time I was discharged. This was last year so during Covid.
The ward had 4 bays and all curtains were drawn so completely private.
I had a horrible delivery and everything became an emergency so my recovery was pretty bad and with lack of midwives in the ward i was often left struggling.
If DH hadnt have been able to stay it would have been so much harder than necessary.

I understand why people feel uncomfortable with men being on that ward but to be honest, I couldnt have cared less as far as I was concerned all 4 women in the same room had been through a similar thing and their partners were all suppprtive.

If you dont want to be around other men on wards, ask to pay for a private room on the NHS or book the birth at a private hospital.

Jesus, a thread full of panderers insisting that other women recognise how super special their partner is. On a maternity ward. Couldn't imagine being so clingy and needy that I had to force a partner to hang around a maternity ward.

Actually I don’t read it as a thread full of clingy and needy panderers, I read it as a thread of how much the NHS is on its knees that some women need extra support from their partners as it’s not provided anymore due to overstretched and under funded resources.

Sorry I was so clingy that I couldn’t look after my child who was disabled from her birth injuries in the hours after a traumatic birth. First time mum, baby seriously ill, no help from staff. I’ll be less needy next time.

Different circumstances entirely.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks It's not different though. I'm due to give birth this month. If everything is straightforward and I can handle myself and the baby, I will absolutely send DH home, as he doesn't need to be there and I wouldn't want to impose on the other patients. But if I'm struggling to take care of the baby and the staffing levels are as poor as they were last time I had a baby, I will absolutely be having DH stay to help. I will not risk my own and my baby's safety because someone else might be uncomfortable.

The NHS maternity services are not fit for purpose. Men shouldn't be on wards overnight, but surely you can see why they are currently necessary?