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?

When my mum had my sister in the late 60’s she was in for 10 days (straightforward birth). Taught how to bathe and feed the baby, given pelvic floor exercises, babies could go in
the nursery overnight if the mum wanted. She said it was ace 😊

I wouldn't have wanted "another woman " there just to appease other ppl either. My partner is my child's other parent and he had every right to be there, the last thing on his mind was to "stare" at other women on the ward 😅

What do you mean “stare” why have you written in in quotations? I hope you’re not implying that didn’t happen to the women who disclosed it.

he had every right to be there,

No he didn’t. He wasn’t the patient and he had no more right than any random man walking past outside. He wouldn’t be allowed to stay overnight on any other ward.

Good for you - you got a good man. You do realise that shit men have children too though? And that the other women on the wards can't reliably distinguish the good men from the shit men on sight.

No he didn’t. He wasn’t the patient and he had no more right than any random man walking past outside. He wouldn’t be allowed to stay overnight on any other ward.

I often slept overnight on the paediatric HDU with DD - every child had a parent with them, except sometimes teenagers who’d attempted suicide. There weren’t just mothers, there were often some fathers. Likewise, we still get asked to stay with DD now she is an adult - DH has slept next to her.

I also heard Dan Carden, MP talk about how the family including him, took it in turns to sleep alongside his father with cancer, in hospital.

It is increasingly recognised that people with dementia, learning disabilities, etc need a familiar carer with them in hospital, so I guess you could find men sleeping in any ward (except perhaps ITU), as a carer?

I guess you could find men sleeping in any ward (except perhaps ITU), as a carer?

If you could it would be against all the NHS guidelines for avoiding mixed sex wards. If I found myself on a ward with male non patients staying overnight I’d complain until it stopped. There’s zero point in employing HCAs if random relatives are allowed to come and do their jobs for them.

If I found myself on a ward with male non patients staying overnight I’d complain until it stopped.

I'm assuming you're excluding children's wards from this.

I’m hardly likely to be a patient on a children’s ward. I’m about 55 years too old.

If I found myself on a ward with male non patients staying overnight I’d complain until it stopped. There’s zero point in employing HCAs if random relatives are allowed to come and do their jobs for them.

So you put your wants before the lives of vulnerable people?

Why do you think hospitals allow carers in for vulnerable people - because they don’t have the staff with the expertise to look after them! You do know some people have such challenging behaviour, they need 4:1 staffing - and that’s people after a considerable amount of training? Hospitals have realised that challenging behaviour in people with dementia, learning disabilities, etc is due to distress at being in a strange place among strangers. The hospitals can’t cope with their behaviour; so they recognise it is better to let them have a friend or family in, to reduce their distress, which in turn reduces their challenging behaviour.

Countless relatives tell how their elderly relative got no food in hospital, because the staff just left them their dinner, which they couldn’t eat on their own; or they found their relative in a soiled bed because nobody had time to change their sheets; etc.

Panorama last week gave the example of a woman in her 50s with LD admitted to hospital, after she lost about 3 stone. She lost another 2 stone in hospital, caught chickenpox there and died, because she was too weak to fight it off. Another woman suffered adjustment disorder (a reaction to trauma) after being in hospital. Both of them would have been better, if a familiar carer had been there to advocate for them.

The hospitals have to act in accordance with the Equality Act (reasonable adjustments) and Care Act (duty of care) with regard to vulnerable people, and any Act of Parliament takes precedence over hospital guidelines on mixed sex wards.

If I were running a hospital, faced with a person with dementia or learning disabilities with challenging behaviour, disturbing a ward full of people 24/7, or facing legal action over the death of a vulnerable person by neglect and you complaining; I’d tell you to stop complaining!

Well the facts are that most maternity wards allow partners to stay overnight so actually the partner does have the right to be there. You might not like it but it is the reality.

It isn’t the reality. Allowing partners to stay is at the hospital’s discretion - which they can withdraw any time they feel like it. It’s a favour, not a right.

He is the child's other parent so rather silly to sat that any random man walking has the same right as him.

He’s not the patient so it’s not remotely silly.

I wonder if fathers being allowed to stay is now due to the Baby Friendly Standards as laid out by UNICEF that hospitals have to follow.

I think some of the Baby Friendly recommendations include allowing the father to have 24/7 access to his baby and staying quite strongly that they shouldn’t be separated from their babies in the early days, including immediately after birth.

Seeing as all Trusts have to meet the UNICEF expectations (which they are audited on) then it may explain why it’s so much more commonplace now for the fathers to be present overnight and not just in the day time.

No he's not the patient but he's the other parent. Imagine if I told my patients relatives they're not welcome because they're not my patient 😒. My DS needed iv antibiotics every day amongst other things so yes I'm glad they allowed his father to take him while I physically couldn't have as I couldn't walk. And yes I said "stare" because I highly doubt someone would sit and stare at a random post birth woman when they are visiting their own partner and child.

And that’s fair enough @CrushingAndClueless but not at the expense of other women’s privacy and dignity. Women who don’t want men on maternity wards on which they’re patients shouldn’t have to tolerate it. I wouldn’t have to tolerate other patients’ partners on a women’s surgical ward because all trusts have to operate policies that don’t allow mixed sex wards. Except apparently maternity wards.

I thinks hospitals receive finance if they adhere to and maintain the Baby Friendly Status and I imagine that is more of a priority for the hospital as opposed to the possibility of some women not feeling comfortable about a father being on the ward.

It would be better if they only financially incentivised those that offered choice. Throwing a proportion of patients under the bus for money is a pretty shit thing to do.

That’s just how the world works sadly.

Especially in hospitals which are in dire need of money.