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 they should be just as entitled to stay. This forum just hates men doesn’t it!!

I sent my DH home both times - I'd had difficult births early in the morning so by the time we got to the labour ward in the evening he'd been up for over 24 hours. He needed sleep so he could be useful to us the next day. What really annoyed me were the snoring partners. If you know your partner snores and you still let him stay overnight on a labour ward then you are vvv unreasonable.

I think its unbelievable that men are allowed to sleep in a womens hospital ward. Absolutely and utterly unacceptable.

Absolutely. This is just common sense. It's incredibly intrusive having men around. There should be a lounge for partners to come and bond with their babies, leaving the ward (essentially a bedroom) for women.

100% this.

Me too!

I had my DS in april 2020. Back when there were NO visitors, even during the day. I have never been so tired in all my life! Don't know how I survived tbh. 😂

I had a pretty horrible birth, life at risk type stuff. Afterwards my wife wasn’t allowed to stay with me. It broke me. I didn’t want midwives looking after me, I wanted my wife, who is also a nurse so able to interpret medical stuff, to look after me. I was in for 4 days post section and her leaving every night was horrendous. It was the start of pretty sever PND.

I would have been happy to pay for a private room to allow her to stay but was told she wouldn’t be allowed to stay even then.

It felt like the most unnatural thing in the world.

Almost all the women who don't want men hanging around their bedroom during an incredibly vulnerable time are women who in fact love men enough to have allowed one to impregnate them. I have an amazing partner but I would not impose him on another woman's personal space whilst she's recovering from childbirth.

But that poster's husband was instrumental in her care. I think her need of care does trump the potential upset of others. We have private rooms here and really it's the only way to go.

I had a dreadful time post birth and my partner wasn’t allowed in due to COVID restrictions. Most of the midwives I came across were very kind but a few were absolutely dreadful and on several occasions made very barbed comments about me and my newborn son that I could easily overhear (and I’m sure they knew I could hear too). It’s several years on and I’m still yet to recover from it - I’m currently undergoing counselling over my issues with the birth and aftercare via the NHS.

I know that had my partner been there to advocate for me post birth I would have felt a thousand times stronger and more confident to deal with the range of health issues, lack of care in hospital and everything else that came my way after the birth. So IMO YABVVVVVU.

This.

Also, my son was separated
from one of his mothers. It was wrong for all three of us.

This.

I am a midwife, and this has happened once in one of the wards I worked in. The midwife went into the room to find the woman, who had given birth that day, being raped by her "partner".

In a bunch of other instances, patients' partners have abused their partner or others in the ward. A couple once had a physical fight at the NICU ward, surrounded by very sick and very premature babies in incubators. Never underestimate the ability of some people (not only men) to break any possible rule of decency, in the presence of their recently-birthed partner and newborn babies. When I worked in Australia, I had to kick out father who threatened his own newborn baby girl with death in front of her mother and 5 other postpartum women. I have had to tell of men who get out of the room to use the public toilet wearing nothing, getting a kick out of showing their willies to women who recently gave birth.

The partners who stay and are helpful are amazing. Unfortunately, and in my professional experience, they are the minority. Many stay just to get some sleep, and snore away while the midwives have to help the mum settle and change the baby, activities that apparently are beneath some men. I have had to wake up a father repeatedly so he would get out of the way so I could access the IV fluids for the mum. I have had to risk my own safety by telling men not to use the women's toilets, many of them naked.

Yes, partners staying the night can often be a risk not only for other mothers, but for their own partners.

Well said @Iwonder08

I suffered severe PND due to my experiences and I know I’d have coped so much better if my partner had been allowed to be there

We shouldn't even argue between ourselves about this really. As much as I absolutely do not think I should have to have an unknown man in my bedroom hours after childbirth, I can see why a woman would want her partner there and to spend that time as a family. We need better facilities and care within maternity services to better accommodate both women's need for privacy and women's need to have partners there.

Every post natal ward I’ve been in had curtains around each bed for privacy. On that basis, I would say it’s up to each mother whether they want their partner or not, and frankly, that it’s no one else’s business.

I find the constant tendency here to try to limit others’ freedom and decisions utterly mind boggling.

It's a medical setting, only the patient(s) should be there overnight. The only time partners (male or female) should be allowed to stay overnight is where there are individual rooms available so that all patients can have an appropriate level of privacy and dignity.

Everyone seems to think it's fine because their husband/partner is lovely and he would never make someone feel uncomfortable or act inappropriately or do anything untoward. The other women on that ward don't know your husband from Adam, he's a strange man who has no clinical need to be there overnight and just his presence alone will be making some of them uncomfortable. There's also the fact that not all husbands/partners are actually lovely, some of them present a lovely facade to the world but are actually utter bastards, some don't bother with the facade and are just open about being bastards. Why should women have to share a medical space with them overnight? And why should their partners not be allowed a break from them during their hospital stay, a break which might be their only opportunity to be free from their control and their only opportunity to tell a doctor or nurse that they need help?

I've had four DC and five deliveries including one where it was touch and go whether I'd actually survive, and a mix of vaginal birth, emergency section, and planned section, I did not need my partner overnight for any of them.

I'm on the fence here. Reading pp post about the horrific things encountered by men, I would agree with you. BUT my own dh was my absolute rock and support. He was hands on every single minute and I was able to dose up on my pain meds and sleep while he saw to the baby. We booked a private room though as I couldn't bear to be around anyone else and I also wanted privacy. I think there needs to be better facilities for women in such a vulnerable time of their lives.

In an ideal world, there would be private rooms for every mother after delivery so partners could stay. Unfortunately they isn't the case and if I was asked to vote, I would say men shouldn't stay. I had a c-section and struggled after having DS but whilst it would have been nice to have DH overnight, I would have felt uncomfortable with random men being there when I was vulnerable.

32 hours of labour and an emergency c section. With both of us nearly dying.

My partner had to go home, probably good for him, to be able to rest.
No one brought me pain medicine, no one came to check on me or my crying baby, one of the orderlys "helpfully" moved my bags out of reach so I couldn't get to any of my stuff. I could go on and on but it genuinely triggers ptsd for me to think on it too much. Especially as a first time mum, the prospect of 12 hours alone with this tiny screaming being that I had no idea how to help, was the most terrifying time of my life.
Personally, the other mothers on the ward were snorers, obnoxious, loud and just hideous to be around. During the day when my partner was allowed to visit for 2 hours, he was my biggest advocate to get me the BASIC care that shouldn't need to be asked for. In the end I kicked and screamed and signed medical disclosures to be discharged as soon as my baby had had all of her checks, whilst my aftercare then continued at home.
I don't plan on a 2nd but if I did, it would be at a hospital that actually provided a basic level of care to me and my baby, never mind if they let partners stay or not. Maternal care in this country is unregulated and hideous in far too many circumstances. I struggled for a long time to bond with my baby and after lots of aftercare, I genuinely think the post delivery care I personally (didn't) receive is 95% responsible for those feelings. Other men on the ward or not, the hospitals are understaffed and undertrained, that is the issue that needs addressing.

100% agree.

Out of curiosity, who actually has given birth when it was normal to have partners stay overnight? I remember almost every woman on the ward having their partner present. I did not feel worried at all and find a lot of responses quite ignorant to be honest. Most are saying that these men are either useless (these women don’t think so to have a child with them) or are predators… I don’t understand how such sweeping statements can be made when from my experience men are wanting to care for their partners and new babies. I don‘t think they care who is in the bay next to them or even in the room/ward. Keep your curtains closed and nobody bothers you.

I also had a baby during covid and the disgraceful lack of care I received was enough that this time round my midwife is fighting for me to be given a private room so that my husband can be with me. I am a strong-minded person but still cry at reliving that night in my head. And I did ask for a private room and was told these were no longer available to pay for or be given for medical reasons.

I just think unless you have experienced the psychological, physical and mental distress people like me had to endure then you are going to insists men stay away but for some of us it is imperative for our safety, our babies safety and our mental wellbeing overall to have that support.

Men on a ward are not predators, they are there to help a mother of their child.

Considering that one in four adult women in the UK have been victims of sexual assault and/or rape, its a fair bet to say that a sizeable proportion of the men on the ward actually will be predators.

Yes. Fact is, if they ban men they will not add more midwives, so instead of some of the women being pissed off that men are on the ward, all of the women will wait even longer for help.