How long did you stay in hospital after giving birth?

[NewbieToThis]

Posting here for traffic.

just curious how long were in you hospital after having your baby? What was your experience of care on the postnatal ward? Were you happy with the length of time you were in for? Did your baby settle on the ward? Did you get support at home if you had a difficult birth or you were a first time mum

24 hours

12 hours, 14 hours. Nothing wrong with care but rubbish food at nhs hospital (breakfast offered was toast and flora, that's it, 9 hours after giving birth (before Deliveroo and their ilk!) second time food better (USA, private health) but they pestered me every hour for obs rather than let me sleep after a completely routine drug free delivery with no stitches! Think I preferred being ignored in Britain

Stayed 4 nights due to heavy blood loss during emergency c section. Didn't get a wink of sleep for those four days (and didn't get much sleep at home afterwards either due to being so ill, oh being a dick and inlaws guilting me for needing to sleep - but that's for another day!). Care on the ward was fine but the noise was horrific and I was next to a woman who kept pulling the curtain back to tell me about her two trips on the Jezza Kyle show for DNA.

Food was superb though.

Elective c section, in and out in 24 hours!

Twins born by c section on the Sunday night- I haemorrhaged 4 pints of blood. Midwife came in on the Tuesday morning, clapped her hands together and said " right then let's get ready to go home"
One son had lost more than a lb of his birthweight within a couple of days of getting home because they hadn't noticed / cared that he had a tongue tie and wasn't feeding properly.
This was in Yorkshire.
I hated every moment of being in that postnatal 'care' unit.

The c section in theatre was very professional- I couldn't fault that at all.

After getting no where with the duty staff he got our MP to raise it directly with the Head of Midwifery and Chief Executive of the Trust.

Head of midwifery came to see me on the ward and apologised.

Less than 24 hours, after an emergency c section at the end of a three day labour...

It was tail end of Covid, nearest maternity ward was closed because of Covid cases so all traffic from there was headed to the maternity ward I was at too. Spent two days waiting in triage before getting into labour ward to be put on the drip (my waters broke)

Labour started New Year's Eve, DD was born late morning on the 3rd

With Covid and the festive period I think they just needed me out of there quickly for the bed

C section both times, on ward not until midnight. Both times discharged the next morning (me), but paediatrician busy both times so couldn’t check out baby until 10 pm same day for DC2, and 10 pm the day after for DC1. So I was basically blocking a bed because they didn’t have sufficient staff to check out the baby.

8 days first baby, major complications. 2nd baby 4 days c section. Again, a complication with baby this time not me, I could have gone home day 3

Admitted after crying and begging that I'm ready (I was 5cm dilated and could feel it was time) this was around 4.30 on a Wednesday and baby born just before 9 am and discharged Thursday 7pm!

Horrendous birth experience as a first time mum.

4 bed ward, didn’t sleep all night. DH was at home. Wasn't allowed to stay with me.

Postnatal ward was awful. I had epsiotomy. I had problems moving about. They were horrible to me. They said well you didn't have a csec so what's bugging you. I cried a lot.

2 sections, was only in 1 night for each birth. First baby, terrible care, was feeling unwell disoriented dizzy, afraid to walk down corridor myself to get glass of water from ‘self service area’ was pretty much told get it yourself and get on with it. 2nd baby, fine, came prepared with plenty bottled water 😂 and just got on with it, but felt much easier as had done it all before 💁‍♀️

So many questions. Who are you writing for?

Had my son, my only child, in August last year.

Went into hospital at about 20.00 on Sunday evening, and taken to the birthing suite around 21.00.

Had water birth with gas and air and aromatherapy. Hypnobirthing also helped me (I read that book).

Baby was born at 03.23 on Monday morning. Unfortunately I had some tearing that required a trip to theatre (I had local anesthetiser) to sort out. Only an hour or so.

Stayed overnight in the labour ward with the other mums and babies. It was quite uncomfortable really, they didn’t do lights out until midnight and I was exhausted, but couldn’t really sleep after that point anyway because of that stupid drip thing that was left in my hand and was obviously thinking about the brand new baby by my side. He just wanted to be held all night, bless him. I did finally get a couple of hours but I was awoken at 6.00 in the morning by a healthcare assistant asking to take my catheter out. Annoying.

Spent the whole of Tuesday trying to get discharged. We were finally given our notes at 22.00 on Tuesday evening. My partner was very annoyed at the inefficiency of it all (and coming from an Italian that’s really saying something).

Was so happy to get home.

Less than 24 hours. She was born at 1am and we were discharged at 11am the same day. I had her in a birthing centre in the new forest (not at hospital) and she stayed in my room with me the whole time. It was wonderful.

The first time 5 days which was standard at the time we were taught basic babycare before being let loose with them, even though I was unconscious for the first 2 days I still made it out on time.

With both my second and third it was the following day whe paeds gave them their checks

1 week.
Twins - induced which took a few days, then they were born by c section, then we could have gone home after 2/3 days but I was grateful I wasn't pressured and could stay another couple of nights so I felt confident with tandem feeding etc. That really made a difference.

One night before giving birth (pre eclampsia) then 4 nights after. First 36 hours I was on high dependency unit (for me, DD was fine). DH wasn’t allowed to stay and nurses kept shouting at me for asking them to pass me DD to BF- I’d had a CS and couldn’t move my legs for the first few hours so needed their help. One said to me when I was struggling to feed that I was being selfish letting my baby go hungry and should let them feed her formula. That was about 4 hours post birth. Still can’t believe they said that. Post natal ward I was given my own room, left completely to our own devices. The only reason nurses came in was to keep checking our name tags and my BP. Most of them were really unfriendly, some rude, the nice ones were the exception. You had to go and get your own food from nurses station at mealtimes. Hard when you can barely walk and have to wheel your baby in their cot with you. Breastfeeding consultants turned up on day 4 which would have been far too late if I had not persevered myself. Those 4 nights pretty much broke me, DD fed constantly and wouldn’t be put down so on 5th day after they messed about failing to do discharge papers for 12 hours after telling me we could leave, I discharged us (we were both medically fine) and we were much better off at home.

Some of these stories make me cry.

1st birth - MWs didn’t believe I was in active labour until I was making pushing sounds I was so scared, I knew Labour would be painful but not that painful (they apologised afterwards as I had dilated 1-10cms in under an hour) no pain relief. Nearly had a retained placenta, had a bad year that needed stitched, DD wouldn’t feed properly so we were kept in a night. She got severe jaundice at home so we had to go back into hospital for UV light treatment but that was much nicer as we had a private room. DH brought me food as the meals were horrid

2nd &3rd homebirths and I would recommend them if you are a straightforward delivery. I had two lovely MWs just for me, G&A. My own surroundings, DH making tea. My own en-suite. There is nothing like getting back into your own clean bed with a baby. There’s no mess MWs clean it all up and I think they respect you more as they are in your home (just my opinion). I appreciate not everyone can ( or wants a homebirth) though.

Fourth went in at 8pm to be induced, had him at almost 5am home at 11am. Could have been home at 9am but they were so slow with the paperwork.

#1 Not in the UK, private room (state paid for) 4 nights, induced labour due to pre eclampsia. Fantastic care

#2 Not in UK, private room, shared bathroom (state paid) terrible night, wish I’d gone home but only because my neighbours were noisy and they had a noisy baby while mine slept all night.

#3 UK birth FUCKING AWFUL! Induction due to age, blood pressure outside circumstances (parent on death watch) The entire pregnancy was awful, never saw the same midwife twice, notes lost, Consultant appointments made before scans so the consultant would say why am I seeing you when I dont have your scan results, over and over again but no one would ever book the scans before the consult. I’d spend hours waiting around for everything. Constantly dismissed and never listened to, it took me having a breakdown and refusing to leave one day to get a consultant ( the one in charge) to see me, once he did, read my history and listened to me I got booked straight in for an induction. Spent 2 days with no help progressing induction due to businesses, birth went ok but due to time and meds I was forced to stay in. Someone took my bed. I was promised 1st discharge, by 3 pm after constantly being fobbed off and being promised I’d be discharged next I waddled to reception to overhear they had no intention of discharging me anytime soon. I went mad, swearing and totally lost it. The whole reason I wasnt being discharged was due to political and ridiculous infighting with the hospital and the area of my after birth care. Apparently they didn’t trust the midwife’s in my area to return the original notes, so that meant keeping me unnecessarily in even though they knew I was anxious to get back to my other children who were effectively left with particle strangers because our main babysitter was dying and I desperately needed to get home. No medical reason at all to keep me in.

1. just over a week but I needed many transfusions etc
2. 2 days, born at 32 weeks, I needed a drip to contract my womb to prevent a haemorrhage
3. 2 hours, he was born 16 mins after getting to hospital.
4. 3 days, I bled a lot and we had group B strep
5. 12 days. EMCS at 35 weeks, was delivered as a breech section not breathing. I bled badly as well. He was in NICU for 9 days. Had my own en-suite room on a private ward, partner was allowed to sleep/eat/shower with me. We were both in a bad way.

1.2,3 and 5 were born in a northern hospital. 4, in musgrove, Taunton. Was treated lovely with 2,3,5. Number one I was called lazy, useless, not given help etc. All because I was 16. Number 4 I was in a private room with private nurses, all very nice etc.

All births are different I guess is my point. Only one consistent thing… the tea and toast after is the best tea and toast on the planet lol.

First birth I was home the next day, 2nd birth it was 4 days, I'd had twins and had issues latching, in the end I switched to bottle fed as I was exhausted and just wanted to go home

5 days/nights, I was fortunate I was given my own ensuite room with bath /shower so had privacy and they let dh in whenever he wanted for most of the day, but it was a bit like solitary confinement, the only time I left that room in 5 days was day 1 when I visited ds(now 19) in SCBU, he joined me in room on day 2.

The staff were lovely, just busy, so I didnt see them much. They just came in, jabbed me with lovely pain killers, delivered food, or did obs had a quick 30 sec chat and then left. Pretty much left to establish bf myself. Home midwife and HV were no use either, MN pretty much got me through it back then.