To think it’s inappropriate for labouring women to be in a bay with antenatal women and postnatal women?

[LadyofLaundry88]

Interested to hear from any midwives/HCPs re whether this is common practice/normal?

I have been admitted for weeks pre due date for various reasons that I’d need emergency surgery pronto if I go into labour. So I’m on a bay which currently has x2 labouring (very distressed screamy) women, one like this overnight, x1 new mother & baby & male partner (allowed to stay overnight), and x2 unwell pregnant women. Lights on and off all night, HCPs banging in and out talking really loudly to patients etc. I am going to lose my mind.

AIBU to think this is pretty barbaric? I’m quite shocked that this is ok?

Yes, the rooms and bays might be empty, but patients can’t be left alone in side rooms or at the opposite end of the ward when there aren’t sufficient staff to check on them regularly enough to make it safe. If you’re all grouped together in the same bay, you can all be properly monitored. It’s not ideal, but it’s preferable to being the patient in a side room who ends up dead because they were forgotten about whilst staff were preoccupied a bay away.

I was put in with all the antenatal women when I was having treatment for gyne issues and consultation about hysterectomy. As it happens, I didn't intend to have more dc anyway, but I found it pretty horrific that women with underlying health issues causing infertility were being placed alongside pregnant women. I complained, but they just said that there was only one place where the ultrasound machines were in the hospital so we all had to be there. They didn't seem to understand the emotional side of it at all.

I was left in a prenatal ward until I was 10cm dilated and needing to push. This was in April last year. It was with my first baby and I was very distressed and experiencing a lot of pain put kept being told I was not ready for transfer to the delivery ward. I had been admitted to the prenatal ward because my waters had broken at home and there was a small amount of blood in the fluid. My baby was born 7 hours after I was admitted, I still feel so cross that I was not listened to when I kept telling staff that the pain was getting intense.

Oh that sounds awful. I didn't have this when I was pregnant. I was hospitalised a few times but not with women in labour.
Also after I gave birth we were moved to the mother and baby unit.
Sounds like the hospital you're in may be suffering from space issues? Maybe some construction on the building? I do hope this isn't the norm

Sounds very similar to my experience.

I had not anticipated I would be in Labour on a shared ward with strangers. Including strange men who weren’t hospital staff.

Just… awful.

Unfortunately it does happen, due to lack of space/staff mostly. The other option would be to turn mothers away.

It was like this when I was in 9 years ago, there’s been a fundamental lack of resource for a long time.

I was on a ward like this in Labour waiting for a bed in the Labour ward to be free. It was bloody awful to have every Tom, Dick and Harry there while I was labouring and I imagine horrid for them to hear me groaning. Maternity services really need improving.

Post c section I was in a room with 5 pregnant ladies who were all in with complications, 1 had her phone on max volume all the time so think fb msg ping REPEATEDLY and she answered calls Dom Joly style, she was in the next bed, 2 watching videos and midnight phone calls. It was hell on earth. One of the midwives took pity on me and moved me the following day.

@LadyofLaundry88 i was in this situation after I had my son. I had to stay in a few nights afterwards and it was horrendous. I had no sleep because there was constant noise and lights on etc. It’s awful. Hope you’re ok.

I didn’t know this was such common practice. I was put on an antenatal ward when I was induced with my son. And they got me out of there into a delivery suite pretty fast after I went into labour, probably because my screaming was disturbing the other patients. I did have really intense back to back contractions and a really short labour though. If the contractions had been further apart maybe they would have left me there for longer.

Oh no, the last thing you want is someone's male partner in the same room

I hope they move you or is there an option to pay for a private room? Worth asking if one is available.

Gosh this is awful, sorry you're experiencing this.

This was not my experience at all. Recent birth, very very busy maternity unit in Home Counties.

I was in for 4 days pre-birth due to premature waters rupturing. I was with labouring women because I was being (unsuccessfully) induced, so hopefully was going to become a labouring woman soon.

Immediately after birth I was put in a small ward of immediately post birth women. The next day I was moved to a ward of 1/2/3 day post birth women.

Hospitals are not nice places, never have been, never will be.
I worked in many, both MH and PH. MH hospitals are actually marginally better as at least every patient gets their own room.

I’ll buck the trend and give credit where it’s due to the NHS for doing their best.

I was admitted for a month before having my baby early (vasa previa). I was given a private birthing room with en-suite and encouraged to make it my own. It was on the labour ward and I could hear the general commotion, but a pretty good compromise. There was one night (full moon!) when it seemed like everyone in the county went into labour and I was sure I would be chucked out but thankfully I wasn’t.

When I was in labour with dd1 I was put in a ward with ante natal and post natal patients.
The woman in the bed next to mine complained ( loudly) about the fact that I was making too much noise. It was so bad, I begged to be moved elsewhere

Yeah this is completely inappropriate and likely to cause distress and potential PTSD in some of the women involved. Being screamy level labouring on a ward with a random man in a bay behind the curtain would have been humiliating. If a mum is having antinatal problems that could lead to fetal death hearing that will be traumatic.
None of this is a good environment for birthing in.

I was put like this when my waters broke, as I had pre-eclampsia I had to stay in and be induced within 24 hours. In the 4 bed bay there was me, 2 others both in labour but waiting for a bed on delivery suite and then a mum with a newborn and visitors. I didn't feel very comfortable at all, even worse when I was told I was being taken up first even though I wasn't even in labour! One of the other women kicked off that it should be her and not me taken. I felt awful tbh as it was clear she was in agony but they said I had to go first as I was nearing the 24 hours x

Something I realised second time round is that I needed to advocate for myself. I was put in a room with a woman whose baby just cried constantly. She just left him and didn't even try to comfort him. I hadn't had any sleep and was quite assertive in telling the staff that I would be discharging myself if they couldn't take proper care of me. They were very kind and found me a different room.

Ask to speak to the head midwife and ask why the rooms aren't in use. If there's not a good reason, tell them that you want to be moved.

I'm normally all for democracy and being kind to everyone but when it's yours and your babies health, you have to be a bit sassy!

Noise canceling headphones.
Not normal but if they are short of space it will happen.

These stories are absolutely wild - I’m so sorry for everyone who experienced such awful conditions in labour and birth.

My experience (in the north west) was worlds apart in 2020 - minimal time in the receiving ward, which was very quiet anyway, fast movement to delivery suite when waters broke, then a private room for postnatal where I stayed for about 24 hours. I was warned that I’d be mostly ignored in the private room though as it was at the end of a corridor, and the woman in the private room opposite was extremely unwell.

I was admitted to hospital at 12 weeks for a burst ovarian cyst and put on the gynae ward. There was no privacy. During my 5 days there was a mum having a miscarriage and an older lady who was diagnosed with cancer in the bed next to me. They had the curtains shut but I could hear the doctor telling her and then hear her husband ringing family and crying down the phone. It was so sad and I felt like I shouldn't have been put there.

I'm reading these stories absolutely horrified. I can't believe this is the state of the nhs now it sounds like a third world country!
My own dc is 36 now and we had nothing like this we had our own rooms.
I do know when I was born though (1960s) there was a lady on the ward who'd had a stillborn, my dm said it was horrendous she just lay crying silently the whole time poor girl, and she had to stay on that ward with all the mothers and babies.

Exact same happened to me. I'm so sorry you had to go through this. Complete by nurses saying the mantra 'you're pregnant not ill' over and over again.

My ward was like this when I had my baby in December. I was the only vaginal birth out of the 6 women in there who’d had c sections. Partners weren’t allowed to stay, so god knows how these poor women were getting in and out of the bed to see to their babies.

One woman sounded like she was honestly going to die by the sound of her, there was alarms ringing and doctors running around all night. Another lady was vomiting after coming out of general anaesthesia. It felt like the hunger games. I cried to the doctor to please let me go home after 1 night of it.