the petition going round about dads in hospitals

[strawberryswizzler]

just me who is absolutely against this idea? i’ve had 2 c-sections. one emergency, one elective. could barely sit myself up to feed my baby nevermind walk properly etc, i felt so vulnerable. the thought of being in a 4 bed bay separated only by curtains with random men who could be anyone makes me feel ill. anyone else??

Fine actually. Being around others doesn’t affect me at all. It was having to trust nurses I didn’t know with my baby that made me incredibly anxious. And I would never want to deny other mothers the support they need from their partners just because mine couldn’t be there.

When did you have your baby?

Nurseries haven't been a thing for years in hospitals, in the UK at least anyway. Unless a few hospitals still have them? I wouldn't think so though.

Nurseries would still be the same issue with staff issues at the moment but I wouldn't be against it if they were staffed properly.

Also - are we talking about the petition that calls mothers ‘birth givers’?

It's a bit difficult really.
My ex-husband kept going out for cigarettes during my first labour.
On his return, he managed to accidentally access a completely random woman, who was pushing.
He thought it was hilarious.
I was horrified, on her behalf.
He was no use to me whatsoever, after the birth.
There are resources lacking in the NHS. Random partners will create as many problems as they will solve.

https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2023/Research-News/6500-hospital-sexual-assaults-in-four-years-according-to-new-report
There were 6500 recorded rapes and sexual assualts in hospitals in 4 years. No woman should ever be expected to sleep in a room with an unknown man let alone when she is at her most vulnerable. The men are not checked in any way.

Whilst I'm never going to agree that men should have 24hr access to postnatal wards I can see that some of the issue, going by anecdotes, is staff having seemingly little power to deal with problem visitors.

I think having your husband there in visiting hours is perfectly reasonable. However to expect other women to be happy to have him there overnight is, to my mind, unfair. I don't think a short hospital stay where your husband is there half of the time should mean you take on all the childcare thereafter.

There aren’t enough midwives to keep women safe, let alone women and babies. Someone needs to look after the baby. It’s as simple as that.

I had a c section and I needed someone there overnight and there simply wasn't enough staff for that to be someone from the nursing team. It honestly makes me feel angry that women are actively campaigning for it without thinking about those women who have c sections/birth injuries etc who will be totally screwed if visitors can't stay overnight. As someone else said campaign for more staff instead.

Definitely, regardless of who it is, there should at least be security personnel, if not ward staff, who can remove problem visitors. No-one should be causing a disturbance on a postnatal ward, of all places.

Yanbu several months ago I see a dad doing a tiktok live on a postnatal ward it was a four bedded room, and you could hear everything being said in the background and his camera angles also caught multiple members of staff and the other women and babies in the room. It was absolutely disgusting and when I pointed this out I got called a karen and muted

Lincoln hospital allow dads on the wards overnight.
I was sexually abused as a child and I could not sleep at all, I ended up being in for 5 days due to a difficult birth and I was exhausted not just due to the physical side affects or having a newborn cluster feeding but because I could not get into a deep sleep because men were in the room with me.
I couldn't even prepare as I hadn't realised the first time round men would be on the ward overnight.
I get people might like to have their partners in hospital but not all women want to be on a hospital ward at a vulnerable time with men who are strangers to them.

I guess that's one pleasant thing about US healthcare, its private rooms.

I think too many people on MN have issues with men. Of course Dads should be able to be there, it's actually ridiculous they're not. They're new dads, not some pervs waiting to pounce on you.

I have not seen the petition but have had 5 sections and with all have been by myself with the baby beside an hour one day during visiting time.

In Europe men can stay 24hrs a day because each family has separate room with a shower and a king size bed.

In a NHS hospital with 4-6 women per room terrible idea- all the people talking at night not like the couples would use sign language, more people carrying viruses in, if someone is a smoker having to put up with second hand smoke, having private examinations with men just behind curtain and curtains get moved as nurses cleaners people walk past them, i would not trust to go to shower ot toilet having so many strangers around my newborn etc..terrible
idea

@Tatonka over half of women have experienced assault by men.

I had a c section and could barely move, leaking all over the place even if I hadn't had issues around men women deserve dignity and to have single sex spaces.
To @Tatonka women can't just get over trauma around men but great advice 😐

Actually there are pervs. I have had 5 sections breastfed all my babies, have ahd couple of guys walk past the curtain and peeked in on purpose while in doing skin on skin and nursing

Context: I am not GC and don't always fully advocate for single sex spaces. But on this particular issue I wouldn't support men on the ward overnight.

If it was allowed, it would become commonplace. It would be seen as unsupportive for men to leave and so the majority would stay. Wards aren't getting any bigger - they are more overcrowded, noisy, hot than ever. As a woman there is no escaping from that space. There is nowhere else you and your baby can go. The man can step outside for some air, but you can't. I don't believe it will make shit dads better dads because they spent two nights in hospital.

Here's an alternative suggestion: hospitals need a visiting room, a place other than the ward where, anytime day or night, visitors can come. During visitor hours they also get to come to the ward. It becomes commonplace for babies to be wheeled to the visiting room for 1-2 hours to spend time with dad. Anytime, whenever. Mum can go too if she wants or stay and get sleep. If it's 3am and you can't cope, you can text partner to come and just talk you down, let you have a break, deal with whatever it is together.

That's really sad that random men around you are fine, but you don't trust trained midwives who are trying to care for you and your baby 😪

Though it's a good thing that you will be fine without your DH present if you have another baby.

There are resources lacking in the NHS. Random partners will create as many problems as they will solve.

This is something that needs to be looked into properly. In some individual cases a father or other support person might be a net positive in providing extra care for the mother and child.

How is that statistically weighed against the staff time and resources taken up by thoughtless fathers/support people and then the downright abusive and disruptive?

Even allowing for the known fact that postnatal wards are woefully under resourced at some point it's also a numbers game.

If on a 16 bed ward every woman has somebody with them 24/7 that's an extra 16 people staying on that ward for the duration of the stay. During visiting hours you can maybe triple that number of people. People collectively can be an unmanageable nightmare above a certain number and a small proportion will be utter arseholes.

Before deciding men or anyone not the patient should stay overnight it needs to be clear how much of a net positive they are versus how much staff time is taken up with the extra problems they create by being there.

agree. the women saying they had their dh there and couldn’t have coped without them - you don’t know because you haven’t experienced it. you do cope, you just have to so you do. as i say i could barely move. took 45 minutes for me to turn and pick my baby up on one instance because id dropped my buzzer and couldn’t get a midwife which yes, wasn’t great, but id still sooner that again than sleep on a ward with random men

I understand why women do not want men in wards. The problem I have is that after I had DS by emergency c-section I was exhausted as I’d been awake for about 40 hours. I literally could not stay awake and needed DH to look after DS the next day. Luckily I had a private room so it was not an issue for anyone else. But I do not know who would have looked after DS if DH had not been there as it would not have been safe for me to do so.

I didn’t have to interact with the men or let them touch me and my child. I did have to let the midwives. Which was fine as they were doing their job, but I would have felt a lot more comfortable with my husband there. And I think a lot of women feel the same.

im so sorry to hear that - i do think in cases like this a private room should be given in which case a support partner should be allowed. additionally with disabled mothers, etc. it’s the curtained bays full of vulnerable women where i think it’s a solid no