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??

Absolutely against dads on wards. Aside from random men (yes, your darling husband is a random man to me) taking up space, using the facilities, snoring (and that's best case scenario, don't get me started on abusers etc) this is just a means to cutting nursing staff further.

He also wouldn’t get out of her bed so she could lie down, she was just stood there whimpering until staff made him move

JFC.

And this whole thread is how can we prioritise the men. Grim.

My third was actually conceived via sexual assault from my then partner, who’d started abusing me during my second pregnancy.

I could’ve actually done without the menz being shoved down my throat in all honesty. I’m gauche speaking about it now, but I was utterly traumatised at the time.

Petition for adequate care. Use your vote wisely. Ask your mp to engage with the issue.
Reading this thread alone makes crystal clear that men on wards is very far from a universal solution.
My first baby was born in a country where if you don't bring your own help with you, you probably die. That's where we're heading.

frankly i’d rather a few women didn’t cope well for a night or two than one woman ends up sexually abused by a random bloke at her most vulnerable and has to live with the trauma forever. but i guess that’s selfish 🤷🏻‍♀️

Exactly.

The answer to the problem is to improve staffing, not to fill wards with men who have no medical training whatsoever.

I had my babies in the US (yes, horrible American health system, blah, blah) where there were enough nurses and nursing aides to adequately care for patients.

You don't find women staying overnight in general post surgical wards to help their husbands or sons or boyfriends reach stuff or get to the loo. Why are women who have had major abdominal surgery expected to rely on completely unqualified people for nursing care?

dont know about other people but i have slept the first night topless with a light robe on if i need to cover myself- otherwise its full skin on skin and nursing

if there were men on the ward at night what would stop someone taking photos of a woman while they are asleep and exposed

That’s not the only option. Use the numerous private rooms for free. Or allow female overnighters.

It’s not a ‘first time mum thing’, so please knock it off with the patronising tone. I was indeed up and about after 6 hours, but too much damage was done for me to get up and move around unaided. Baby was ill and I was also ill with multiple ailments. So yes, I ‘figured things out’, I had my husband there to stay and look after us. If we had another child they would have been with grandparents.
Any of the visitors or male staff could be sex offenders, or do sex offenders only sex offend in daylight hours?

You don't find women staying overnight in general post surgical wards to help their husbands or sons or boyfriends reach stuff or get to the loo. Why are women who have had major abdominal surgery expected to rely on completely unqualified people for nursing care?

Absolutely exactly this.

I wasn't allowed to stay with my disabled, mentally impaired, visually impaired husband after his most recent seizure in December. The fact he was left wet, dirty, unable to eat for 4 days, didn't matter - I couldn't stay over on a mens ward. But women, maternity, bleeding, emotional, vulnerable - yeah, sure, all the Nigels can stay.

Petition for adequate care. Use your vote wisely. Ask your mp to engage with the issue.

Which is great for the future and I absolutely agree but does nothing for those who are giving birth today, tomorrow etc.

they can go private if it’s so important to them

You are dismissing the trauma that the women who find themselves struggling alone after surgery for "a night or two" feel. It wad deeply traumatic for me. I could barely move. I was essentially trapped. And my mental health declined rapidly. And I was expected to keep another human happy. Yes sexual abuse is awful but do not dismiss it as "a few women" not "coping well".

So only the super wealthy get safe post maternal services? It’s £10k to have a private CS.

My DH did all the night feeds, and the other women on my bay all had their husbands who did the same. You can hear between the bays as they’re close together, and when babies cried it was the men you could hear tending to them.

I didn’t see any men using our toilets or shower rooms and I was there a week. Perhaps as they were next to the nurse’s station.

I have had 2 DC, unfortunately both delivered by EMCS. DC2 was premature and slept pretty much the whole time we were in hospital so in a way that wasn’t too bad. DC1 on the other hand, was the “loud crier” on our ward 🤦‍♀️ I had a 60 hour labour with DC1 before eventually needing a CS. I was exhausted and struggling to feed the baby, but delivered in the night therefore DH had to leave as soon as I went onto the postnatal ward. I was placed in a window bay which happened to be right above the main entrance to the hospital. Baby had not stopped crying since birth, my husband was ushered out, the sight of him walking out of the hospital and him turning back to look up at the window haunts me still. Nobody was interested in helping me despite me having no sleep for days, sadly there just wasn’t enough staff. It was without a doubt the worst night of my life. The way women are treated after giving birth is appalling. I don’t know what the answer is because nobody will be 100% happy. My DH knew he was leaving me with no help, I think if there was adequate support on the wards there would be less need for dads?

I see both sides.

I was really damaged by not having my husband with me in 2020 with my first. I ended up walking off the ward and my OCD became bad enough I needed a lot of psychiatric intervention.

On the post natal ward I had no support from nurses and midwives, absolutely nothing. I became more and more distressed, my milk stopped with the stress. I needed him there.

You have a point here. It's clearly a crisis situation in some hospitals and stories such as the poster up thread who was severely ill and had to rip out the wires to get to her newborn who was crying for over an hour are terrible.

I'm not so unreasonable I can't see in that situation a partner is better than no care at all.

What bothers me is that if big improvements in postnatal care and staffing are made down the line then a precedence is already set with the expectation that men can have 24 hr access to a female ward. It's difficult to claw that back especially with the amount of women who seem to want men overnight even if the staffing and care was top notch.

It would be less of an issue if all post natal care was remodelled into individual rooms but as long as wards with flimsy curtains and shared facilities exist the presence of men will continue to be an issue of dignity and safety for many women.

Thought you were going to say without partner there to pass you the baby !

Because there's also a helpless newborn involved which obviously isn't the case for any other major surgery and a lot of it is making sure that the baby can be passed to mum to be fed, dad can do nappy changes etc.

I don’t think they should be allowed to stay. Women at their most vulnerable should not have to have their space invaded by strange men, many of whom do not seem to know how to behave.

I don’t know anyone that’s had positive encounters with other women’s men in postnatal wards: farting, watching phones loudly, ordering revolting takeaway, talking loudly on the phone, invading women’s space by moving chairs to move curtains, shouting at their partners, shouting at staff, snoring, refusing to help with the babies, staring at women who have to have their curtains open, staring at bleeding, sore, uncomfortable, shellshocked women as they try and try to establish breastfeeding, using the women’s bathroom facilities and pissing on the floor or leaving the seat up, walking around in their pants, talking loudly, and worst of all, abusing their partner, criticising her body, criticising her care of the baby and nagging her for a blow job.

We need more staff, more midwives, more doctors and more HCAs. Ain’t gonna happen with the tories in power though.

My case was extremely similar. I do hope you are doing OK.

if your maternal care is only safe if an unqualified person is the person you’re relying on to stay safe, then yes i’d advise 10k is worth the investment

It would be great if women could choose whether they are in a ward which allows partners or not. Like previous posters have said though, while one woman might want their partner there, no-one else on that ward does. On balance, a maternity ward is not a place for men to be staying / sleeping.