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??

...and if you are using the loo and you have to pull the emergency cord - tell me there's an emergency cord? - and assuming someone comes to your assistance, the door is opened and everyone queueing up outside gets to see you, lying on the pissed-on or dirty floor, or bleeding heavily....

If the doors can be locked from the inside, that's a safety risk for patients. If they can't be locked from the inside and are available for everyone to use, that's a risk too.

Men are not supposed to use patients toilet facilities. Ever!
They are visitors not patients and are supposed to use visitors toilets usually located in the corridors outside.

In fact all visitors men, women children must use visitor toilets.
The number of bathroom facilities is based on patients, not patients and visitors on the wards.

As an aside, I agree your own is much better. I had my own en-suite both times but only because I was a breast feeder and had multiple births.

The idea here in the uk, however, amongst clinicians is that it’s better for woman's mental health to have other new mums around them after giving birth. So that’s why we have wards. Side private rooms are for those who need extra support or if there’s an overflow and also I understand you can pay to have your own room too ( not all hospitals and only if available)

Yes there are emergency cords.
Its just not like this.
There aren’t huge queues and huge numbers of people. Goodness me!

The doors are the same as those for all hospital bathrooms and disabled toilets and can be opened from both sides.

CCTV!
Theres a very real privacy issue there.

@BounceHighBaby i agree. When they cut through the muscle you can’t sit up. There’s little point sticking a baby in a cot next to you when you can’t even sit up let alone reach over and pick it up.
Then you lie there for ages with a baby screaming and the nurses too busy to hand you your baby.

If there was more staff It would be ok.

None of us are misunderstanding. 9am-9pm is pretty fucking useless for women who give birth overnight isn’t it. Especially women who have EMCS and then are made to look after a baby while numb from the waste down with a catheter ffs.

A lot of these posts seem to be based on the premise of “it’s DH/DP with me or it’s me alone”. I wonder if we (society) could do more to encourage/normalise wider support networks? Like having a best friend or supportive family member with you outside of men’s visiting times (except for circumstances where DPs need to be there, e.g if Mum or baby are unwell). I personally feel that if DPs of all genders are going to be allowed to stay over as standard, individual rooms might be the best way forward, rather than all in a bay with just curtains.

I was in a wheelchair for several days after a c-section with nurses having to wheel me to and from special care with one baby in sc and one on the ward.
Not everyone is the same.

I collapsed the day after my first vaginal birth apparently due to heavy blood loss
Not everyone is the same.

Absolutely agree. Babies don’t just come between 9am and 5pm and mothers are not all running around fit and healthy straight after.

Its not a one size fits all

No space for men in a female only ward. In a private room yes, men if their partner wants them. In public wards with only flimsy curtains around no, as personally I don't think it's fair to have men in the ward except for limited visiting time during the day when all women know there will likely be men around. Some women might be inhibited from breastfeeding in a ward with men in.

The nhs don’t have the money
We would need more nurses and can’t get enough anyway
They would need more cleaners and can’t afford them
Doctors rounds would take longer and the don’t have the time ( every second counts)
Clinicians prefer multi wards for mental health
Our existing hospitals can’t accommodate this change
We haven’t built enough new hospitals for a growing population and can’t deal with the existing numbers of new mums anyway

There’s no money

I agree it would be nice though

Being around a bunch of strangers, even if it is just other women, is not going to be good for anyone’s mental health.

i know i am biased because i have ASD and being in the hospital puts me in a constant state of fight or flight, but the premise is just so ridiculously laughable. People recover better when they rest and have privacy. They recover better when they have quiet and low lighting. There have been studies on this. Even communal nicu wards have been discredited and there is a push to move to separated spaces.

no matter how much staff is in place, every patient still deserves to have an advocate present, which is why father’s belong with mothers and babies and family or friends belong with anyone who wants a companion. If a person is in the hospital, they may not be in a position to ask enough questions or to express their own wishes during the few minutes a doctor spends at their bedside. You can’t have informed consent if people aren’t given a true opportunity to be involved in their own care.

Perhaps the answer is to go back to when the babies were put in a nursery with a nurse or two etc on hand to care for them. Giving the mother time to recover if she needed to. That way men wouldn’t need to stay overnight and c —section / traumatic birth experience mum was there getting a rest and not trying to cope on her own all night with a baby and barely able to move.

Women without help who are recovering from surgery and can’t get out of bed are also inhibited from feeding their baby because the staff aren’t answering their buzzers to pass them the baby.

In reality, there will be no solution either anytime soon or ever to the staffing crisis. So in the meantime, the solutions are:

-Allowing dads
-Allowing female relatives/friends
-AS A BARE MINIMUM, allowing dads to stay until a mother who has had a c section has had their catheter removed and has been safely mobilised, and their stuff is within reach, and they have enough pain medication.

Oh good for you. I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed until my catheter was removed. Both times this was over 12 hours after my c section.

The first time, without my DH there, they wouldn’t even help me get out of bed. So i tried to by myself, in agony because they didn’t give me enough pain relief, and I then bled all over the floor trying to get a pad but couldn’t because they had left my sruff on the floor which i physically couldn’t bend down and reach.

Please don't even joke about this. A newborn should be with the mother literally straight after birth, and also the father (skin to skin). I can't believe the thought of taking babies away from their mothers like this. Is this really the solution? So because of short staffing and the odd pervert, now we'll just dump the babies in a room somewhere.

It was sarcasm !
based on others not quite appreciating how sometimes new mothers have no choice but to need extra help if they’ve had a terrible time .

It was sarcasm
because there is no one size fits all

I haven't seen the petition, however I am currently in hospital mid induction and have my husband here over night.
I wanted to walk around for longer, and he wanted to rest.
It did cross my mind that there are many pitfalls of men being in a women's space when it is the most vulnerable time for many women. It's easy to see that there are tines when their presence could be a problem to other patients.
The idea of men being around a women's space like this, unattended is a scary thought.

Oh thank God, I've been thinking of your comment in some warped dystopian universe

I thought it was just my hospital that is so crap but I’m realising so many other mothers have had the same sort of treatment as me
I don’t understand how anyone can think that you can raise yourself up when you need muscles to do this and the doctors have just sliced through them all. There is very little help in hospitals, is it just staff shortages because there were more nurses when I had mine but I never had a nurse help me to raise myself in the bed or get up. I was on my own and once you’ve been given the standard number of pain relief you really are on your own.

I would never have coped without my dh there.

My child had an incident that landed her in NiCU hours after birth. I was moved to a private room and was incredibly unwell to the extent that I wasn't able to see her for nearly 3 days, and he was her only support.

My husband was allowed to stay in my room (against general policy) to offer support to both me and our child as the medical team decided it was in the best interests of both me and my child to do so. He did things like feed our child, and give her care and attention, along with advocating for me.

We were lucky as the room had its own shower and bathroom facilities. He is quiet and slept on an arm chair covered with a large towel we had. He managed to feed himself with the snacks we had/hospital canteens and shops. This was the year pre-covid in a busy London teaching hospital.

In certain circumstances where the presence of a partner wouldn't be deemed beneficial. I don't think this is a bad idea per se, but maybe not on the open ward for straightforward things (though tbh, you won't be in long if it's straightforward), with strict behavioural policy and expectations. I like the idea of bays open/closed to.men, but not sure how practical this would be to manage when staff are already stretched, as are bed numbers.

This needs to be a more nuanced debate.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
tbh I did wonder if some might take me seriously.
Must try harder to be more sarcastic

I agree but due to high demand there are a lot of complex cases having to stay on open wards. There aren’t enough private rooms and logistically can’t be without more staff, money and buildings.

Things have likely changed massively since 2019, so, to be fair, I may have an outdated view.

I do remember my friend having to spend 6 days on the open ward as her case wasn't deemed quite serious enough to take a private room when it came up, and it being awful for her. Same hospital, same time, and a similar exception was made.

I think this is where some kind of judgement needs to come in. No idea whose. If a mother or child needs someone to advocate for them, they definitely should be allowed there.

It's all in the nuance, isn't it? It won't ever be a case of dads being on wards= good/bad as there are as many situations as births.

There needs to be some flexibility rather than a blanket policy, based on patient need. I benefitted from the rules being bent for this reason, and someone making a judgement call as it was right for my situation.. I would hope others would be treated similarly.

I've just come out of hospital 5 days ago, had a c section. The ward allowed men to stay overnight, I was shocked by this as the other hospital I gave birth at was quite strict with no men overnight.
It didn't really bother me to be honest, they stayed in their bays with their partners, they wasn't allowed to use the ward toilets (thank god)
What bothered me was the noise ! And partners snoring... while us women were wide awake with the babies ! But one bloke was more considerate so we can't tar them all with the same brush.

I was annoyed though because I was admitted the night before in slow labour and my dh had to leave me and sleep outside in his car, that was the time I really needed him, I didn't need him so much afterwards.
I never found I couldn't lift my baby etc, decent pain relief (morphine) really helps