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??

But other women perhaps needed your husband not to be there.

As a woman who gave birth alone to her child, had a 39 hour labour with ventouse, forceps and then c-section and who spent a solid week in hospital without the 'father'of her child around I can say that absolutely no way would I want strange men in a ward with me or my child no matter who they are. I dealt with what I could and although I did feel alone etc I would have felt very vulnerable if a strange man was so close to me at the most vulnerable time in my life.

I’m not stupid. It won’t happen over night but we have accepted shit maternity care for far too long. My experience was under the last Labour government by the way. The 1960’s hospital wasn’t even designed to have babies next to the mothers in the ward so we were literally tripping over the cribs. There wasn’t a bathroom per bay and the huge shared bathroom for the ward filthy with the floor and toilet covered in blood. All new post natal wards need to have private rooms and en suites and all maternity wards need to be staffed properly.

Thanks for alerting me to this petition. I have signed and shared it!

i’d love to be as delusional and naive as you

same. i’ll be having my last baby in 10 weeks, thank god i won’t be doing it again if this does go anywhere. not that i think it will

Many people moan that men don't take an active interest in family life and little wonder, going on this thread.

Yes there is a problem with sexual assaults' in hospitals and in society generally but if you ban men from maternity wards, these men aren't going to stop.
That will only happen when men are prosecuted in a timely manner and taken off the streets.

Should also be remembered the biggest risk to women in maternity services comes from lack of staff and under funding, its not men, the vast vast majority just want to be part of the birthing process.

So what I'm hearing is, some women choose shit men to have children with or don't spend 5 seconds to think about whether dropping contraception is such a good idea. Then they don't enforce boundaries on postnatal wards so everyone else is subjected to baby-daddy's problems, too. And some women put up with domestic abuse and can't possibly be expected to spend 5 minutes googling how to get out of that situation, preferably before getting pregnant - yeah, I know, DV is complicated and complex. But by that logic the child should be removed at birth and only returned once the woman has left the 'relationship', as apparently we can't trust her to act like an adult? To be clear, I am not advocating for that but it is how some posts come across.

And I guess that is why those of us who don't put up with shit behaviour from men can't have our partners on the ward. Is that roughly what people are saying?

Newsflash:

Other women have had different experiences to you. Because we're all different. Jesus Christ.

And I guess that is why those of us who don't put up with shit behaviour from men can't have our partners on the ward. Is that roughly what people are saying?

No. I don't care if your partner is the best man in the world: I still wouldn't have wanted him there when I was immobile or leaking bodily fluids and trying to cope with a new baby.

We need more staff. It doesn't even have to be highly trained staff. In most cases auxiliaries that can just go and help the mums through the night would be ideal.

I’ll sign a petition if there’s one.
As I’ve said here before, there’s no need for them there overnight.

Well, good for you, raising your daughters to be 'strong and independent'. If only we could all be so perfect. Meanwhile, there are plenty of women with mental health conditions or in my case, previous bad birthing experiences that make them feel very frightened in hospital. They want the support of their partners, and that isn't wrong.

Well perhaps it would be easier to escape these men if they weren't forced to rely on them for basic medical care?

Indeed there is, but during my stay, a patient had wildly different states of consciousness (awake but paralysed and non-responsive versus wide awake, articulate and feeding herself) and the staff carrying out obs were continually changing, so nobody had the full picture.
We ended up like an episode of loose women, with the three other in-patients relating what we'd seen of our roommate's behaviour.
I'm well aware of the privacy issues - I can see NHS lawyers being very unhappy about the evidence it would provide regarding care - but successful patient safety and outcomes are important.

The post you replied to clearly said 'those that demand it' should pay. Not 'those for whom it is essential'.
At the hospital those who needed their partner there overnight - post c section, disabled/other health needs requiring close observation or support - would automatically get a private room for free. Those who didn't need it for medical reasons (including mental health conditions) had option to pay for it.

So there isn't an economic inequity, everyone who needed one got one. Anyone else who didn't need one but preferred one could chose to pay for it. The costs were made clear upfront as £90 regardless of length of stay, so we saved £10 per month for the duration of my pregnancy to pay for it as our choice with our second child (after a horrific experience in a bay which allowed Dads to stay pretty much overnight with our firs) Its far less than the cost of nappies for a month, so it would far fetched to say anyone having a child couldn't afford £10 per month for something which they felt was really important to them

In reality, I don't think the hospital actually charged anyone, when we were leaving we asked how do we pay and were told 'don't worry about it, we don't actually charge anyone, we publish it as a charge to manage demand as we only have 10 private rooms and keep 6 for those who need for medical reasons, and if a parent asks about them at antenatal clinic and expresses concerns about how they will manage without a family member present,but genuinely doesn't have means to pay, we reassure them that as long as available then they can have without paying'. My husband didn't stay (my choice), I wanted one to have some privacy to rest and establish breastfeeding.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to reply so aggressively?

You would remain on labour ward for a good few hours after an EMCS with one to one care and your partner present. When you're finally transferred to the maternity ward, your partner can go up too until you are settled. Babies tend to sleep a lot in the first 24 hours after birth. If you do need to lift your baby after your partner goes, then you press your buzzer for assistance.

Some posters have said no one came- that's an issue with that ward and complaints need to be made. I've worked on 4 different maternity wards and none worked like that. Generally, other mums in the bay will help too (would be highly strange for all 4-6 mums in the same bay to be unable to move, some will have birthed the day before).

Your aggressive response is sadly very familiar to me, I see it daily in work - I don't need aggressive partners too (I currently work nights).

Generally, other mums in the bay will help too (would be highly strange for all 4-6 mums in the same bay to be unable to move, some will have birthed the day before).

Yes, I was helping a c-section mum after I gave birth. If female support were allowed then many would be happy to also assist women who had no other woman available to support them.

Would you believe I initially believed the cartwheel and was impressed. I didn’t even read the bit about the medal🤣🤣
I just remember whilst I was a state another mum in the bed next to me sounding off to everyone about how wonderful she felt and what a fantastic birth she had.
I thought…….it’s that women again 🤣

I needed DH to look after his son, not me. I could look after myself after my c-section as all I needed was rest and I could do that for myself as I just slept (could not stay awake). What I could not do was look after DS. Both DH and I had the same amount of experience at this point of looking after a baby as we were first time parents. I couldn’t breastfeed effectively the day after my c-section as my milk didn’t come in properly for a day or two so DH bottle fed DS, changed his nappy and did skin to skin as I would have probably dropped him if I’d held him up while struggling to stay awake. If there are enough nurses available to help overnight then I completely agree that fathers should be asked to leave but there are not so unfortunately the men who create the babies are needed to fill the gap.

sorry but this is so funny, imagine someone coming out of their csection and just flipping down the corridors like ‘see dr, i’m all good to be discharged’ 😂😂

And no other surgery requires you to look after another human being straight after either

Although, if DH had not been allowed my mum could have helped me so maybe that should be the policy change to female only support at night.

We do need more staff and more private rooms for those who have had a traumatic birth, that’s the solution but not what this thread is about.
As We don’t have the staff there needs to be another solution at present which is a family member staying to look after the baby and help when the mother is too I’ll to do it.

A maternity ward is the only place where a patient has another person to look after when they are Ill.

Again
One size doesn’t fit all.
I’d have had to beg a random for help at 2 in the morning.

Because my experience gave me PTSD.

Your post is absolutely nothing like my experience.

I WAS NOT on the labour ward for ‘a good few hours’ after my EMCS. I was there for 90 mins. The midwife wasn’t present most of the time, didn’t bring me anything to eat, made a shitty remark about me having to use formula as I could hardly get any colostrum out and baby would not latch as I had flat nipples, hardly did any obs on me, didn’t give a shit that I was struggling to hold my baby because I was shaking so much.

My DH WAS NOT allowed into the postnatal ward with me after my 90 mins in recovery, as it was night.

And yes, no one came when I was pressing the buzzer. Yes women including myself are making complaints to PALs. Is anything changing? No.

This whole day vs night thing really irritates me because giving birth is not a day vs night thing. It’s a 24/7 thing but apparently women who give birth overnight don’t matter. Even though there are actual signs in my maternity ward saying there are fewer staff members at night.