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??

Fathers can be involved in the daytime, many would be picking other children up from school or childcare or grandparents and caring for them overnight, keeping the household running.

Don't think it's a good idea.

The NHS needs proper funding. I would not be comfortable with a man sleeping in the next hospital bay.

A number of different things can be true.

I can believe that a new mother who has a male partner assertively advocating for her can end up with better treatment than they otherwise would have had. We know that women are dismissed far more than men. Especially in healthcare.

Stemming from this fact individually many women will feel happier with their partner by their side for the duration and probably do benefit, again on an individual level.

Conversely a blanket policy of allowing all men all the time brings with it issues that postnatal services never used to have to deal with.

This ranges from men taking up physical space, adding to noise levels overnight and generally being a bit thoughtless and selfish even if well intended.

Then you have the men who are abusive and voyeuristic, the men who harass their partners about blow jobs and threaten staff and patients.

Most women who want their own partner present could still do without the male partners of other women in their vicinity when vulnerable and dealing with postnatal issues.

The only true solution to this is properly staffed and funded maternity services. Rooms or wards actually designed with the needs of new mothers and newborns in mind and respect for women who have given birth, their mobility needs, their pain management and mental health.

Trying to fix the problems by allowing men 24/7 access to shared postnatal facilities is like putting a manky bandaid on a big cut. It might stem the immediate bleed but could give you sepsis.

Affording private healthcare (starting at £8,000 for a 'simple' delivery) is very different to affording a private room at around £90. Thats £10 a month if save up through your pregnancy, and pretty affordable for most people - its less than a big pack of pampers!

Another option is do your research - I live in a small village and there are 5 maternity hospitals all about 30 mins drive from me in different directions, I looked into their policies around visiting hours, private rooms, facilities etc before selecting which one to give birth at. Maternity is one of the few areas of care where can usually select where you give birth, so i would suggest selecting one which aligns with your preferences as much as is possible, rather than expecting the hospital to align to yours.

It’s not an idea it’s the reality at the moment in most ( I’m not sure if it’s all ? ) hospitals.

Your second para is very good advice!
I appreciate It doesn’t allow for emergencies, unforeseen problems or for those who don t have the luxury of lots of hospitals nearby though.

In Spain fathers are allowed including overnight. But here you would share a room with maximum one other woman, and usually you get a private room, particularly if you had a section.

I would say that fathers should be allowed to be there the whole time. But the caveat is that before that could happen, there needs to be a complete overhaul in the appalling conditions of maternity care in the UK so that women aren't sharing with 5 or 6 others after giving birth. I can see that as things are in the NHS at the moment it would be completely unsuitable.

@Genuineweddingone Out of interest, would you pay for a private room?

Well my DH was advocating for me during normal visiting hours (and during the birth when I nearly flatlined) so I presume you are happy with that?! My DH wasn’t allowed to stay over night (even when DS and I were re admitted to a private room). But no, there was no female that could have stayed over night with me had they been allowed. My mum was seriously ill (and died when DS1 was a baby), I have no sisters and my female cousins live abroad. My closest female friends live 200 miles away and had small babies themselves at that time.

I found that if you did buzz and ask anything you got told off by the midwives who like to tell you how kther people's babies are very ill or died so you don't really need help. So on that front it is nice to have help. And I also do see that many women don't care who sees their boobs just feed the baby curtains open whatever. And wouldn't even notice anyone else in the ward.

On the other hand men are loud and statistically about 25% of them abusive in some way, whether the partner recognises that or not.

I think the one thing that we can all agree on from this thread is that postnatal care is woefully underfunded. Some of these stories are absolutely heartbreaking.

Yanbu. No men should stay overnight. I also had 2 csections (emergency and elective) managed to do most things and pressed the buzzer if really necessary. With my 1st dad's could stay overnight but my dh didn't because he snores loudly and it wouldn't have been fair to me or the other new mums, and 2nd was during covid and he wasn't allowed which was fine.

A woman across from me wasn't answered as it was handover. She had tried to get out of bed and couldn't stand. I couldn't safely get her back on the bed myself so I had to go to the desk to tell the nurses. They weren't happy with me interrupting. I offered to pick up her baby and hand it to her when it cried after that.

I've experienced both sides; having two c-sections, and also working on maternity wards. When I had our second DC, partner paid for a private room so we didn't have to share a space with other couples.
Working on a ward, I would pull back the curtain early in the morning, find empty takeaway boxes piled up on the bed table, and a snoring man asleep on the bed. People men quickly begin to act like patients in a hospital environment. That, or they believe nurses are their slaves, there to clean up after them.

In reality, many people have few options. My plan was to give birth in the midwife lead unit attached to the hospital and be discharged directly from there….but pre eclampsia and HELLP stopped that happening and because I hemorrhaghed it meant that I wasn’t allowed to use the midwife lead unit for DS2 - didn’t matter really because he was induced for growth restriction and had to be constantly monitored so that would have also stopped us using the midwife unit. For DS2, I had no choice over the hospital. My nearest hospital refused to provide care for us, the one I had used for DS1 didn’t have the right scanning equipment (I needed Doppler scans) and there’s no way I wanted to go back there anyway so the next nearest hospital (which was over 40 miles away) was the only option.

There were private rooms available for payment at the hospital I had DS1 at but the demand was too great and they were saved for people who had to be readmitted. There were no private rooms at the hospital I had DS2 at. In fact there were mums who had recently given birth on the ante natal ward mixed in with women who were suffering from serious complications and at risk of losing their babies. That’s how short of space they were.

This is due to poor staffing. I was same in 1994. Husbands weren’t allowed to stay. Yep, staffing was shit back then, but maybe not quite as shit as now. You rang for help, waited, so,etimes you had to ring again, but someone did come.

the issue with partners being allowed is it gives hospital mamange re the excuse to lower staffing. Becuase many women will ask partner to do something rather than ring bell, so staff aren’t as busy at higher staffing ratio, so drop ratios, set expectations that it’s “normal” for partners to “help”

fuck that. I’d rather have a midwife/nurse help me sit up in bed who is capable of judging how much mobility i have, gently pushing me to get mobile whilst monitoring vital signs and for bleeding. That’s what they’re paid to do. Husbands don’t have that expertise. They’re not qualified trained nurses.

Speaking as a father, I am also against this idea. Like you OP, I can think of nothing worse than being in a 4 bed bay separated only by curtains with random women.

Leave us in the waiting rooms and Hospital League of Friends' tea bars where we belong.

People men quickly begin to act like patients in a hospital environment. That, or they believe nurses are their slaves, there to clean up after them.

That's an interesting observation and one I can believe is true. Their needs to be properly conducted research into if/how much work non patients staying overnight on a postnatal ward creates and if/how much this impacts the care of actual patients.

Ivor Is this sarcasm
Not sure how to read your post as it just sounds like you’re on a wind up.

We d all rather be in the tea bar!

@OOBetty No pain relief, even paracetamol and made to feel like a failure when requested. Shouting at vulnerable women.

I could write a lot more but I think the absolute worst bit was the shouting.

You have a point however my experience wasn’t at a point when the section seemed understaffed. I was in for 5 days, and a lot boils down to the midwives. Some were excellent and helped me so much and send DH home to sleep. Some refused to help (too busy sat with 6 of them chatting at the nurses station) and I had to call DH and beg him to come back and help me.

We can’t assume in this argument that all hospitals are equal. There are great hospitals and failing hospitals and it’s not necessarily just down to funding.

I have every sympathy, but then, I don't think men even need to be present at the birth.

You’d deny the mother the right to have her choice of birth partner?

A birth partner (who’s attentive and not a moron) can make a massive difference in the outcome for woman and child.

There is a difference between "controlling and abusive" and wanting to be "glued to their wife" because she's just been through a potentially horrific experience and may be traumatised and struggling to bond with the baby. Some men are also just as excited as the Mum to just have become a parent and want to stay with their baby which is absolutely their right. What other couples are doing during that vulnerable time is nothing to do with you, I seriously doubt they are looking at the other women. People who area against this need to grow up.

Daft comment. Sounds a bit bitter and twisted..are you from the middle ages?