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??

I'm not sure if you have experienced childbirth personally or what your experience was like but in my case, the post natal period was certainly included in the biggest thing to happen in my life. I had an incredibly traumatic birth, I was so shaken that I certainly wouldn't have been able to cope on my own if my husband had been immediately told to "go away". He was also shaken by the experience of watching his wife almost die. 99% of the time is spent sitting with a sleeping baby...get some experience of the real world.

Jesus. Whose partners are walking around in pants and spitting in the sinks, leaving the place a state? How vile. Breed with better men 😫

get some experience 😂 i’m on my 4th pregnancy, one loss, one emergency section, one elective section, due 3rd baby in may. i have experience of the real world and most definitely have experience of pregnancy and childcare.

No a man doesn't have a 'right' to be there actually. He has his whole life to parent this baby, he can cope with going home for an overnight or two without the baby. The man is not a patient at the hospital, the mum and baby are.

NO ONE here is saying women should go through it alone
read what people are wrting
it is about quality support from qualified midwives, or other women where available.
women birthed for centuries without men there. They weren’t alone. One does not equal the other

until it becomes the norm for hospitals to slash staff on the guise of “ oh, let’s be trendy and say dads can be with their partners “ to cover up dumping a shitty situation on everyone else. It’s a cop out from spending money and the oldest trick on book to pass supportive care into hands of ill prepared and unknowledgable “ carers”. Look at care in community for mental illness as another example of dump and dash to slash budgets.

Complications occur in 8% of births.
Perhaps the best course of action is for those new mums to have private rooms so their partners can help them
Others who are just sitting up waiting for the next feed can enjoy the wards without men.

It’s not just dads! It’s a birth partner, so female partners, relatives and friends are included!! Also many hospitals already have this in place anyway.

If we could trust over worked Midwives and Nurses to help us out then we wouldn't need our partners there as much as we do. Look at the case of Lucy Letby and the state of understaffing in Maternity wards at the moment. If we're saying we can't trust Dads...well we can't trust some medical staff either so where do you turn?

‘Women birthed for centuries without men there’
we don’t live in that world anymore with lots of women around or to die from lack of having any.

Many women don’t have a female support network. Women who’ve had a difficult time have died! ( see past posts) because no one noticed they were not well.

If the nhs can’t provide sufficient care, which at the moment it isn’t, then to save lives partners are used in some hospitals to help.

what 😂 you’re comparing the lucy letby case to this? we’re talking about very rare cases of medical staff being secretly awful people vs tens of men with zero background checks, who could be abusive, sexual offenders, anything, being allowed in hospitals unsupervised around vulernable women while they recover/sleep. not even slightly comparable.

You're absolutely right! We wouldn't feel like we needed partners to stay and help us recover as much if the quality of care was there but at the moment the standard is so terrible. It's enough to make you dread needing any medical treatment. Until Maternity services are improved then banning partners does leave people going through the experience alone.

Female mass murderers are a lot less common than lecherous men. Going on statistics alone, I'd far prefer safe staffing levels to a revolving door of random men.

It's really not that big of a deal. Most people are there less than 24 hours and don't have any issues.

Safe staffing levels is the obvious ideal.
That doesn’t exist at the moment though, hence the issue and hence this thread

Didn't you say you 'almost died' during childbirth? Who prevented you from dying?

Yes but if we're going to be petitioning or campaigning or even wishing for anything, it should be safe staffing levels. I'm not seeing any compelling arguments for men being anything close to a universal solution to anything.
You might want your husband there to support you, but what if you didn't have one? Or he had to take care of your other kids? Or he was disabled? Or just a knob?

As a staff member - most of the time dad's/partners cause undue stress on patient and us as staff members. Including one who called me a jumped up little c**t because I wouldn't stop what I was doing to go downstairs and collect his pizza for him... I was in the middle of assessing a baby to see if the wee one needed a peads review, but I was to stop immediately and go get his pizza. I can't count a single shift in the last 10 years where I ha ent had at least 2 patients complain about dad's in the bay, whether it's noise/food/wandering or making them feel uncomfortable for x/y/z reason during the night. Then I'm the one who gets abuse, including being slapped a few times, called awful names, been grabbed a fair few times too when trying to ask them nicely to either stay in their wee bed section or leave. They can be a help, but they can also make it so, so much harder, especially if they are demanding.

As a patient - When I had my DD (8 months now) I was in a bay for the first 2 nights as there were no single rooms available, DD was in the unit for a week due to low BMs, colleague asked a women in one of the side rooms who didn't have a specific need to be in there if she would switch as my baby was in the unit and I was in a bay with 3 other mum's and babies, she said yes til she found out that meant her partner had to go home then said "nah fuck that and fuck her, I'm staying here". You can imagine how awful those 2 nights were. First night one of the dad's paced about on facetime talking loudly with his mate the whole night about the weekend before when they were "coked out their nuts". The second night a new patient was brought in, her husband kept coming in behind MY curtain and lifted the covers to get in thinking it was his wife. Didn't even apologise when I screamed at him to get out. Rolled his eyes and proceeded to go behind his curtain and lie UNDER his wife's bed. So as a patient. No from me about them staying on the wards unless it changes 6o all private rooms and no bays . Stick to visiting hours. If you don't like it go private.

A husband tried to take MY baby during the night, if I hasnt been awake I dread to think what would have hapenned.

Another had a shouting match, something hapenned and he fell (? drunk) out of their cubicle onto me and burst my c section scar.

Another was pressuring his wife to have sex a few hours post delivery, was horrible

Even with those experiences I can appreciate why some people wish to have their partners there, I would never dismiss that, but equally please don't dismiss those who have very valid reasons to not want men on the list natal ward as needing to 'grow up'

The same thing can be said about the female support person. Not everyone is going to have that either.

I'm not advocating for any outside support people. Adequate staffing is the only acceptable solution.

It is.

But it isn't going to happen any time soon and that's the issue.

YANBU.

I do agree with that.

But the Tories aren't interested and unfortunately, I don't see anything changing any time soon.

Agree we should be petitioning for safe staffing levels .
Until that materialises mothers that need it should have other options available

It could. It could happen tomorrow. The money is there.