40 years ago parents didn't stay with unwell babies?

[UndertheCedartree]

Am I right in thinking that 40 years ago if a baby was taken to the big city hospital (from being born at the local town hospital i.e critically ill/likely to die) that the parents and definitely the dad did not go with them?

I agree that it depended on the hospitals. I knew of women in the 80's, whose babies were transferred, but they stayed in the maternity hospital. Likewise my cousin had a stroke after birth and was transferred. The baby was eventually discharged to the father. There was more likely to be wards, which stuck to schedules and didn't want parents constantly on the ward.

At our local hospital, weirdly, it was only the parents of bottlefed babies who could stay as they were expected to make bottles through the night. Breastfed babies’ mums were expected to feed babies through normal visiting hours (9-5 though mums were often allowed to stay until the last bus which was 6). I imagine the poor babies were starving.

The other twin, my big brother, was what we’d now call a micro preemie.He stayed in an incubator for 5 weeks, and every day, mum would visit him. There was no option for her to stay with him

Dd born nearly 9 years ago, very premature, ventilator, 24/7 oxygen, NICU for 3 months.

I was sent home the day after she was born. Very welcome to visit NICU as much as I wanted but parents were only able to stay if a) baby was about to die b) baby had died or c) baby was heading towards well enough to go home whilst still needing support eg tube feeding, oxygen cylinders, trying to establish breastfeeding. Staying just generally was not an option, there wasn't room.

My experience of neonatal intensive care (Nicu or SCBU) is that parents still can’t stay. If you don’t live locally then there are Ronald McDonald places to stay in but you’re not in the unit with your baby.
I had to go home every day and come back.

I was in hospital three times when I was young in the '70s. My mother visited twice a day, but the hospitals were very handy -I live on the same road as one of them. Some others didn't have frequent visitors. It just wasn't possible when they had big families, especially if they lived far away.

As above with recent nicu experiences. We were expected to be there during the day and told we could visit as much as we wanted, but no space to stay - around the cots needed to be easily cleared for emergencies, of which there were many.

I had a week in hospital in the 70s. No visitors at all as my mum gave birth to my baby brother during that time and Dad had to look after the rest of them. I remember as she was discharged they came to the outside of my ward, climbed through the bushes and banged on the window so I could see him! But they still couldn't come in as no babies were allowed on the ward.

Why do you ask?

I had my first operation in 1979
Parents visited between 6-8pm
No parents stayed with DC
I was on a paediatric ward as a baby and the same then(1964)

I dis my nurse training mid 90,s and although I trained as as a mental health nurse I had a,paediatric placement

On the ward I was on which waa a specialist ward for kidney problems many parents. Didn't stay over night ,I'm not sure if this was due to lack of facilities for parents though ?
Many children had longterm problems

14 years ago, during the swine flu pandemic my daughter was hospitalised at 2 weeks old with bronchiolitis. There was an older baby in the next room and the only people I saw with it were nurses. Admittedly, I wasn’t in much of a mind frame to pay lots of attention but looking back it was weird and a little sad.

My ex had meningitis in the late forties when he was a toddler. His mum wasn’t allowed to visit as ‘it would upset him’. When she picked him up months later she said he was huddled up in a corner in his cot. She only ever tolerated him after that and unsurprisingly he grew up to be a very anxious person.
I couldn’t stand the bloody woman. So judgemental.

But compared to know parents staying it is. Mine was the same experience, surgery and parents visited, left alone day and night on a ward in pain and not knowing what was going on and visited at visiting time by parents.

at 3 week's old i had neonatal pneumonia - was in hospital for a month, my dad went back to work and my mum went home to look after my older sister, she apparently did call regularly to check in on me 😱 39 years ago x

I find this thread hard to read. The thought of little ones in hospital without parents visiting makes me so sad. How times have changed (for the better, imo!).

I think there is a difference between a baby and being 12 😅 My 12 year old was a month in hospital a little while ago and I didn't stay either. I think it's not that unusual even today.

70s,80s children were generally left yes. I have extensive hospital admissions and it was always like this on the children’s wards.

I remember my parents taking shifts so they always had someone with my little sister.

my DH spent much of his early years in hospital. His mother told me about one time she stepped out do the room just for a few minutes and came back to a trainee doing a jugular stick just because he needed the practice. She learned to watch her son like a hawk.

so I don’t know anyone who would have left their child back then. Parents dealt with sleeping on chairs, but they took care of their children.

im happy our local children’s ward has a bed for the parent or a decently comfortable lounger if you need to stay right by their bedside. They also have a menu where you can order and pay for meal service with the patient meals so you don’t have to worry about going in search of food.

Not quite 40 years ago but not far off - I was given a mattress on the floor beside DD’s bed so I could stay with her all night after she’d had her tonsils out. IMO it was a standard offer - she hadn’t been very distressed or anything.

It was in the era when they’d stopped routinely taking tonsils out, but hers had been very bad,

I gave birth in Guys in 1980. My baby had jaundice and had to stay in an incubator under UV lights. I was able to stay with her, we were in for 12 days.

Surely they wouldn't have left a breast fed baby hungry?
Most children's wards had a supply of ready made bottles it would have been far easier to feed a bottle fed baby

I'm in my 40s and was hospitalised as a baby after an accident. My mum has mentioned before one baby on the ward never had mum or dad there, so it must have been unusual in our local hospital as it has stuck in her mind all these years.

I suppose if you had other children though and not able to travel it may have been harder?

I'm also curious if nurse to patient ratios on the children's wards were better or worse 40 years ago. I'm going to hazard a guess that they were better. If my child was admitted to a ward there is no chance they'd be there without me or their dad as I know the staff are run off their feet.

I know it wasn't the dark ages it was when I was born. I was critically ill/likely to die. I went on my own. My parents didn't visit me either.

You had your wisdom teeth removed at 12?

That is true.

I the 1980s, mothers were with their babies during the day on children's wards. They went home and stayed home until the following day.

I was on a children's ward as a kid when I was diagnosed T1D, which is how I know. One of the nurses took me up to the special care baby unit and all I remember was beeping machines, babies connected to machines and at that particular time, there were staff tending to the babies, some of whome were very tiny......( babies not staff).

There were no mums and dads there. They may have visited after work or at different times. That was at the time when nurses wore hats and capes, and matrons were in charge on some but not all wards.