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'm sorry it was distressing for you.

Oh, bless her.

I was in hospital when I was 4 to have a squint corrected and my mum stayed there with me.

That’s really hard for you, I’m sorry. I think as the thread shows a lot has changed both for hospitals and also the way people are raised and as such how they think etc. Assuming someone is in their late 40’s now then the medics and nursing staff at their births could well have been born in the 1930’s and 1940’s and that could possibly be a very different mindset - I think that it is only in the 1980’s that operations on babies included anaesthetics as it was thought they didn’t feel pain. It’s frightening really.

Still, I cannot imagine not going with my baby

I had an operation when I was about 6/7 in the mid 80’s and my mum stayed with me, but it was a private hospital. I loved it, remember getting toys and picking food off a menu!

i started paeds nursing in the early 90's and parents were being actively encouraged to stay with their children on standard wards. i was always taken aback by how many couldn't or those that simply wouldn't and saw it as free childcare

Did you manage to hide it from the parents who couldn’t stay? I know my mum was made to feel like the worst parent in the world because she couldn’t be there. They didn’t understand that she’d had to leave a one year old with the neighbours and me at home by myself with my dad just nipping in every couple of days to make sure I was still alive during the three weeks she’d spent as a patient after their birth because he was off with the OW and wasn’t interested in babysitting, and her family were 70 miles away and obviously didn’t feel a need to offer to help. She had a lifetime of guilt over that.

I was in the burns unit for about an month aged one on the late 80s, my mum was offered to stay with me but chose not to. They were very strict visiting hours due to infection control so I think I was alone most of the time, luckily I don’t remember the experience.

it has now swung too much the other way though, my daughter has a disability and we’ve been on children’s inpatient ward many times and nurses barely do anything to help, even if your child is sick they just sigh and throw a clean sheet at you to change the bed yourself. You can’t leave at all so if you don’t have family members free to visits you’re basically stuck there 24/7 in the clothes you came in wearing. God knows what you do if you have other children at home and are a single parent.

My 10yo was in hospital for a week earlier this year, I felt bad leaving her for 20 mins to get some food! The experience was traumatic enough for all of us without leaving her all night without any loved ones at the most stressful time of her life.

There was however a baby a few months old on the ward who’s parents only visited once per day during visiting hours, the rest of the time the baby was lying alone in a cot except when being treated by the nurses. The family were from another culture so possibly used to a different system, but it seemed quite horrific to me.

Me too! I absolutely hated being away from dm. She visited me the day after my op & then I went home the day after. And I missed part of Top of the Pops because I had to go for a bath on the Thursday evening.

Oh- I thought you meant children in hospital, not new babies who were sick.
The visits would still be rare.

Yes. This is correct

It's horrific, isn't it?

Obviously it was decades before the 80s, but we used to know a truly lovely gentleman whom we saw regularly.

When he was 8 years old, he was very sick and was taken into a specialist hospital some distance from his home. The doctor actually told his parents not to bother making any plans to visit him again the following day, as he "isn't going to make it through the night", before urging them to go back home.

The callousness of it all was shocking beyond words.

Thankfully, as it happened, the doctor didn't quite get his prognosis correct. We attended our friend's funeral a few years ago and said Goodbye to him - a couple of months before his 90th birthday!

I think I must have been around 7 when I had my tonsils out and was in hospital for 3/4 day. I have only a fleeting recollection of it but my parents weren't there apart from visiting time. I can't remember being very upset so I can only assume that it wasn't too traumatising!

I am not saying it was right but I think children can more resilient that we now think they can.

I’m 48, born at 32 weeks. My mum left hispital after 10 days and had to travel into see me. She had a huge wound from an emergency c-section, no idea how she managed it.

When she came round from the c-section she had no idea if I’d lived or died. She got out of bed and was found trying to leave the ward to try and find me. Only then did she discover I was alive. Awful way of looking after mothers.

DP broke his leg badly when he was 6, so around 1983 - his mum walked five miles a day after dropping his little sister off with a friend to visit him during the day, leaving at lunchtime. His Dad would visit on the way home from work and his grandparents would visit at the weekend. He was in hospital for about three months and says he loved the hospital school.

My mother didn't visit my eldest brother for over a week after he had his tonsils out - because he turned 12 whilst he was in, he was moved onto the adult ward, which was full of very elderly men. He only ever saw a doctor once for the next 50 years because he refused point blank to have anything to do with them afterwards. And then she wouldn't visit him or call when he was in hospital dying. I am told that she got wheeled down to see me when I was a few days old and in SCBU but she didn't go back again until I was ready to go home; my father called in some favours because he was hospital staff to be let in during the day sometimes, but that was purely dependent upon a friend of a friend being in charge.

I've also seen a boyfriend's sister decide that as she was sure her 32-weeker preemie was going to be fine, she was going to go home and come back 'in a couple of days'. They finally got around to it at the weekend when the weekend shift staff came back on from the previous week and phoned to find out where the fuck she had got to, as she'd told them she was just going home for a shower and change of clothes not to crack open the Stella and roll a shitload of joints for seven days.

I can see why a baby or small child might have to be transported urgently and the Mum being too unwell or there not being time to sort out transport for both, or where somebody is a lone parent of several children and can't be there all of the time, but to just not turn up at all when it wasn't impossible, not even for a short visit, feels so cold.

24/7 with no respite and you miss work, other responsibilities? Even the idea you'd feel bad about this illustrates how hard parenthood is now. You don't need to be with them - they are in the safest place possible. It only stopped because of staff cuts.

I'm puzzled at why you find this so surprising and for putting it in AIBU, OP. So YABU for that in my opinion.

My friend didn't stay with her twins who were born early and in Special Care for a few weeks in 2003, so still a normal thing to do 20 odd years ago let alone 40!

I can imagine coxkroaches being a bit off putting!

My older brother was born in the late 70s and when he was a toddler took very unwell. He was kept in for quite a long time and over Christmas too. My mum visited every day and my dad as often as work allowed. My brother to this day has an intense phobia of needles and hospitals. He definitely has had some kind of damage done by his time spent in the hospital whether it’s been an attachment issue (he has said to my mum as an adult ‘I can’t believe you left me’) or whether it’s because of old fashioned and cross nurses. He remembers them taking and burning his toys in case he was infectious, he wasn’t. In the end it turned out he had a twisted bowel.

I remember being in hospital after having asthma attacks around the 90s so I would have been about 4/5 and my mum never stayed with me I was in for about a week at a time. I remember her tucking me in and singing then going home.

50 years ago I was a Prem baby.

I was moved 40 miles away to a large city hospital.

My mum didn't know and wasn't told until she got out of bed and went looking for me.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s14Q-_Bxc_U

Apologies if someone has already posted this, but this is an excerpt from 1953, by a man James Robertson I think, who was arguing the practice of leaving children without their parents was harmful. I have watched the full video a few times in various trainings, it’s harrowing. At that time they were only just beginning to understand attachment theory and the lifelong impact of disrupted attachments. This is obviously a bit longer ago but the comments beneath the video, including from the lady now in her 70s who was the child in the video, show the lasting harm.

Im sorry op, for what you experienced.

Oh bless you.

My son was in intensive care for 7 weeks in March and parents were allowed to visit 24/7 but not allowed to sleep over. They did provide hospital accommodation for those who didn’t live in the city.

Once he got onto the ward, I was able to stay with him then.

That’s just not true. It stopped because we began to understand the lifelong importance of attachment figures in children’s healthy development. Physically safe doesn’t mean emotionally safe.