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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

OMG - my hospital don't let dads stay o/n!!

514 replies

Highlander · 14/02/2006 11:39

are we back in the 18thC or soemthing? I've just found out that dads are 'not allowed' to stay for the first night on the postnatal ward. I'm horrified, especially after hearing all the stories about midwives not helping when you buzz. Maybe they're all too busy making up bottles. When I had DS, no-one was bottle feeding on our unit. DH is trying to calm me by saying we'll get a solo room and he will stay (he's a docotor himself).

I'm really panicing. I had such a good time with DS.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Bozza · 16/02/2006 14:26

DS currently aged 4 wears age 7-10 hat or sometimes DH's! (and DH has a big head)

Normsnockers · 16/02/2006 14:27

Message withdrawn

nailpolish · 16/02/2006 14:27

wouldnt take anything away from you (oops)

Blandmum · 16/02/2006 14:27

Not Dundee is it? The M?w there were grat with me when I had dd. All you had to do for hlp with latching on was press the buzzer. they were terrific!

Greensleeves · 16/02/2006 14:34

Sorry nailpolish, I didn't mean to attack you personally either. I'm sure you were a very hard-working and conscientious professional in a difficult and draining job.

I probably should just stay off these threads, because I am totally incapable of being even vaguely objective about this issue. The truth is that when people talk about having lovely positive births, with helpful, kind midwives, I feel threatened, as though they are accusing me of making up my experiences or exaggerating. Of course they are doing nothing of the sort, they are just sharing their own stories. I still have so much grief about what happened to me and the way those people ruined that precious time for me, I probably can't achieve anything on a thread like this other than to scare and depress first-time mums. Which I don't want to do, so I ought to just leave it alone. Sorry.

Normsnockers · 16/02/2006 14:34

Message withdrawn

nailpolish · 16/02/2006 14:35

for greensleeves

nailpolish · 16/02/2006 14:35

i hope that wasnt patronising

Greensleeves · 16/02/2006 14:36

No, it was lovely

Blandmum · 16/02/2006 14:37

g/s....I wasn't for one minute infering that you were making things up. You had a rotten time, and what happened to you shouldn't happen to anyone

But I also think that it can be helpful if people post positive things, soi that anyone reading the thread gets a ballanced view of what c/b is like? The good and the bad?

Greensleeves · 16/02/2006 14:41

Hey, that's what I said MB!! Of course you weren't inferring anything about my experiences, and of course people must post their positive birth stories. That's what I meant really. I was acknowledging that I can be rather touchy about this issue because I haven't yet come to terms with my own experience. I find myself on a thread like this, slugging it out against no-one in particular... nailpolish's post made me realise that I was just taking my bad memories out on other people

Blandmum · 16/02/2006 14:43

sweetheart, I think you would be rather odd if you were not a little touchy about the subject! IYSWIM

harpsichordcarrier · 16/02/2006 14:43

let me try to be objective
some women do want their partners with them the night they give birth
there are some very good reasons why this might be a very positive thing, some of which have been highlighted in this thread e.g. improving bf rates, reducing anxiety.
some women don't want partners there, and there are some good reasons for that too
one set of reasons does not automatically outweigh the other
there is clearly a balance to be struck between these two
protocols vary between hospitals and anyway should always be under continual review
some protocols that I have seen are pointless, some are extremely risk averse and some are downright damaging and wrong
the birth experience IS a powerful one and indeed a political one
to say that some women have had some unfortunate and even appalling experiences is not to say that ALL women will have that experience
Highlander's anxieties/feelings are not trivial and should be respected imo

Highlander · 16/02/2006 15:07

well put harpsichord - it's exactly how I feel

You've got to wonder what my thread title would have been 30 years ago......

OMG - my hospital won't let DH be present at the birth!!!!!!!
'don't be so silly. That's the rules. Shave your fanny, get your legs in the stirrups and stop whinging'

Joke, BTW. Joke, joke.....

OP posts:
harpsichordcarrier · 16/02/2006 15:09

highlander
hope you get the birth you want xx

kreamkrackers · 16/02/2006 15:17

does everyone have a shave then when giving birth? i trim down below as i'm not a fan of hairs and tried shaving the once and it was so sore when they grew back that i thought never again. sorry to hijack but i've always wondered what women choice to do with that area.

Highlander · 16/02/2006 15:21

I always wax anyway, but I had more than usual taken off a couple of days before DS was born.

There's usually a few 'maintenance of the ladygarden' threads on the go (I think)

OP posts:
harpsichordcarrier · 16/02/2006 15:22

some do, some don't
it was protocol to shave off pubic hair in many hospitals not so long ago though as my mother never tires of telling me

SorenLorensen · 16/02/2006 16:05

I had a horrendous birth experience with ds1 in hospital: pre-eclampsia, induced, 3 changes of shift during my labour, 10 people in the room when I actually gave birth (don't even know who some of them were - the cleaners?), ds1 taken away when I got back to the ward and given a bottle without my permission, I staggered down to the nursery to see him when I woke up about 4am and cried because the door was locked and I didn't know which baby was mine, stayed in 8 days in a filthy hospital (blood stained bathrooms...horrendous), got no sleep, was told my a consultant I couldn't go home as I'd probably had a heart attack during labour and there was a risk I would have another one (left me sobbing over my soon-to-be-motherless babe in his plastic fish tank while he went off to terrify other women, presumably), was snapped at my a mw that if I wasn't going to do that "properly" (that being breast-feeding) I may as well give my baby a bottle, no-one came near ds1 for over 24 hours after he was born - they "forgot", and he got low blood sugar and no-one noticed, my canula was left in for 24 hours for the same reason, I was in agony with piles (couldn't walk, couldn't sit, could barely lie down) and it took 3 days to get any steroid cream for them...eventually got home and (surprise surprise) had severe PND.

I still don't think dhs/dps staying overnight in hospital is a good idea - I would have found it quite disturbing having men (I'll avoid the word strange) wandering around. Especially as I was half-naked, blood-stained, weeping, leaking milk and generally feeling extremely vulnerable. I felt similarly about all visitors, tbh - dressed, clean people from "the outside" were quite disturbing (I'll allow that PND played some part in this). But at least they went away sometimes - and I didn't feel so 'exposed' - there would be no respite from that if Dads were allowed to stay all night. And my experience is that women snore - double that on a maternity ward with partners - no-one would get any sleep.

My dh is a lovely, gentle, (mostly) sober, non-drug taking reasonable sort of a bloke. Not all men are like that. Some of the other mothers on the ward where I had ds1 were terrifying - let alone their partners. The security implications of having extra people stay over night are significant. And where does it stop? If it is your entitlement to have your dh/dp stay overnight, what about other children - what if you have no-one to care for them, do they come too? You can't have a rule that only 'nice men' can stay - the quiet, considerate and helpful ones.

Greensleeves' case is horrific. There should be some facility (sleep-over family rooms?) for people in those kind of exceptional circumstances.

Fwiw, I was terrified of going into hospital again to have ds2 - but my experience (different hospital - dh's hospital actually but sadly microbiologists don't have the same power that consultants do - we had to pay for an amenity room, he had to stick to visiting times) was much better.

And - even in the first hospital - most of the midwives were lovely - I'll never forget the one who sat in a little room in the middle of the night, listened to me sob for 2 hours and persuaded me to keep on with the breast-feeding - I think it was down to her that I managed to get feeding properly establised and I fed for 12 months.

Like every other profession within the NHS (well, every profession really) there are good and bad.

Maternity services are over-stretched (hell, they're closing the unit where I had ds2 down ) and changes do need to be made - but, as other people have pointed out, NHS funding is a finite resource and they are areas of greater need than providing space/facilities for fathers to stay.

aravinda · 16/02/2006 18:36

"I'm not going private. Cash won't buy me a better birth"

Highlander, you would get one to one postnatal support from an independent midwife who was able to practise in the hospital you are having your baby in. You would also probably get a private room/dh able to stay/more postnatal "attention" if you went private.

expatinscotland · 16/02/2006 18:38

I bf'd DD2 w/o my husband being there all night. It can happen! She even slept from 1-7AM.

DH has 'bonded' w/her very well.

In fact, many, many parents can't remember the 1st 24 hours of their child's life, or maybe weren't there for one reason or another, and have an intense bond w/their children. My SIL was adopted at the age of 4, it's amazing the bond she shares w/her family, particularly both her parents.

As someone pointed out, it's not a hotel!

Please discuss your anxiety w/someone - the pratctice manager, your midwife, OB consultant, etc. Your concerns and anxieties do deserve to be respected, that's why it's so important to speak to someone who might be better able to address them rather than allowing your anxiety regarding the process to increase and influence your mood going into your csection.

harpsichordcarrier · 16/02/2006 19:08

I really don't know where this "it's not a hotel" accusation comes from
unless I missed the part where highlander said "I want my dh to be with me and our baby after I give birth, and also a jacuzzi, a mini bar and a chocolate on the pillow."

vickiyumyum · 16/02/2006 19:28

i think many of us feel that wards are overcrowded to begin with, without providing facilites for partners. not that is highlanders problems, just a prob with the NHS as a whole!

it really is a case as well of us not not wanting our other half's there, just that we don't want everyone elses there as well, and therfore it can't be one rule for one and another for another, or sod you lot as long as i'm alright!

sazhig · 16/02/2006 19:57

Anniemac - very sorry about the neglegence by your hospital I just want to clarify my ds's blodd sugar issue - it was "boarderline" and this was taken a day after birth and before a feed and looking back at it now there was no reason to even test his blood. It felt like bullying because it was bullying! I had finally got 4 hours sleep (the only sleep I'd had in over 4 days) and suddenly realised that all their actions had completely sabotaged our breastfeeding and I knew I could get the support I needed from my friends at LLL if I could only escape from the hospital & get to a phone to call them. The fact that my milk came in several hours after it was confirmed that I could go home the next morning proves to me that just being in that place was damaging our breastfeeding. It took 4 weeks before ds would even feed from my breasts as a result of their rough handling and their refusal to let me cup feed him (so I introduced a teat so I could feed my own baby) and then he would only feed with a nipple shield as he was so nipple confused. It took another 3 months before he was able to feed without them. I am VERY glad that will never have to go back to that place again now I have moved - the level of their breastfeeding knowledge was shocking. I should really be suing them for neglegence for that tbh - even my LLL leader friends has remarked on how well I did to get back to & keep breastfeeding. I just hope the fact that his virgin gut was compromised at one day old doesn't affect him later in life.

doormat · 16/02/2006 20:06

harpsi it was me that made the comment about it not being a hotel

I agree with your statements re birth but at the moment it is not standard across the nhs for dh's to be there overnight.

I think we all want our dh's to be there with us all the time but it is not possible, hopefully times will change again.

As a said earlier down this thread, what do you do when say for example a married couple for 50 yrs and one of them has to go in to hospital-does it work the same for them because they dont want to spend time away from eachother.Should they be put up too in seperate room.

Also the comments by highlander "I am not a single mother" demeans all the single mothers up and down the country who are doing a brilliant job without a partner through whatever circumstances.
It is the attitude of my dh is a consultant and he is staying that is just so demanding.
Well my dh makes chocolate but it does not give him the right to go taste testing up and down the factories in this country, because he demands it.

Np I think the midwives and nurses do a brilliant job, as I said before I spent nearly 4 mths in hospital last year and was treated very well by the nurses.

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