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

[Highlander]

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.

god i cant think of anything worse than dh having to spend the night ins hospital

who will have the house nice and tidy and the dds fed and bathed for when I get out?

doormat makes a good point. also enid, my dp had the house lovely and tidy for when i got home, there was flowers and balloons, it was so sweet. he was also well rested and was so useful when i came home and worshipped me and baby.

never mind not being allowed to stay the night.. in my local hosp, dads have very restricted hours. They're not allowed in until 2 in the afternoon!!! FOr crying out loud! My poor dh was demented - desperate to see his little bundle born late the night before.

It did however mean that he had time to go and shop for an eternity ring....

Ja9,
He should have had the baby gift sorted before you got home, to present to you after you and the baby were comfortably ensconsed in your bed on the ward!

Is it platinum?

which point is that kreamy

doormat - you are missing the point that it is not only about the woman's need/desire to have her husband with her, it is also about the father's equal right to be with his child, especially if that child or its mother are ill. Excluding fathers sends out the message that they are lesser parents than mothers. This clearly doesn't apply in your analogy of an elderly couple who want to be together when one is receiving treatment and the other not.

Highlander's comment "I am not a single mother" in no way demeans single mothers. I felt the same way, and I have the highest respect and admiration for single mothers - however I am not one, and it is not right that the parenting of a child should start with its father being forcibly excluded.

consultant or no, if they are in a ward he won't be able to stay, end of.

I would try and book a private room - although in my local hospital they are not bookable, they give them to women who have had particularly traumatic births (I know this as I was one of them )

Chez Enid its all about being a team though GS, I don't want my dh duplicating my job when other jobs (eg parenting our other two children) are being neglected.

Greensleeves
Your situation was a bit different, tbh.

And yes, I do feel that comment demeans single mums. What if they have someone they'd like to have for support, but who is not a partner? A relative, for example, or a very close friend. Can they spend the night, too?

Well then why not just allow visitors to spend the night?

expatinscotland, he did!

ds born 10pm. dh home midnight. not allowed back until 2pm. so went shopping for ring and brought it in with him at 2!

it's beautiful [sigh]

and to a degree what if the partner can't get someone to look after the kids, do they get to stay as well?

er no I don't want weirdy dhs spending the night in the ward yuckola

Fair enough. I was having our first baby when the butchers almost killed me and barred dh from seeing his critically ill son. When I had ds2 there was no question that he had to support me less because he was looking after ds1. I think that's a different point.

Greensleaves, i don't actually agree with that for staying overnight. I think it's more a practical thing, the woman has just given Birth and needs to be there.
HOWEVER, the thing that sticks in my mind and i always thought was atrocious was something i found out about my Hospital at an antenatal class with my second.
The midwife was telling us about all scenarios and said about hte evry worst, emergency ceserean under anasthetic. The short story is, if you have one dp is not allowed in, (understandable) and if baby is poorly they'll whisk it away(understandable) but then she said, if baby is well it can stay with the Mother till she's come round and then they join the Father!
I said straight away, 'if the baby is o.k, i would want it to be bonding with it's Father' and she said that it HAD to stay with the Mother even though she would be unconcious!

That is the maddest saddest thing i've heard through it all!

greensleeves as I said earlier in your circumstances your dh should of been there 24/7 along with mine as i had similar experience of baby in SCBU.

I agree as I stated that we should have our dh's with us but it is not standard at this moment in time albeit unfortuanately.

But it is the attitude of "my dh is a consultant and he is staying" which is so unfair to other women. Also how would you of felt at the time of your giving birth knowing that your dh wasnt allowed to stay or see your child without you present but in the next bay just because her dh is a consultant stings are pulled, and he gets the full works. I would not be pleased with the one rule for one and not for the other. Sorry.
It is not fair.

I would have fought tooth and nail had it happened. Fortunately it didn't!

W/DD2, she was born at 10.26. DH stayed w/me until around 2, when he had to go pick DD1 up from his folks', as they had to work. I saw him again in the evening, once his sister got off her shift and was able to babysit DD1. But then he left to go put DD1 down for the night.

We went home by 9 the next morning and he made me a lovely fry up whilst I bf'd DD2 w/my feet up on my own couch and DD1 watched CBeebies.

I mentioned before, as have others, about hiring an independent midwife. Worked for JK Rowling, who gave birth at the same hospital I did and whose husband is a consultant.

ja9. I'll bet it's gorgeous! Sooooo jealous - I'd love an eternity ring! Hmmm, perhaps for our 5th anniversary in 2007 . . .

I would be upset on my own behalf, if that were the situation - but given that I think the whole system is disgracefully unfair and prehistoric and rooted in a dated social mentality which casts fathers as distant irrelevant moneymakers - I would be able to understand how she came to use whatever advantage she had to make her own and her family's situation a little closer to the ideal I would like to see for everyone. It's the most important time of our lives - I can't say that if I had had an unfair opportunity to make it less brutal and cold for me and my baby, I wouldn't have taken it.

NHS claims that it is due to security reasons within the hospital, that the husbands are unable to stay.

greensleeves I agree that it is prehistoric but as I said I think it is unfair to other women.

Frodo I have to say there were some mums on the ward who were obvious drug users - track marks on their arms. So I can see where there might be security issues involved in having their partners and/or relatives staying overnight.

Just spent the day w/my pal who works as a nurse in Fife. She caught a patient shooting heroin in a post surgical ward last night!

Unfortunately, not everyone's partner is the law-abiding type.

I just wouldnt want strange men on a maternity ward

in fact I would probably complain if they were there

Same here, Enid.

This wasn't on a maternity ward, but a nurse friend of mine had a knife pulled on her when she told a man that his father had died. He threatened her with it until she told him that she was wrong. That was in Dundee.