Any hospitals were dads are allowed to stay overnight?

[GingerDoodle]

Hi all

I am approaching 24 weeks with our first and giving some serious consideration to this.

Me and DH don't spent a lot of time apart, a handful of nights in 10 years and I do suffer anxiety so the prospect of having enforced separation should I need to stay overnight for whatever reason straight after the birth of our child does not sit well with me all at. I also, personally believe, that having DH with me and baby is better for bonding etc.

Homebirth is obviously an option but given our local hospital has a dire rep its rather putting me off on the basis of that's where I would be transferred if needed.

I don't mind paying (sadly can't run to a private birth full stop) so am just looking to see if anyone knows of hospitals which facilitate this?

Many thanks

GD

Priority over the privacy and comfort of all the other women who have just given birth?

Yes, in certain situations. Not ideal by any means but exceptional circumstances do happen

So in the scbu postnatal ward I stayed on with one of my dc, partners weren't allowed to stay but they let someone's husband stay when their baby was dying and after the baby died they lay together on her bed and held each other. How could anyone complain about that?

When my DH stayed with me with when I had my last dc I was physically unable to manage without him, so there were no options but for him to stay. Everything possible was done to minimise the disruption to anyone else but there were no other choices

Iamnot, were the couple not given their own room? They were on a multibed ward with other mums? Really? That is terrible, that poor couple.

I'm shocked that in that situation they were even on a communal ward!!!

Lewisham birth centre lets you do this but if you had to move up to the maternity ward then it's 9am - 9pm visiting only.

Unless you are the dagger breaking his curfew that some one let into the maternity ward at midnight the 3rd night I was there

Well that was my point about exceptional circumstances, the private rooms had had to be closed because of a maintenance issue and so they were unavailable on that particular night. There were another three of us on the ward at the time and we tried to give them as much space as we could. It was awful for them and the staff felt terrible as well but the only two options were to allow them to stay on the ward with as much privacy as possible or tell the husband to leave - I can't imagine anyone would really prefer the latter

Considering most hospitals don't eve. have the.provision for women who's babies are in nicu or scbu to not be on the.main ward - which I can tell you personally is horrible - isn't that a bigger problem?

princess yes I agree in that situation of course!! Because i would have never imagined a situation like that of course.

But I don't agree with someone's partner staying on a communal ward because they don't want to be left alone etc.

My local hospital has some private rooms but they are not for sharing with your DH - though the midwives probably chuck visitors there out last as they aren't disturbing anyone.

Exactly thurlow. My dd was in scbu and thankfully I was given a private cubicle (although it was still on the postnatal ward). If I had had to stay in a communal ward I would have really struggled. Add some random men staying overnight thrown into the mix and I can't even imagine how I would have felt.

Had DD four months ago at the Whittington in Archway and DH was allowed to stay overnight on the postnatal ward. They had new reclining chairs for partners to stay. He got told off when he tried to share my bed though.

Yes thurlow, there is really no excuse in this day and age to put women in that situation through being on a main ward, it is beyond cruel. The four of us all being in the same situation and without out babies on that ward made a big difference to us and I hope it made a tiny bit of difference to that poor couple who were going through hell

I can totally see why the idea of men being on the main ward is horrific to you lj, I was just trying to explain why sometimes it happens when it's against the rules. Fwiw when my DH stayed (and after the first night we had a private room) I felt awful about upsetting anyone, as did he, but we had no other choice at all

Sorry princess I wasent aiming that last bit of my post at you, but more to some of the other comments on this thread.

Totally agree thurlow. Women with babies in NICU/SCBU need to be in a separate place, near their babies. I was on a main pn ward really far away from DS4. I'd had a C-section and walking was really painful. There are 3 rooms next to NICU for parents but you have to be discharged from the postnatal ward before you can go there. I stayed there when I was rooming in with DS before he went home but the mum isn't the patient then. You have to do your own cooking and the beds are really low. Not suitable for mums who still need help getting in and out of bed but fine for mums who are able to be independent. I was there when DS was 4 weeks old and it was fine but the lady who was just a week post C-section was struggling a lot. Also with 18 cots in NICU/SCBU and 3 rooms for parents there is usually a long waiting list for those rooms.

Yes, our NICU was the same - only beds for mums who were transitioning to take their baby home. I was at the Lister in Stevenage and even though they had just built a new NICU/SCBU ward there was no room for mums who were still under medical care. The hospital had a weird policy about it all. They wanted to discharge me 2 days post emcs when everyone knew my DD would probably only be in for 5 nights. The SCBU nurses were lovely and suggested lots of ways I could try and say I still felt ill, or possibly stay in one of the SCBU rooms if I did get discharged. But the post-natal nurses and midwives were incredibly unsympathetic and kept getting annoyed if I missed the drugs round.

Private rooms for everyone would be lovely, but there is probably an order of precedence for what needs sorting first. Without meaning to sound harsh, mums with their babies away from them need supporting far more than mums who would just prefer to have their partners with them.

Thurlow - sometimes it is not as simple as preferring to have a partner with you. What about those women who had a csection and are immobile at least for the first night? With DS1 I had a preeclampsia, emergency csection, premature baby to look after and severe blood loss during the csection. My DH was sent off home about 30 min after I had the operation, the baby was waking every 30 min to be fed and the nurses were just not there to help most of the time. I had to rely on other mothers to hand me the baby in the middle of the night. In my eyes this is not acceptable ang goes far beyond just "preferring" to have a partner there.

My local hospital doesn't allow partners on the main ward, but they are allowed in the MLU. However, they can make exceptions (e.g. when the mum has pre-existing specific health needs that they can't cater for easily so the husband stays as a carer - this happened for me and a friend). I think the hospital were glad in our cases, it didn't stretch them even further (as they were ridiculously understaffed)

When I had my daughter dads weren't allowed to stay, but they were very kind to us (she was prem) and let my DH stay as long as he kept his head down. They did put us in a private room though and I was very glad he was there when the woman who had booked the room sent her DH in to have a go at me for stealing her room