Man sleeping on ward

[heylottie]

I am on a 4 bed maternity ward, a small ward with beds divided by curtains. 5 day old dd currently in SCBU getting help with low blood sugar.

Its been awful but I can't fault the care and kindness of the nursing staff who are great

But

Last night a woman was admitted at 11pm, I didn't see her as curtains drawn. I was aware that someone was sat in the chair next to my curtain, ie two foot from my bed. I got up at 2am and went to the loo.

Turns out her husband was asleep on the chair.

I don't know if I am coming or going at moment, but I don't think this is appropriate is it? Woman was asleep. I mentioned to staff and they said oh he's waiting for his baby to settle in the incubator. Whilst I appreciate that, could he not have waited in the family tv room down the corridor?

Or am I being over sensitive? I just think this is a vulnerable enough time without this.

Yes, I hate men. If I didn't I'd be quite happy to share a room with several strange ones in a post partum state leaking blood and milk. I don't want them seeing me like that so yup, I must hate all men. Shit, rumbled.

Men aren't marginalised simply because women wish to have their dignity respected at a time when they are emotionally and physically vulnerable.

Biology dictates that women are the ones who give birth - no woman needs to sacrifice her privacy to balance out the fact that men can't. Men aren't needed in the process, they are wanted - bit of a difference. And given that the NHS can't accommodate both the wants and the needs, the needs have to come first.

Sometimes it really is okay to make it all about the women.

What we need are more private rooms, more staff, better care, better support and more money.

We don't need strange men sharing rooms with post partum women because we don't have those things.

The NHS cannot accommodate the needs adequately though IME. Extra hands, in terms of visitors acting as advocates, were pretty vital to having women's and baby's needs met.

Hungermonkey Wed 05-Mar-14 20:23:03
Male staff are presumably vetted, professional and unlikely to demand a blow job in the loo or shoot up, oddly enough.

DH is extended CRB checked...

I do get the point about women feeling vulnerable around men and why women would be uncomfortable around men at this time with good reason.

BUT I also don't buy into the idea that we should presume men are generally going to demand a blow job or shoot up either. We need to stop this generalisation, as it doesn't help women deal with encountering men in a none relationship setting (and by this I don't mean on a hospital ward).

Both view points are not right.

Sometimes the only visitor / advocates available are men.

But blistory what about the times when they are needed?

Red - no one has suggested all or even most men are like this. But some are and that's more than enough. But most of us don't want any men - saints or sinners.

Your desire to have your partner there does not trump the rights of every other woman on that ward.

he was asleep. he was not chattering with his partner, or trying to engage you with conversation, he was waiting for his own newborn to be settled, he is a man not an alien/monster. He was not interested in you one little jot.

But it's probably already been said.

I'd argue that actually it should be about what is best for the baby...

I'm not arguing one way or the other is though, just I haven't really seen it mentioned.

So hunger, why aren't we campaigning for those things? Why instead did you feel a need to make it about the men all being bad bastards?

Because just as with the ff.bfing debate, until we recognise that the needs of individuals will vary and that we should try to ensure all parents are supported properly, in order to ensure the best possible outcomes for the child, we are just wasting our time picking at each other aren't we?

And for some parents that will mean ensuring both of them are together for the first few precious nights of their new child's life.

I just want adequate care. If that has to involve having my DH there to advocate for me, I want him there. I don't have a female advocate available to me.

I don't do post natal wards, self discharged (actually got up and walked out without my notes as midwives were trying to force me to stay although I had explained to dr I was leaving and signed paper to say so). but i have hyper emesis when pregnant so spend ages on Gynae then antenatal wards when pregnant. the gynae ward visiting hours and no children visitors rule meant dh couldn't visit. not nice but I got on with it, hardly the end of the world.

it was hideous when at 7 am one women's male partner decided to have a wander around the ward and check it out. He had been allowed on the ward to take his partner to her bed but got nosey and was walking around into other bays where women were trying to get washed and dressed for the day.

it was slightly annoying when it was dark but still within visiting hours and à male visitor came to peer at me trying to sleep through the window a foot from my bed from balcony (weird hospital building
design to be fair)

And it really doesn't matter at all what the men are like. It doesn't matter if they're scary creeps or lovely, caring blokes. It's really hard to tell at 3am. What matters is that they are strange men (to everyone but you) in an environment where women are semi naked, bleeding, catheterised and exhausted and trying to rest in a strange place.

Your desire to have your partner there does not trump the rights of every other woman on that ward

But for many it's not a case of desire.
We are talking about people who have had sections and had babies placed out of reach. People who physically can't move and there have been no staff to help. Disable led women reliant on their partners and no staff around to get them to the toilet or help them feed the baby. Or women who have just had their babies whisked off to scbu.

No one wants to "piss off" other women.

Husbands on the ward have been life lines for many women. There is no one else to help them half the time.

I'm not saying your opinion is wrong or that you shouldn't feel that way but surely you can see that it's not clear cut. There isn't the staff.

And I am saying, ad infinitum, that the lack of staff is a problem that should not be fixed by allowing strange men to share rooms with vulnerable women and their babies.

And for some parents that will mean ensuring both of them are together for the first few precious nights of their new child's life.

Which can only happen in an ideal world, on a private ward or at home.

I don't want your husband being together with me for the first few precious nights of my new child's life, thank you very much.

I'm going to own up to a bit of a vested interest in this.

I sent my own DH home after my emcs at 3 in the morning when he came back from SCBU to tell me our baby was stable.

That was my choice and I made it for practical reasons around our ciscumstances.

I didn't get to see my baby until he came back in the next morning And could take me down.

I made th best choice then for us, all of us and that was my priority and should be for every parent. For some it would be for their partner to stay. No one choice or one need trumps another. And it's not about men as partners need not be men.

But I take complete umbrage at the vilification of an entire gender which a very very small minority of posters attempted on this thread.

Women may perform the mechanics of childbirth but where there are two parents involved in a child's life they should be supported to do so fully and equally from the very beginning in Thr way which is most appropriate for them.

I think the advocating for care is a bit of a red herring tbh. If that were the route we were going down I would have been sleeping next to my mum in intensive care all last week - in fact visitors were not permitted outside certain hours.

I had a CS and some ongoing problems with a poorly baby and was a lone parent so no one there to stand up for me. This is how it is for many women. Not a sob story - just a fact. I wouldn't have been that happy with loads of extra people in the ward at night.

I'm obviously not unsympathetic to those who feel lonely and scared at night but allowing visitors at all hours is not necessarily the answer or fair on others and I do think there is sense in a ward being a quiet, closed space for patients only after certain times. remembers being next to a damned annoying woman who had her whole family in for hours and hours and looking forward to the peace when they went

IMO the problem of lack of support is a different one from allowing partners to stay.

If you allow 'supporters' to stay then it becomes yet another reason why care can be withdrawn. We could end up with the situation where people without family supporters could end up with no care at all.

It is not a huge leap of imagination to see people wanting to have not their partner but some other paid supporter to stay. Wards in some areas could find that there would be an influx of semi-official carers in unofficial uniforms not just cluttering up the place but also getting access to information or even drugs which they should not have.

How different would this be from the Bounty reps?

I can see why after a traumatic birth or where there are major concerns about the baby's health that the mother would want their partner to stay so that they can talk, be together etc. However I dont think that the ward is the place to do this. This is a good argument for having visitor rooms where couples can sit and talk without disturbing anyone. At night the wards should be as quiet and restful as possible for all mothers.

It could be a good business idea to open a kind of super-loo and lounge very close to the hospital. Somewhere partners can go and get a shower, have a snooze in a comfy chair and then get back to their partner during the day.

basically agreeing with hungermonkey

So how to solve this lack of enough staff to enable adequate care? In the meantime before funds are actually directed towards this sector of the NHS.

I was one of those women who had a section and my baby was out of reach. I was also one of those women with extreme anxiety surrounding hcps and hospitals. it would have been lovely to have the support of my dh at that time.

However, I was also one of those women who had been raped and could not cope with strange men at night at a time when I felt out of control and the most exposed and vulnerable I have felt since I was raped.

I have seen it from both sides.

I still feel it is unacceptable for women to have no choice but to share a ward with spouses/partners. No matter how much I needed dh at that time, I would never ever make another woman feel how I did when the dickhead husband who was allowed to stay was staring at me collapsed on the floor.

I should not have had to feel like that.

It's as much about the woman as the baby unless you consider the woman just to be an incubator.

Men aren't needed on postnatal wards. Friends and family aren't needed on postnatal wards. Better care and attention from medical staff is needed.

Women don't have to be scared, suffer from indignity or feel exposed and vulnerable when the simple solution is to keep visits for visiting time only.

Worry I think we are already in the position of needing supporters. Care has been withdrawn.