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Childbirth

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

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Original poster

Man sleeping on ward

674 replies

heylottie · 05/03/2014 07:53

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.

OP posts:

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GarthsUncle · 08/03/2014 19:28

Yes, I would have liked my DH to stay after birth.

No I would not have liked to be in a room with 5 other DHs.

Can't have one without the other!

ikeaismylocal · 08/03/2014 19:29

expat do you only have opinions or reply to threads where you have had exactly the same experience as the OP? Goodness the mumsnet threads that you can comment on must be limited.

GarthsUncle · 08/03/2014 19:29

So assuming no wholesale rearrangement of the NHS along Swedish lines, no to overnight visitors on wards.

Daykin · 08/03/2014 19:31

I didn't have a baby to look after but the midwives were very good at taking babies to allow mothers to rest. It was a much better set up to the one where I was repeatedly told to fuck off.

Daykin · 08/03/2014 19:33

Isn't it rather unusual for a newborn baby not to sleep at all for hours on end? I think half the problem with long visiting hours is it stops you from sleeping when the baby sleeps.

RhondaJean · 08/03/2014 19:35

Hmm apparently a pilot study showed that women are more likely to choose to give birth on a maternity unit where their partner can stay over.

Pawprint · 08/03/2014 19:37

Not appropriate for anyone other than the mother to be in the maternity ward outside visiting hours.

WorrySighWorrySigh · 08/03/2014 19:46

apparently a pilot study showed that women are more likely to choose to give birth on a maternity unit where their partner can stay over.

I would be interested to know if that study also made clear that this means also other people's partners will stay over.

Also, I wonder what their views were afterwards. I know that what I imagined before my first DC and the reality were strangely different.

Daykin · 08/03/2014 19:48

Hmm apparently a pilot study showed that women are more likely to choose to give birth on a maternity unit where their partner can stay over.

Is that on a ward or in a side room? I don't see how if I break my leg the hospital would be fined for putting me in a mixed sex room but if I have a baby I'm supposed to be grateful for being on a ward which is effectively mixed sex and double occupancy.

Perhaps the study applied only to units which had actual facilities, rather than shoehorning men into existing bays in lieu of proper medical care. I would be interested to know.

RhondaJean · 08/03/2014 19:51

I would as well.

I'd like to see some proper peer reviewed research on this, including perceptions of the mothers and the fathers and a longitudinal study of the effects on the babies and the sustained paternal relationship.

All I can find is vague comments like that one. Thus the hmm, interesting as it is.

ChaffinchOfDoom · 08/03/2014 20:31

at the moment, with the nhs in the state that it is, private rooms are NOT readily available/bookable at my hospital.
So I have no control over where I have to sleep.
In 2 weeks ish I will be post elcs, unable to move catheterised, in a surgical gown, bleeding et al.
I do not want strange men wandering around PN ward at night.

With my dd I was trying to bf, with my curtains drawn at visiting time, and 2 strangers, visitors of another patient, drew my curtains and looked in at me. I was severely anaemic, couldn't raise the energy to complain.

Curtains are shite. Why aren't they more like fixed shower screens, shutable..even lockable .. even people walking past cause them to fly open/swoosh back on their rails

you are vulnerable and exposed after birth, hanging around in underwear, bleeding from your bits - not a place for men at night.

As previously said downthread, those mothers who medically need there partners overnight need to be in a private ward/given the end bed on a bay so partner not next to another patient.

Pawprint · 08/03/2014 20:49

I wouldn't have wanted some bloke sleeping in a chair across from me as I was trying to breastfeed my newborn.

Maternity wards are for women who have just given birth. Privacy is not a luxury, it's a right.

Yonineedaminute · 08/03/2014 21:50

I wouldn't have wanted some bloke sleeping in a chair across from me as I was trying to breastfeed my newborn

But this could easily happen in the daytime when I would be eve more obvious what you were doing. As I said up thread my blood soaked shuffle to the toilet/shower was far more conspicuous during the day!

Also I would imagine that these trials that are taking place at my local hospitals are due to women expressing that they would like partners to be able to stay?

NeedsAsockamnesty · 08/03/2014 22:03

Many years ago I was given an office to base myself in,in a hospital 3 doors down from the postnatal ward.

I declined the kind offer to renew the arrangement the next year and advised they employed there own staff member because they needed one.

Not one week went by when I did not get at least 1 request to support a woman on the ward because her partner had kicked off or been cought trying to pressure her to perform oral sex on him or have sex,or threatening her because a male HCP was treating her.or kicking her out of her own bed. Patients being violently abused, panic happening because the partner decides its ok to not tell anybody and go walk abouts with the baby.

I've known women discharge themselves because they can't get any rest because the partner is inconsiderate and at home you can at least go into another room,partners refusing to leave despite being asked to.

At no other time when a woman is a patient would she expect her partner (male or female) to be allowed to stay overnight.

Impatientismymiddlename · 09/03/2014 16:40

At no other time when a woman is a patient would she expect her partner (male or female) to be allowed to stay overnight.

At no other time would a woman need to look after a newborn and herself whilst recovering from childbirth.

ChaffinchOfDoom · 09/03/2014 20:01

the thought that MW are wasting patient time looking after partner-visitors makes me quite angry, let alone dealing with rowdy/inappropriate behaviours

DottyDot · 09/03/2014 20:13

Just to say, I had a very long, traumatic labour (10 years ago) and one of the most upsetting things was having eventually had an emergency c-section after 30 hours of labour, I had ds at about 1am and dp (who's a woman) was thrown out of the HDU-type room I was in at 4am and was told she had to go home. I was the only one in the room, still traumatised and was really upset they were throwing her out in the middle of the night. She had no money and had to walk 5 miles home from the middle of Manchester at 4am.

Made no sense to me at all - she wasn't disturbing anyone and at that point I was morphined up and still numb, so unable to move to reach ds, so she was the one that could hold him and see to him if he cried.

Sigh. I discharged myself the following day as I knew I'd get more help and support at home than from the hospital...

expatinscotland · 09/03/2014 20:15

EVERYONE gets thrown out of HDU/ICU, though, even parents of children.

DottyDot · 09/03/2014 20:19

It just seemed wrong at 4am when we'd just been through such a traumatic event and two days of no sleep! Ah well. Long time ago...!

expatinscotland · 09/03/2014 20:22

Oh, it does, but believe me, if it's HDU or ICU, even if it's your child, who is obviously life-threateningly ill, they kick you out unless death is imminent.

DottyDot · 09/03/2014 20:24

Expat. Not right at all.

ikeaismylocal · 09/03/2014 20:33

EVERYONE gets thrown out of HDU/ICU, though, even parents of children.

This is so much worse than sending fathers home :( My experience of HDU is that both me and dp were given a bed to sleep in when ds was there. It makes me so upset to think that families can't be together when they most need each other :(

elliejjtiny · 10/03/2014 11:55

That's awful, when my DS4 was in HDU I was allowed to stay with him all the time. DH would have been allowed to stay too but there is only one bed. I remember some parents swapping between the bed and chair halfway through the night so they could both get some sleep.

Impatientismymiddlename · 10/03/2014 12:01

EVERYONE gets thrown out of HDU/ICU, though, even parents of children.

My local hospital had this policy in HDU, but they couldn't impose it when my child was ill due to him having specific needs which none of the nursing staff could meet without my assistance. They did ask me to leave (and I did after a very long discussion about how I didn't think it was the right thing) but came running to find me within 10 minutes when they realised that they had caused a huge problem for themselves.
It just goes to show that all policies can be made flexible when it is in the best interests of the patient, the patients family and the hospital staff. Sometimes a common sense approach is required despite the rules.

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