Men staying overnight on postnatal wards

[quesadillas]

Hi,

I'm getting myself really worked up about what seems to be an increasing trend for men to be able to stay overnight on postnatal wards. Last time I gave birth, men weren't allowed to stay. But I'm pretty sure that my hospital now allows it. This really bothers me. I found the postnatal ward absolute hell last time, begged to leave as early as possible , even though I knew I wasn't ready, and I ended up being re admitted. It was just a horrendous experience. This time I'm pregnant with twins, and the hospital have said that although I'd be a priority for a private room,there's absolutely no guarantee and there's probably more chance I'll be on the ward. I simply cannot imagine having visitors there 24 hours a day when I'm trying to get my head round having twins and feeding twins, and after a c-section. The woman in the neighbouring bed last time had her partner there at visiting hours and he was a nightmare. Loud, demanding of the staff (for him, not her) and thoroughly unpleasant sounding. I admit this may be affecting my views.

Did you have men on the ward 24 hours a day when you gave birth? How was it? Am I being ridiculous? And am I actually within my rights to refuse to spend a night in a room with members of the opposite sex, given that if I was having my tonsils out, it wouldn't be allowed?

Getting myself too worked up, need to get a grip!

It is very disputable. Good luck to the OP. I am more than happy with my views on this and that not all women are bothered by this, regardless of the assumptions (not indisputable truths) that are made.

When I was in for a elcs the postnatal ward had vising hours 3 til 4 and 7 til 8. Husbands and partners were allowed in between 10am and 9pm and were then firmly kicked out.

Fathers with a poorly baby should be in the SCBU/NICU with their babies.
So what happens to babies that become patients on the ward?
Do the fathers stay away until the baby gets a SCBU/NICU place, on the hope that the baby doesn't deteriorate in the interim? And if the baby did deteriorate in the interim, do we just say to the fathers, sorry, we couldn't allow you to be with your child because Mrs Jones was worried she didn't know you.

It is an ideal world where everyone's baby gets a SCBU place when they show signs of illness, and parents get private rooms. Unfortunately hospitals aren't run like that, so maybe we need to be more tolerant of other people's situations. I certainly wouldn't want to have a father removed from his child's bedside just because I feared he might look around the side of my curtain, and if my child was undergoing treatment, I'd sure as he'll be making sure my husband was able to be with us.

Lorna, you are saying the same thing that Muff is saying! Saying that "not all women will be bothered" is the same as saying "some women will be bothered". Women on this thread have said they will be bothered by this. So Muff's statement is clearly true - some women (ie those on this thread as a minimum) will be bothered.

Private rooms and enough HCP on the staff would solve all these issues. I am saddened that this will not happen at the moment due to NHS funding/austerity and so on.

Not all = some surely.

Ultimately what people are saying is that the women who do mind have to be the ones to suck it up.

Call me cynical but the increased presence of men in maternity wards has coincided with a reduction in decent fully trained nurses/midwives and is encouraged by hospitals to compensate. I would NOT have wanted any males present on the ward - a bit of dignity and privacy please and some decent postnatal care (and I don't just mean breastapo type midwives)

Ellie, I don't think you can make general policies based on exceptional circumstances. Some babies will deteriorate whilst on the post natal ward, but fortunately this is not commonplace. It's more likely they would deteriorate whilst still in the delivery suite and go straight to SCBU/NICU. My DS for example was never on the post natal ward.

You're talking about the situation where a baby deteriorates on the post natal ward after visiting hours but isn't ill enough to be moved to SCBU/NICU or is waiting to be transferred to a different hospital due to lack of spaces in the SCBU/NICU. I don't think anymore would be upset by the father being called back to the hospital to be with their baby in that situation. Probably all efforts would be made to find them a private side room in that situation. That doesn't mean that it should be a general rule that all partners should be able to stay overnight.

It was truely horrendous when I had DD. ELCS, second night stay and had just settled myself and DD off to sleep after a mammoth failed attempt at getting her to latch and was woken by some bloke with a massive chufty badge voice booming out the birth announcement of his precious son from the other side of the curtain. He then promptly fell asleep and snored inches from my new baby all night.

I then was left with DD now awake and still refusing to latch, I pressed the button for help, no one came, so she screamed more...eventually I set off down the corridor holding DD and was then told off for "carrying her about." Like fuck was I going to leave her in a room of strangers while she screamed! It was like Piccadilly Circus with people in and out all night.

I had a very difficult birth with DD and would have loved for my husband to have been able to stay overnight, had I been in a room by myself. I found night times difficult and I cried a lot.

However I was on a 6 bed ward and found it hard enough in the day time to try and get feeding established etc when various health care professionals kept coming through the curtains, and visitors were there etc. Some of them were really loud, and they were constantly bumping against the curtains, I was so jumpy. At least at night it was quieter, and I took DD and held her close to me, tried not to cry, and hoped that things would work themselves out.

Now, my husband is a considerate person, and I'm sure some of the other women's husbands would be considerate people, but the thought of having phones dinging, people getting up to go to the bathroom and moving my curtains around, people having CONVERSATIONS that weren't with a health care professional - just NO.

OP, I know this isn't an AIBU, but YANBU. Absolutely not U. Maybe I'm a princess, maybe I should have had to just suck it up, but I'm with you on this one.

The problem is the ward system, not those present.
And maybe consideration, or lack thereor, for others.
If we were considerate of others and their needs, and we weren't treated like cattle, maybe the problem wouldn't exist. In the meantime, we take what we can get. It's still one of the best health systems in the world. It's practically free when you compare the cost of care received, to the amount we actually pay in taxation. I'm glad we have the cleanliness and comfort we do have, with our without some mothers wanting their partner with them.

So this also applies to those with female partners, or those who are traumatised and need their sister/friend/mother to stay with them?

I am a HCP. Following my emcs I was very ill, requiring a spell in the high dependency unit. While there I was nurses as I would expect any of my patients be nursed- appropriate fluids, pain relief, assisstance with washing/dressing as needed. Following this I was transferred to the post natal ward, where I spent another week. Here I was expected to care for myself and my newborn without pain relief, or assistance in moving/lifting myself or her. I sent my husband home the first night on the post natal ward- I was unable to manoeuvre myself into bed so I dozed in the reclining chair provided for visitors. As nobody was free to hand me my daughter for feeding I ended up having to sit awake holding her after another patients husband handed her to me. I had a large bleed which I ended up cleaning myself as best I could as the ward staff had not got around to it after a few hours. I had to remind the midwives to administer my antibiotics.

I asked my husband to stay the next few nights.

As a HCP I would not accept such poor care for my patients. Yet we expect women, after major surgery to function in the same manner as those who have had a straightforward delivery. The problem is poor staffing levels, and also poor training of midwives to manage this group of patients. I was most certainly opposed to men staying overnight on the wards prior to my own delivery, but unless there are pretty major and rapid changes some women and babies will suffer if they cannot.

I am very happy to have received excellent care for my DS - I will be endlessly grateful for the treatment my DS received. I am very glad that I live in a developed country and was able to use the NHS.

I don't think that stops me from caring about improving post natal care for women. It just isn't a priority for anyone unfortunately. I don't know what can be done about it, but getting partners in overnight as unpaid carers is not a long term solution. In fact it puts the excellent care delivered by the NHS into a developing world scenario where you can only get a reasonable level of care if you are lucky enough to have family/friends to do it for you.

Yes, it does Ellie. While I would be less bothered by other women being around, the concerns about noise and infection control still stand. And I think it really does have to be a blanket ban.

If my DH hadn't been there DS would have been very hungry and screamed the place down.

I had a horrendous birth and had to have blood transfusions after. I couldn't pick up DS and needed DHs support to do almost anything, I was so weak.

There were no midwives when I rang the buzzer.

So the only solution is to have non-patients stay overnight to provide basic care to patients, and anyone without someone to stay over just has to put up with inadequate care?

I don't understand why post-natal women are expected to put up with things that are not expected on other types of wards.

I was in the same position last year and thought I had a thread on here but I cant find it.

I complained to the head midwife and asked to be accommodated in single sex bay and they flatly refused. I made a formal complaint to the trust and in response received a single line reply which was that I could have a private room (£800/night) for free.

In my complaint i quoted the hospitals own trust policy which states that 'no patient will ever sleep in a bay where members of the opposite sex are accommodated' They backed down in my case pretty much immediately.

I wanted to take this further and mount a campaign. I feel there should be flexibility to allow fathers to stay or have single sex bays. One of the hospitals near me has single sex bays at one end of the ward and fathers allowed to stay in the bays at the other end of the ward, so as the ward fills up everyone's preference can be met. When it gets to the middle of the ward if there would be a mixed bay with some dads staying and some single sex they would rejig the beds so some dads may not be able to stay with preference given to those on the first night of there stay. Simple, common sense solution

At the time I contacted mumsnet and a Birth Choices charity. Both had previously been campaigning to have fathers permitted overnight on hospital wards. From my research I think MN dropped thei backing of the campaign after several threads on here opposed to the idea. I never got a response from either

No the solution is obviously to appropriately staff post natal wards; but this doesn't help the women there right now.

Neither does allowing partners to stay overnight help those other women that this would distress. So which group of women has to put up and shut up?

I agree with Lonny.

I am a hypocrite though after my last post because thinking about it, I would have jumped at the chance to have someone stay with me if it had been allowed. On the first night, I remember bleeding all over my bed, when I buzzed, someone came and took my blanket away but never brought me another and I was too scared to buzz again for something so trivial. I was cold tried to put a sweatshirt on but I had Venflons in my hand and I couldn't do it. Later someone came and woke me again and asked me if I had fed DD. She hadn't woken, I tried to wake her and she wouldn't wake properly (she was breathing fine, just really sound asleep) I tried to feed her but she was so asleep. I buzzed, no one came. I didn't know what to do so I lay down again. In the morning, I got a lecture and lots of as to why she hadn't been fed, and then of course she wouldn't latch and it was just all really bad. I felt terrible. It wasn't their fault, they were kind and they wanted to help but there was no one to help me when I needed help. I was alone.

I just needed HELP but my DH wouldn't have had a clue either and having him would have meant having all the other random men there and I honestly think it would have just made things even worse.

But it was crowded as it was just with the mums and the babies. My DH went home every night and slept and then in the morning he came in and I would stop crying, and he held the baby while I expressed milk.

I wish I'd tried for a home birth and then perhaps none of it would have happened.

Lonny

Then the simple solution would be to pass a law removing a father's rights until the child is discharged for hospital. No other person other than the mother has any right to be there.

Quite a draconian step backwards, I'd say, but if it makes some people happy, to hell with the others.

Stitchintime remarked that what we are effectively saying is people who do mind are being asked to just suck it up. What you're effectively saying is, if a patient is concerned about her health, or that of her baby, or if she has reason not to trust the impartiality or honesty of those looking after her while she is in a vulnerable state, then tough shit. It's her problem for being there in the first place. She needs to suck it up and deal with it.

After all, we all know how honest the staff are when they 'remember' what happened, how accurate they keep records, how diligent they are in their duties of care, and how few mistakes they make. No mother in the aftermath of childbirth should be allowed an independent witness, or a companion who will look after her best interests, and that of her baby. It's not like you dehydrate or anything. Not like you'd ever have to sit for eight hours waiting for water.

I say do what is in the best interests of the patient.

Why make duty ward sisters and head midwives personally responsible for breaches in the law, and instances of negligence, resulting in harm or risk to life, on their watch? Or is it too much to ask? Would there be a mass exodus out of the profession if midwives were asked to take responsibility and be accountable for care? If they weren't able to hide behind the closing of ranks and the NHS whitewash when mistakes happened, laws were broken, or lives put at risk due to negligence?

If people were held accountable, change would happen. Rooms would be made available, things would be kept clean, medications would not be forgotten about, water would be provided so patients could drink.

In the absence of being willing to make midwives personally legally liable for the care of their patients, then you have to permit someone to take responsibility, and the only people I see stepping up to the plate are the fathers, sisters and friends of those they love most.

Until we're all willing to pay another 10% tax, if that's too much for some, suck it up.

In my local hospital, it seems to be a fully accepted (if unspoken) fact that allowing partners to stay 24hrs is effectively free night time care covering the gaps in service that would otherwise be there. And (according to one theory I heard) the more old school midwives and nurses are more likely to volunteer for night shifts as they can, shall we say, run a tight ship and get away with bossing the mothers around at night. I certainly had 1 or 2 who berated me for 'letting' my husband go home.

Our curtains in the bays were kept shut which meant privacy wasn't an issue, but space was - there wouldn't have been room for DH to lie on the floor - and there was no way he could fall sleep in a chair. On my first night with DD1, a man in the bay next door snored all night. It was hell. Then there were the noisy couple eating takeaway and huge groups of visitors crowded into one bay all yakking away for hours. It was miserable.

Why not have separate ward for those white loved ones willing to care for their partners, and those without? Fill out a simple form and sign a waiver when you enter. Job done. You get the care you choose.

As regards staffing, unless we are willing to pay for it, the NHS will not be funded. It is a deteriorating organisation that is wasting money left right and centre. Too many managers or too high a salary, and no accountability to the public or government. I can change a lightbulb in my house for under a pound. The NHS can employ a subcontract maintenance company to do it for a little over £900. Until the NHS is run by trained managers and accountants, and not socialists and political appointees, everyone will suffer in all wards, including the staff.

'With' not 'white'. How very bigoted of me.