The old partners on wards debate - a question

[Thurlow]

If your hospital allowed partners to stay on the postnatal wards overnight, how many women do you think actually made use of this?

I was debating this with DP the other day. Personally I hate the idea of partners being allowed overnight (and will pay for a private room on the unlikely chance one is available, as will be having an ELCS and so will be in for a few nights) but that's what is allowed now so I'll just have to put up with it.

DP wasn't keen on staying overnight and I can't say I'd blame him. I'd rather at least one of us got some sleep and was functioning ok the next day. Plus DC1 will presumably be returning from the grandparents after a day or so and will need taking to school and having some normality in her life, and I don't want both of us to be zombies. He would only stay overnight if my ELCS was bumped to very late in the day.

I was thinking that surely a lot of women will already have DC and so their partner won't be able to stay every night for a few nights. Or did most women have partners there all the time?

I was taken down to the maternity ward at 4 am, visiting hours started at 8am, my hubby had to go home to come back 4 hours later.... Having had an emergency csection just hours before I needed his help to do everything from picking her up to moving me on the bed to feed my little one. I think that they should be allowed to stay

I think the behaviour of partners/ visitors is a different issue really. If a man is acting inappropriately it doesn't matter if it's 3pm
Or 3am

The thing is, it's not on that the NHS is basically flying on partners to look after mothers who DO need to be looked after properly (eg after a CS).

DH would never have stayed when I had dc2. He was at home looking after dc1!

I think the idea of care being provided by non professionals is worrying. Far too easy for the wrong advice to be given by a well meaning but wrong partner/relative.

Bad enough when they are only there for visiting hours but much worse if they are there all the time.

A tiny example of this from when I had one of my DCs:- young girl (17) in the bed opposite was told quite firmly by her grandmother that registering her baby was going to cost her £50. Girl was devastated as she didnt have that type of money.

Once visiting hours were over I was chatting with the girl and managed to discretely put her right.

Tbh I don't think there is much dangerous advice a relative could give in hospital that wouldn't be equally damaging at home.
Like others here I had a crash section and couldn't move. I needed someone to pass my baby back and forth. My husband did that. I'm
Not sure you can justify the level of healthcare assistants that would require and it's not nursing, just assistance

I remember there were women who had emergency sections on my ward after I'd had my 3 children. They seemed to manage just fine without anyone having to pass their babies to them constantly through the night.

Our hospital didn't allow partners to stay over. They were allowed to stay until 11pm and could come back from 7am. The rest of the time the staff were on hand to concentrate on looking after the women and the babies, not having to deal with complaints about noise and so on and demands made from well meaning (or not so well meaning) partners that would arise from 8-12 adults plus babies being squeezed into a ward that wasn't designed for that number.

Good for them sir but some people have more complications than others. It's not like people don't want to lean over and scoop up
Their brand new baby and are just being a bit lazy

Wouldn't want to stay on a ward where partners were allowed and wouldn't want mine there either.

I remember there were women who had emergency sections on my ward after I'd had my 3 children. They seemed to manage just fine without anyone having to pass their babies to them constantly through the night.

Well done them, but I couldn't bloody MOVE.

They need more Health Care Assistants for the bread and butter jobs that free up midwives and allow mothers to have the assistance they need. They may need their baby passed to them, they may need someone to lean on when they shuffle to the loo, they may need breakfast or water.

If you leave partners to do this, then the govt will never fund more HCAs and post natal wards will permanently be mixed, communal public areas. This will put a lot women off and they may try for a home birth in cases where it's not advisable to do so. Or they may discharge themselves before they are well enough. Or they may end up just having a miserable time on a noisy 24/7 ward full of couples.

We deserve better.

I'm sorry that you couldn't MOVE - but that does not justify filling the wards with men to effectively create mixed wards (y'know, the things that are banned) at a time when women are feeling vulnerable, sore, emotional, and any number of other things. That's why we have trained midwives and HCAs.

SirChenjin I couldn't get in to bed, let alone lean over and pick up my newborn. I sat up in a chair all night with her in my arms, and was awake for 48hours straight because nobody would help me. Of course the trained staff should have done it, but they couldn't or wouldn't. The one time I moved I had a bleed, all over the floor/chair. And I was weak/dizzy after haemorrhage, and had a severe infection. In fact I was in intensive care for the first 16 hours after giving birth so I was still very ill at this point.

Do you really think the following night I should have been selfless and told my husband to leave again, knowing I was in for more of the same?!

I genuinely cannot wrap my head around being separated from my partner when I have had major surgery

Well let's hope you don't EVER need major surgery that isn't an ELCS then, because you certainly won't get your way then, however much screaming and shouting you do.

DH wasn't allowed to stay when DD was born, and although a different hospital this time, he won't be allowed to here either when DC2 is born later this year. Partners were allowed to stay if you were in a private room but I was in HDU and had to be in the communal HDU ward for this.

I really wish he could have stayed. I was forward we were allowed to stay in the private labour room for 12 hours after DD was born because I was receiving a lot of medical attention, but once we moved to the postnatal ward he had to leave and it was horrendous. I was completely out of it on pain relief, couldn't move and they were short staffed. The same the next few nights I was in, but I could thankfully move a bit more by then. I was stuck for hours without access to water or any way to pick up DD, who thank god slept during that but later didn't. The lights were on until about 2am so I couldn't sleep, and once the pain relief wore off I was shrieking with pain but couldn't get any medical attention. I must have been a nightmare to be next to in the ward, had DH been there it would have been a big help.

Partners are only allowed on the ward 8am-8pm here which I am dreading.

Partners should only be allowed on the ward if every patient agrees they want their partner there too. Otherwise tough shit, the vulnerable patient and their right to privacy takes priority.

mrsm are you even old enough to conceive? Because you come across like a child having a tantrum.

Haven't answered your question op as they weren't allowed when dd was born, if they had I would have put forward my case for a single room or found another hospital. However as on my ward all but one had older dc, the partners weren't even there for the full time they were allowed. I reckon the other one would have been, he was v involved.

MissBattleaxe women do all these things on the ward during the day with male partners and family members there, why is it any different during the night? New fathers on the ward have presumably been at the birth so know about bleeding, maxipads, breastfeeding etc, this isn't the 1950s.

The hospital where I gave birth had a birth centre with double beds ao partners could stay the few hours. I ended up in the delivery room so didn't get chance to use this. My dh left at about 10.30pm and although I would have loved his support, the ward was cramped and he went home and slept so he returned fresher the next day to help care for me and dd which I appreciated. It's an argument I really do see both sides to

I really do see both sides too. And as I said I sent my DH home the first night as I was worried about other vulnerable women. But as it happens I was vulnerable too, I was not properly cared for and I was genuinely worried about dropping DD/not being able to feed her. I was without a doubt far too ill to be left looking after a newborn. If any of my own patients were treated as I was after DD was born I would certainly create a huge fuss on their behalf.

Rice - I am very sorry you had that experience but unless everyone on the ward is happy with sharing their private space at a very vulnerable time then your right to have your partner there should not usurp that of other women to have as much privacy and calmness as possible.

Did you make a formal complaint at any point? I am deeply uncomfortable at the thought that women's right to privacy and dignity could be compromised as a cost saving measure.

Haha wildly missing the point! I don't think anyone has said their own partner would make them uncomfortable.
I'm interested that the curtains have been mentioned again. I have never been allowed to sleep with curtains drawn in hospital. Perhaps any nurses on the thread can confirm, I have assumed that they are supposed to be able to walk down the corridor and very quickly see what everyone is doing, and that everyone (and the babies) is/are ok.

Curtains are always drawn for examination. I'm
Also a bit confused at the idea you can be ordered to do either. Surely any grown woman is capable of saying I want some privacy- the curtain stags shut? I know post natal wards are the pits but come on

Stays not stags

All these horror stories just reiterate the fact that my partner is not leaving my side the entire time I'm in hospital.

It's terrifying to think that some of you poor women have been left numb/in pain and not helped! How traumatic and scary, and exactly why partners will help to avoid this

Your partner will leave your side if that is what is required of him - and unless he's able to administer pain relief you will wait until the midwife is able to get to you.

It's not required as I've already checked this. I've had spinal fusion surgery and he stayed with me for 6 nights then in an NHS hospital. For much the same reasons

Your partner may be kind and lovely. Some aren't. I wouldn't want an abusive idiot next to me, someone who is violent to his partner or threatening to the staff. Or a rapist sat a foot away when you're at your most vulnerable
Realistically not everyone's partners are lovely, some might want to gawp at naked women or stare at their boobs or force their partner to have sex after birth (saw that on another thread here)
And because you can't always tell who the abusive idiots are, it's safest for ALL women to make it women only regardless of what YOUR partner is like. If he's allowed in, then so is everyone else's