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?

NO Mrs Marsh! That's why we need more staff!

In which case MrsM all your posturing about what he will and won't do is moot - your hospital allows partners.

Mrs marsch he won't be able to stay for a c section under GA

Not been on a postnatal ward since these changes came in so can't comment on how many people took up the offer of partners staying

My hospital allows it but they don't seem to advertise it
My DH would be happy to stay but I don't want to share a PN ward with a load of random men so I'm planning to send him home unless we are in a single/private room

Daytime visitors are bad enough without a load of random extras in for the night shift.

I would have done anything at the time for my DH to be able to stay with me when I had my first - including paying for a private room, but there were none available.
But now I see that I was hormonal, in pain and honestly scared that I didn't know what I was doing with my baby, and there are lots of very good reasons why partners aren't allowed to stay!!
My hospital has a terrible record for postnatal care - almost every person I've spoken to has had a really shitty time on the postnatal ward there, mainly because of understaffing! I am planning a home birth with DC2 due in November, so DH will be here the whole time if all goes to plan.

Dontyoulovecalpol yes he can, we've already asked. Whether it's on the ward or in a private room (which we will not be required to pay for)

During the operation I meant

(My hospital welcomes partners staying but they can't stay for a c section general, that's extremely uncommon)

I did make a complaint, but clearly that wasn't going to change things immediately. I'm not the type of person who stamps and shouts to get what I want, and to be honest I thought beforehand that men should absolutely stay out overnight. I didn't have any other family or female friends nearby as I moved to the area a few weeks before DD was born and my family were abroad. So I was a bit stuck, and had to put DD and I first. I needed sleep, and I needed to know that DD would be looked after. The ward allowed partners to stay, and almost everyone on the ward had someone overnight.

After a few days when I was getting stronger I sent DH home at night. But the first few days were really terrible.

Of course my needs don't come before other women. But my needs were fairly significant at that point- I'm a doctor and it would be unthinkable for someone to have surgery, with significant complications needing ITU care, with sepsis and severe anaemia to step down to a ward with orders to: have observations twice daily, make her care for all her own personal needs, refuse to feed her unless she walked to the kitchen and give her a newborn to look after also.

I really think that postnatal wards should be treated like surgical wards and staffed half and half with surgical nurses/midwives. We put a lot of thought into birthing experience, to the expense of postnatal care.

I wouldn't have been happy with men being on the ward overnight when I had just my babies.

I, also, would not have been happy with men being on the ward when I had either of my 2 spinal fusions or 3 pelvic fusions. I had catheters in, had no knickers on, was in a hospital gown and had only a sheet or light blanket covering me, that didn't always do the job. No way would I want a strange man there because another woman "would've screamed the place down" because she thought her need wants trumped everyone else's.

In response to the OPs original question, I had DD1 in 2012 and partners weren't allowed to stay, and I had DD2 10 weeks ago and they were.

I have to say that it made very little difference either way to me. With DD1 I delivered at 10am after labouring overnight, DH stayed until about 8pm then went home to sleep, returning at about 8am the next morning. I was on a big ward (12ish beds) and I suspect I would have had even less sleep with everyone's partners there but as it was there was plenty of noise anyway.

With DD2 I delivered at 2.45pm, we'd both had a good night sleep beforehand. I then had a massive bleed and went under GA to be sorted out. Was in recovery (with DH and DD2) until midnight then we were all put into a private room for 2hourly obs. He slept in a chair and rocked the crib when dd2 fidgeted. The next day he went home in the evening to take delivery of the other DC from their GPs and I was moved onto a small ward of 4. I think that a couple of partners did stay but I don't really remember; they were very quiet if so. We all mostly had our cubicle curtains closed too, which the MWs were fine with.

So I think it does depend on the people involved and the staff in the hospital. You sort of just have to get on with it if your partner isn't there - you don't have much choice - but then, as long as they're not disturbing my sleep then I really don't have any objection to them being there.

On previous threads about this, I've read about a poster who passed a clot and was going to to find midwife in case she needed to look at it, a male partner on the ward who'd gone to use the toilet and called her a disgusting bitch,

There was also posters talking of husbands trying to have sex with their wives, of partners kicking the patient out of bed so that they could sleep on it, of partners eating the meals, of partners turning up drunk and being loud, of men opening the curtains when breast feeing, of other women's partners sitting on other patients beds or putting the feet up on them, of one dad threatening to punch another dad for looking at his wife's breasts, of a partner openly ogling her breasts when she was trying to get baby to latch.

Women who have been raped/sexually assaulted spoke how upsetting and damaging to their mental health it would be and how vulnerable and scared they'd feel to be in a state of undress around strange males.

I've read that it's also common for women to disclose abuse and makes plans to leave as she feels safe to speak up without her abusive partner there.

The shitty men may be rare but women are the patients, and women who do not want to be around unknown males for whatever reason after giving birth shouldn't be forced to. I wouldn't like to be the midwife asking these types of men to leave either.

The care women receive is shocking in some hospitals, and I'm sorry for those of you who have had shitty stays in hospital because of lack of care, better staffed maternity wards should be campaigned for, not men on the wards.

I had a very different experience in that the hospital that I gave birth in had a good ratio of midwives and HCAs to patients. The idea that hospitals effectively top up that care on one ward - a ward which should be a women-only space imo - does not sit well with me at all.

I would have absolutely hated to be surrounded by strange men when I was bleeding profusely, in a tremendous amount of pain from a ventouse delivery, and trying to establish breastfeeding, would have made the whole experience absolutely miserable. Instead I was surrounded at night by women who had also given birth and professionals who were on hand when I needed them - as opposed to dealing with additional people on the ward.

I can understand women wanting their partners around if they've had a very traumatic delivery - but putting additional an burden onto other women is not the answer imo. Proper funding, more private rooms, a couple of wards set aside for couples (if possible), more birthing units - these are the approaches I would like to see in place, as opposed to an open house.

Woman - completely agree, although unfortunately in some areas, the shitty men are not so rare. I work beside women who used to be midwives in an area of high deprivation - what you describe was part and parcel of their job unfortunately.

WomanActually you're absolutely spot on there.

I'm having my first baby in December and I would scream the place down if they tried to send my partner home. And if someone did 'play the race/religion card' to try and get their own way, I'd be incredibly unpleasant to them.

Well you sound lovely

MrsMarsche, read WomanActually's post. You might learn something from it.

I agree with everyone that it's better postnatal care, better staffed wards we should campaign for. But can anyone say what else I could have done in the situation I was in? I needed help right then, not a year later when the effects of the campaign kicked in. Like I said I disagreed with men staying, out of concern for other women's anxieties. But I needed sleep, I needed food, I needed to know someone would change DDs nappy and hand her to me to be fed. I know the issue was poor post-natal care but my options were to have DH stay or accept that I wasn't allowed to lie down, eat or sleep.

WomanActually and WellErr have nailed it for me.

In no other situation in life that I can think of would a woman be forced to sleep in the same room as several strange men, so why after giving birth when you are maybe the most vulnerable you will ever be, is it ok to force them?

I'm amazed at the posters being called selfish for pointing out how it would negatively affect some women, particularly those who are alone or have had traumatic pasts meaning sleeping in the same room as a man would be unbearable for them.

I have a brilliant supportive partner, and do you know what? I would have loved him to stay with me after having DS. But my wish to have him there to help me didn't trump the privacy and rest that the other patients on the ward needed.

We are in hospital as patients after giving birth, and we are supposed to be cared for by the medical staff. If that's not happening effectively, then that is the problem, and men staying overnight is not the solution. It's a treatment for a symptom rather than a cure for the problem.

I'm sorry for those of you who had a crap time in hospital after giving birth. But I don't think partners staying is the solution. It would benefit those who have partners able to stay only, and allow those who don't to go neglected.

I would have loved DH to have been able to stay overnight when DS was in the special care unit. I do overall agree that partners on a ward shouldn't be allowed, but if we had had the option of paying so that he could have been there too (eg a private room with a double bed) we would have done

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

Partners cannot help with pain. They can go and look for a midwife but if she's not available, she's not available. Plus you have a button on your bed to call one.

Don't you understand that if all partners are always allowed they will never fund more health care assistants or midwives?

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.

I agree with you Sir Chenjin! read the post I wrote immediately after the one that said I couldn't move!

Just to add: having my DH there wouldn't just have been support for me, but would have been for our very tiny poorly DS

We were lucky that SCBU were flexible with their visiting hours for immediate family, and we lived close by. Other families had a substantial drive to get to the hospital and had to decide whether to risk going home to sleep when their LO could deteriorate suddenly

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

Jobrum. You're missing my point. I don't care if the man is familiar with any of this. I don't care whether he may or may not find it shocking. His reactions are not even on my radar.

As a patient, I do not want HIM to see MY boobs, blood and maxi pads.

There is a difference between night and day. You can have a quieter more restful night after a noisy day of visitors if the bloody visitors are not still there.

As a single mother nobody was allowed to stay with me outside visiting times, not even my mother. Everyone else had partners coming and going at all times of day. Nobody stayed overnight though but not sure if that was a rule or not.