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?

Sorry MissBattleaxe - I took so long to write that post (kept getting disturbed by the DC) that by the time I hit post you'd already posted your subsequent message which I totally missed

I just don't understand the massive campaign for single sex wards, but ok, post-birth for men to be able to sleep on same wards as new Mums. If had an ingrowing toenail and was in for surgery would be on a single sex ward, but bleeding, unable to walk, would be acceptable to be on effectively a shared ward - makes no sense.

"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."

No, but they can pass you the baby for a feed and change its nappy - basically ensure you aren't lying totally helpless unable to look after your own newborn properly. And also, if need be to go and hunt out the midwife if need be and make a fuss. It's pretty easy to ignore the buzzer from the call bell (in fact they often just turned it off), less so someone standing in front of you. It's not acceptable for someone less than 12 hours post-CS to be left without even a sodding paracetamol for the pain, and I speak from bitter experience. I've had several episodes of major surgery and three children, and it leaves me speechless how poor the care is on postnatal wards compared to normal surgical wards. I've always had two nurses helping me to the loo for the first time post-surgery on surgical wards and somebody always came within 30 seconds of ringing the buzzer. Compare that to the midwife saying 'oh can you manage by yourself please, i have to weigh this baby' when I first tried to get up to go to the loo after DD2 (my catheter having been removed 6 hours previously). The staffing was low, but so was the general opinion of how much support women actually needed. I was also told with some scorn that 'well yes, it's a c-section, it will hurt' when I told them I was in agony - in fact I had a very nasty infection brewing and ended up being readmitted for a further 5 days.

Sure, in an ideal world we'd have more HCAs, but the solution right here and now for individual women after a c-section or a traumatic birth is to allow a helper to stay overnight. It's not like it's that different to the daytime in terms of privacy.

Duckstar- I agree.

I also find it shocking that hysterectomy patients are brought food on a tray and looked after well, but C section patients who have the same recovery period, and whose surgery is on a comparative scale, are treated like lazy malingerers and have to go and fetch their own breakfast from down a corridor.

Like a PP, I was also told "you should be doing this yourself" when a staff member passed me my baby after my 2nd section. I felt like I had been sawn in half.

Disclaimer- no offence to anyone who has had a hysterectomy- but I find the differences in treatment really wrong.

hunt out the midwife if need be and make a fuss

Dear god - that is the very last thing the midwife needs when she's dealing with other women. She will get to you when she can. Men kicking up a fuss is precisely what I wouldn't have wanted to witness in my very vulnerable state.

I've had four children and after each birth there has been at least one Dad the post natal ward who has been inappropriate, loud or rude or all three.
Birth partners were free to visit anytime between 8 am and 10 pm as well as being able to come on the ward for a short time during the night if the baby is born then.
After putting up with them all day I was so, so thankful that they couldn't stay over as well.

This is something that is already striking fear into me with 4.5 months to go. The idea of a ward with other women on is bad enough for me but when I found out my hospital gives partners AND mothers older children 24 access I wanted to cry.
It puts me off wanting an epidural etc so that I can have a quicker recovery time and be home quicker. I will happily pay for a private room if one is available. If not then I think I'd discharge myself if there are men staying on the ward. How bad is that that I will jeopardise my own recovery because of other women's insistence that they are not left alone?
And no, I won't have my own partner stay overnight because I would hate to make another woman feel as uncomfortable as I do in any way.
It saddens me to see people wondering why some women feel uncomfortable about bleeding, boobs out, personal medical questions etc in front of strange men. Are you really that ignorant? I don't care that they may have seen it all before. This is about ME and MY body, not them.

I think she meant they can actually ask the midwife in person to get their partner pain relief, not barge in on patient care.

I'm glad you had good care postnatally. But many of us didn't. Mine was unacceptable from a basic nursing point of view. Its not just understaffing- It's the assumption that it's "just childbirth".

After a previous uncomplicated laparoscopic surgery I had a morphine infusion, 2 hourly obs, iv fluids and antibiotics. A nurse insisted on helping me in and out of bed and escorting me to the bathroom. After an emergency GA section, PPH and sepsis I was given paracetamol infrequently, my obs were infrequently checked and generally ignored. My baby was ignored. The first night when she cried I couldn't stand up to get her, the midwives wouldn't help- the lovely partner of a woman next to me lifted her, changed her nappy (with my permission!) and gave her to me. That shouldn't happen, but it does every night. I wasn't going to risk that a second night so I asked my husband to stay.

So I'm all for a campaign for better postnatal care, it's something I have been fighting for through my own work. But if I was in the same situation again, I would absolutely make sure I had someone to stay and help me.

I would hope that's all it was - because men making a "fuss" is the last thing I would want to witness and the last thing I would want a busy midwife to have to deal with.

I'm well aware that there are wards which don't provide good postnatal care - but the answer is not to compound the problem by causing further distress to more women at a very vulnerable time.

SirChenjin so you're of the put up with whatever you are given school of thought? Because I don't believe it is ok for the midwife to 'get to me when she can' when I am without any form of pain relief after major surgery, in total agony (with a dangerous infection brewing, not that anyone checked for that) and in danger of dropping my newborn on the floor with exhaustion. I dont know what her priorities were but im certain that it is easy to ignore a vulnerable woman unable to move because, well, she can't make a fuss can she. If patient advocates (and obviously i mean polite ones) are a pain, well that is not my concern. This 'put up and shut up' attitude to women is at the root of the problem IMO.

I didn't interpret SirChenjin's post as a postnatal woman should put up and shut up.
When postnatal wards are staffed overnight at the pitiful level of 2 midwives and 1 HCA, having someone's DP kicks up a fuss re analgesia/ constant interruptions will cause inevitable delays. It's not sustainable, no wonder there is a midwife recruitment crisis- who would want to work in those conditions?
The answer like other posters have highlighted, is more funding for more staff, not plugging the gap with patient's relatives.

The only person saying that women should put up and shut up is Mrs Mensch.

And I can only hope that her attitude is just bravado brought on by or birth nerves.

Lady Farnborough the problem is it's not just about you, it's also about the safety of other women and their babies put at risk by not having adequate support. We are not just being special snowflakes, I genuinely believe my baby and I were put at significant risk by being left alone overnight.

It did read like that though sausage, she was telling me the midwife is busy so if it takes two hours to be given a measly paracetamol, so be it. That is putting up and shutting up in my book.

Besides which, most women postnatally are able to move and asvocate for themselves, so effectively it is saying only post-cs section women are not allowed to bug the midwife. Which is likely why we got ignored, granted, but you can see why it grates that post-surgery women aren't allowed advocates overnight. After a natural birth, not so bad - I've also had two natural deliveries and didn't particularly need my partner overnight then.

It wasn't allowed in 1st hospital I gave birth in. Am glad it was chaotic enough on the ward over night with crying babies and mums trying to establish feeding and finding it hard to get around. I'm not sure 8 dads would have helped.
With dc2 dh would have been allowed as different hospital but he was born early enough in the day for dh to sleep at home with dd. We though this best for her

Sausage/sirC- what do we do in the meantime though? That's what I ask on each of these threads. What about the woman in pain tonight, who can't look after her child? What is she to do while waiting for this new funding to kick in? Her options are to put up with it or have someone to stay and help.

I have worked in hospitals for years (lots of them). I'm certainly not someone who would ever kick up or make a fuss with staff. I'm also fairly tough generally but I was extremely vulnerable after having my DD. I spent a night putting up with it. DH arrived the next morning to find me bolt upright in my chair, catheter bag overflowing, pools of blood on the floor and DD in my arms needing to be changed. Funnily enough he wanted to stay at that point too.

I'm due for my first DC in 4 months and I would have to agree with rinceoir.

All well and good that having partners stay is not the solution to understaffing but what is the solution now. I am terrified of a post natal stay in a ward with no help or assistance whilst trying to look after a newborn at the same time vulnerably recovering myself. Will the women now have to experience bad care to be an example in protest to demand more staff. Sure - anecdotal stories, formal complaints now could make a difference in the future but it won't help anyone already in the situation.

We know and all agree on what the ideal is, the should and the must - but that makes no difference on what is actually happening in post natal wards today.

Always makes me feel angry/sad when I see women have been left to struggle after birth. I know how bad a C-section is. I didn't sleep for two days either.

But that shows a weakness in the midwifery team that one of their women were struggling. I still don't think it justifies turning the ward in tons mixed one. There are many wards where ladies have operations ect.. And Dh are kicked out then and it's left for the health professionals to do their job.

It really isn't fair on the other women and it's actually a womens ward - not a mixed nothing unit.

Birthing**

That's what I ask on each of these threads. What about the woman in pain tonight, who can't look after her child

Continually press her buzzer for assistance. Dh cannot administer pain relief anyway.

Put your finger on the buzzer and keep it there.

And remember that actually, most women are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and their babies after giving birth. Our species would've have survived otherwise!

It it possible that you won't be able to walk and be in horrible pain as some people on here have experienced- but is is much more likely that you I'll be uncomfortable but basically OK. And even if you are one of the unlucky ones, the chances are that you won't be doubly unlucky enough to receive some of the utterly appalling care that some on here have received.

Well, if you get up to the ward late after a c-section, your epidural hasn't worn off and your legs can't move yet, how do you lift and fetch the baby without a partner to help? The midwives here don't seem to help with that at all.

I'm currently on a ward where partners can stay, in a chair rather than a bed, and thank goodness they can.

It's not the partners disturbing me by making excitable phone calls to their mums at 2am, and watching tv through the night, it's the other bloody women!

Whoever said aftercare for minor procedures is better than postnatal care is spot on. Everyone has been lovely, but there are about three midwives overnight and 20 women. Nowhere near enough to help with the basics on top of the medical stuff.

(I'd quite like to go home!)

Zoe I accept that's a different situation. My comments were more aimed at the 'well I want my partner there and screw you' mentality that has been displayed by some posters on this thread. And failing to see why anyone is uncomfortable with it. It would still massively unnerve me having anyone's partner there though. And I'm also not a precious snowflake!
No, partners should not be used to plug the staffing gap. But I don't know what the answer if short of more money in the NHS. Which isn't going to happen.

zoe - obviously that's not what I meant, but the idea that men should be there to kick up a fuss is appalling. If a midwife is dealing with another woman (and you have no idea why that woman is seeing the midwife) then to be interrupted by a man challenging her by kicking up a fuss will cause further delays and would, I imagine, cause a huge amount of distress for the woman currently being seen by the midwife and those around her.

If it's paracetamol your partner is kicking up a fuss about then take in your own. If your partner interrupted my care from the midwife by demanding that I would be absolutely furious.

Obviously there are some horror stories on here, but I've already put forward suggestions for how that could be dealt with in a pp. Also agree with what Bertrand says.