Hospitals that don’t allow men to stay overnight

[NemophilistRebel]

In 2017 I gave birth in Watford and hated finding out that men were allowed to stay on the ward overnight, I was in for a week.

I’m due to give birth again this summer and although my midwife has tried to reassure me that Watford has improved she couldn’t confirm that men weren’t allowed to stay

Does anyone know if Stoke Mandeville or Luton and Dunstable hospitals allow men to stay overnight?

“ not all hospitals are full of antisocial Dads”

However pilot12 your ward had to have strict rules that were enforced by a nurse who was like “hitler” in order to ensure that the men were not antisocial

When I had DS1 we paid for a private room and bathroom so DH could stay. With DD and DS2 I was not in overnight. If I had been on a ward with DS1, I would not have let DH stay. I think women are entitled to privacy after giving birth without men who are strangers sitting around, hearing conversations with nurses and Drs abut bleeding, stitches, trying to breast feed etc.

@NemophilistRebel don't have any worries about not being looked after in a private room. They check u all the time and you only have to press the buzzer and they come v quickly

You do realise when people refer to “private room” they mean a side room on an nhs ward? Staff won’t come any more quickly than for any other patient on the ward. In fact it might be slower as if you’re on a ward there is more than one patient can be seen to at once. They will only check you as often as the patients on the ward.

“Private” in this scenario doesn’t mean private nurses and care. It’s about £80 for the side room- care is not included.

No men allowed when I gave birth at Stoke Mandeville 9 years ago but I didn't have a good post natal experience.

@LuluJakey1 Not everybody has the money to afford a private room. I know we couldn't. Also, there isn't always one available even if you'd like one.

Another reason why I'm hoping for a home birth this time around.

Encouraging home births doesn’t really solve this because there will always be a proportion of women who require postnatal hospital care, and it isn’t the fault of women who either opt for or end up with hospital care that postnatal wards are the way they are, and women who need it should still expect privacy and courtesy when in hospital

@IvinghoeBeacon But if more eligible women opted for home births this would put less pressure on maternity hopital delivery suites / maternity wards?

But like to remind people women fart, snore and talk loudly on mobiles too. I appreciate people don,t want men on the ward over night but those reasons were pure sexism.

Not sexism at all, those women are PATIENTS and NEED to be there. Men don't, it's as simple as that

I doubt it - most women with straightforward deliveries get sent home without needing the postnatal wards anyway, or if they do it’s only for a few hours. Certainly that is what happens in my local hospital

The hospital I had my first two in was full to bursting both times - I was put in the TV room with my newborn about three hours after delivery because there was no other room! They didn't do all of the checks they should have before discharge and he became very poorly with severe jaundice not long after we got home.

In any case, I really really don’t like the implication that women choosing hospital deliveries are the cause of pressure on postnatal wards. I am totally pro home birth, and I’m hoping for one if I remain low risk, and last time I gave birth in a MLU that I had to push for despite risk factors that would normally need consultant led, so this isn’t me and my “cultural thing”

RainMinusBow That is awful but it’s not because you or anyone else chose a hospital birth. It just shouldn’t have happened at all.

I would love a home birth

I can’t have one. I don’t want to give birth in a hospital. I have to.

So just want it to be as bearable as possible and based on my last experience 2.5 years ago, I am getting more and more worried the closer I get

@IvinghoeBeacon It was awful but the reason I was so quickly rushed through because the unit was so incredibly busy. I don't know if there's an easy answer really, and it shouldn't have happened, but not sure where the "blame" lies as it were because I guess the staff were just doing their best to care for everyone under a huge amount of pressure re capacity.

I'm one of the lucky ones. When they broke my waters son's heartbeat dropped so low with the shock that it was classed as an emergency for what felt like the longest couple of minutes of my life. Everybody rushed in and eventually it recovered but it's not an experience I'll ever forget.

Same when the doctor came out at home a little while after his birth and told us to rush him into A&E as he was severely jaundiced and on they verge on requiring a full blood transfusion. Again we were very lucky because after one week of intensive light therapy (meaning I couldn't hold him, not even to breastfeed because he had to stay in an incubator) he slowly started to recover. Turned out it was ABO Incompatibility probably brought on by the trauma during the birth.

If I have to have a hospital birth this time around I will decline any interventions unless they are strictly needed. But that's a hard call to make as I'm not a midwife!

I would of loved for my husband to stay with me but he wasnt allowed. 23 hours in labour, EMCS, baby born with sepsis, then a further 7 days in hospital for us both been treated with numerous tests, staff were awful. I got really bad post natal depression and suffer from ptsd now would of loved if he could of stayed with me. I was dumped after a spinal and just left with no support or baby. Its put me off having a second which is heart breaking.

I was in Watford in September, got stuck in the ward as the private rooms were all taken. Someone's partner in the bed opposite was vile and loud, berating the poor woman who'd just had a section. He also had an argument with a nurse and made her cry. I was just lucky that they didn't enforce the drawn curtain rule until that couple had left!

@Thegoldgrind sorry you had similar experience and sounds like the men of Watford maybe are just on another level of inconsiderate than other hospitals

It was certainly eye opening!

Get a private room. That’s what we did with our last. Husband stayed and it was lovely.

@NonnyMouse1511 They're not always available and not sure that every lady can afford to have a private room?

@HoppingPavlova women in a&e who are patients? Or visitors?

Visitors - wives, girlfriends, mothers, young adult friends. Often just as appalling behaved as the men. Over the years I probably had more female visitors removed than men. If you tell badly behaved men to pull their head in and shut up you tend to get a lot of muttering and petulant behaviour. If you tell badly behaved women to pull their head in and shut up they tend to kick off and scream like banshees. Obviously the odd man does as well but more so women in my experience.

But what has that got to do with postnatal wards?

Sorry for the bad experience you had op. But I will be forever, grateful to the man who was with a fellow woman who had just given birth and snuck in to hand her more nappies. He saw me crying because I needed something from my suitcase and he handed it to me. My dh had left few hours before and I was having a hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) but my legs were still numb from the c-section and when we got moved into this ward my stuff was packed into the suitcase. When I realised my sugar was low and I couldn’t reach my suitcase and treat myself, I pressed the call button. A midwife came quickly but said she needed to check my sugar herself with the hospital machine before letting me treat my self. She disappeared for a while and I started to feel worse so I pressed the call button again. No answer. I started to cry, because it is scary potentially going into severe hypoglycaemia. But the man heard my cries and saw my call wasn’t being answered. So he popped in and offered help. I asked him in broken English to get my suitcase and get lucozade. The midwife eventually appeared after I had gone back to normal and called dh to come and decorate my room with sugar (hypoglycaemia treatment), she had attended to two medical emergencies treatments. It would have been another one if I had to wait for her. I did see one of the women they treated was in the bay opposite me. That was my first birth and she said my dh was allowed to stay for the rest of her shift. That was very scary and breastfeeding causes low sugar (hypoglycaemia). So I had a good cry and felt relief that night when dh was with me. I stayed one more night but I sent him home early, because he snores. My other birth I once had Dm sleep over and that was good to.

Go on a hospital tour op and ask how often the private beds get used up. At my last birth the bays were full so I was put in a side room for free for two nights. Then got transferred to the shared bay where there is no privacy. Then again at the side room the cleaner was the worst, he just came without knocking and I got woken up a man next to my head cleaning the side table. Now that shocked me.

But what has that got to do with postnatal wards?

Because people are saying men should not stay because they are so badly behaved. I’m saying they are no more badly behaved than women. This means people can’t ‘solve’ the problem by having mums, sisters, female friends, female partners stay rather than DH’s or male partners on the basis behaviour will be better/their will be less disruption. That leaves women on their own which is fine apart from the issue of understaffing.