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?

@HoppingPavlova

Really?
I couldn’t disagree more. For every truly inconsiderate loud, burger scoffing, snoring, smoking, patient toilet devastating, non hand washing phone addicted chair scraping man there was generally a much quieter, careful female visiting who was actually bothering with the woman and baby.
I have spent considerable amounts of time on ante and post natal wards and feel suitably qualified by experience and observation to state this. I even dispatched my own partner when he was hanging around getting on my nerves.

If only female visitors or relatives were allowed overnight I don’t think you’d get many threads complaining about it.......

I chose to leave the hospital four hours after giving birth because threads like these frightened me into thinking post-natal wards were hellish prisons and I wanted to have DH with me as my support. To all you people saying “what have we come to when women can’t cope without a man” I think you are romanticising the camaraderie between newly post-partum women when in my experience, hanging out with six strangers (yes women who had given birth) was infinitely shitter sounding than being with DH, the father of my baby.

I would've discharged myself at my peril if my husband hadn't been allowed to stay overnight. He's my husband and the babies dad. I'd had 14 different people looking directly into my vagina for the last 50 hours; I gave no fucks that there were other blokes in the postnatal ward. I would've been alone, unable to move, reliant on a severe lack of nurses to give me water / my baby / help me to the toilet. Of course my husband should've been there.

"An erosion of women's rights" is bollocks. A woman's right to piss / drink water / cuddle and feed her newborn? I'd sooner have the blokes knocking around, thanks.

After my C section i needed DP to pass me the baby, pull me out of bed so i could go to the loo, pass me drinks, there were NO hca's available to do this so I do think its needed......it shouldn't be but it is.

As bad as staff shortages are it does not mean that amateurs should mop up all the pressure. They are not indemnified, they are literally classed as incompetent, and they are not permitted to do some of these things. If you are moved incorrectly out of bed after major surgery that could be serious. There are care plans meds rotas and sometimes certain things are not permitted eg fizzy drinks or aspirin etc.

You don’t see other wards full of relatives twenty four seven and i am assuming you agree there are staff shortages there too.

And as for not caring who sees you after a baby well that is not the case for all women.

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

If you have a clinical disorder he should have got medical staff, not helped you treat it himself.

Severe hypoglycaemia requires glucagon in an emergency. Do you not have your own finger prick machine to keep an eye on your sugars?

This again goes to show it’s not partners we need, it’s more medical staff. A partner is no use in a clinical emergency as you describe, you need HCP.

I think it’s different in that on other wards patients only have to manage/look after their own needs. Maternity, the patient has their own medical problems plus is tasked with complete care of another human being. Therefore the burden is not as high on many other (surgical) wards as it is on maternity so lack of staff is not as keenly felt on those wards and you don’t see the need for relatives hanging around all hours to assist. If you need a nurse for something and have to wait 50mins it’s bad but you mutter and wait. If you need a nurse to help you so you can attend to your infant requiring a feed NOW and have to wait 50mins it’s worse. Obviously there are others with higher staffing ratio due to nature - ICU etc but am trying to use comparable ward situations.

Well yes you have an infant but most of these consoling seem to about the mother themselves not being cared for and their partners doing that.

I don’t think the premise of just having to worry about self care in many other wards is less pressing. Remember the mid staffs scandal. Again as a visitor to elderly relatives they are as defenceless and helpless as babies many of them but they were left for hours or not attended to quickly enough.

Staff shortages blight the whole system.
Now it is just going to get worse and worse

Complaining not consoling

It’s sad to see some posters being against men staying over.

I’m a man. When my wife gave birth to our twins she was sore and exhausted. I was lucky to be able to stay over and help her. It allowed her a bit of a rest after the experience of birthing twins.

It seems another instance where women’s needs are sidelined. I think access to single sex care is more than reasonable after the trauma of childbirth. I’d love my DP with me but think the other women on the ward deserve privacy so if I end up in hospital (planning a home birth) he will be leaving.

I know some women want their husbands but maybe there should be an option of wards. Doubling the number of people overnight just doesn’t seems great answer to me

PaddyF0dder How nice for you. I’m sure you were very considerate to other people on the ward if you weren’t in a private room. Have you read the thread and considered how you might encourage other men to behave the way that you did, so that more people can enjoy the same experience, or did you just think it was terribly sad that women are complaining?

The ideal would be private rooms ... but that sounds like a fantasy so it would good to have an option of being in a ward with no visitors overnight or wards that do. Everyone will have a different preference so either way the hospital goes someone is going to have a terrible time of it in post natal wards.

Can I ask what is the point of a open curtain policy? Can people not even have that small privacy? Perhaps so they can peek into a room without actually taking the time to step inside it to check on mothers and babies.

What’s the typical length of stay in hospital after a c section?

A week last time felt excessive.

I suppose it would be stupid to discharge yourself early after a c section

Really wishing I could have a home birth more and more reading this

I think it's sad that women are forced to share space 24/7 with strange men and double the occupancy in a ward that's not designed for it. They are patients. They deserve privacy and dignity.

My friend was discharged only a few hours after an elective c-section. In retrospect she felt it was too soon, less because of her recovery from surgery but because she and the baby struggled initially with breastfeeding and the hospital had 24-hr support. This was harder to access in the community and she found it very difficult and felt she might have got more immediate early support if she had stayed in. The discharge wasn’t initiated by her (though she did want to go home) but the hospital were keen for her to get off home because she and baby were well enough and had plenty of support there. It’s a tricky one though and more related to levels of support for breastfeeding in hospital/community in different areas

@Scarylady have tou stayed in one of these post natal wards packed full and then double full with men too?

Its horrendous. Many if the men dont respect a quiet restful environment, they are loud and disruptive day and night. You are relying just on a flimsy curtain to maintain your privacy whilst you are getting dressed, being examined etc. You are in a ward at night away from a midwife station where there are any number of random men roaming.
It's horrible.

I was stuck there for two weeks. The midwives all hated it and had complained repeatedly to management. The trust thought it was a good idea. Its not their job to keep order amongst men who often think they are there to serve them. The amount of extra space they take is silly.

I had my first child nearly 18 years ago and was shocked recently when I had another that there were men in the ward all the time. It was so much better before. I would have paid for a room but the prices in central London were extortionate ( and considering I was there for a fortnight would have been the price of a luxury holiday somewhere amazing!). If it was more reasonably priced it would be worth every penny to pay for a room.

That’s interesting
Thank you

We had issues with breastfeeding last time due to severe tongue tie and that seemed to be the main cause of delay with discharging us.

Gives me hope that maybe this time round we could be out quicker.

I think anyone can manage one terrible night but 3 or 4 nights or more like before was enough to give anyone the panics about doing it again

What about those of us who have experienced sexual violence at the hands of men. ThT actually been forced to sleep in a room with a man in the next bay selected by a thin curtain is terrifying. It’s not ok.

Gosh, all these saintly men on maternity wards.

When DD gave birth last year, the ones on that ward were either ogling women trying to breastfeed, snore loudly, talk on phones loudly or play games on phones loudly. Interspered with complaints about why were women fed/given drinks and not men as they were just as tired.

OP
I also gave birth in Watford. 3 years ago. I was on the post natal ward for 2 nights. My husband stayed for the first one and I sent him home after.

I had a fab experience. The men on the ward were quiet, respectful and nothing like you described.

I'm not saying it's guaranteed but sounds like you had a bad experience.

If visitors do not respect the ward then ask to speak with the ward sister and escalate it from there.

It was bad enough having them there during visiting hours, just for the sheer numbers who ignored that the toilet was supposed to be for patients only because they couldn't be arsed to leave the unit. Continence wasn't the greatest after giving birth and to find the door shut once again with one of the men doing a stinky poo and then not washing their hands after was unpleasant to say the least, not to mention I peed myself and also threw up from the horrid smell due to having had drugs to control my blood pressure that made me sick.

If visitors do not respect the ward then ask to speak with the ward sister and escalate it from there.

From the threads on here, they are often unable to do anything.

From the threads on here, they are often unable to do anything

Barely enough staff to do the clinical work, never mind police visitor behaviour.

I don’t even think they have “ward sisters” on post natal wards. They are staffed by midwives.