Birth partner negative PCR but has cough?

[8dpwoah]

Hypothetical at the moment as we are all self-isolating anyway but I am going to send DP for a PCR tomorrow as, although we have had the same cold, and negative PCRs in the run up and throughout (testing every other day) his has developed into a cough. The sort where you want to make them sleep in the garden, but I digress.

Can anybody tell me what's likely to happen when I go in to give birth if, as I assume, his PCR comes back negative but his bloody cough persists? Other than me making him sleep in the garden in the interim, that's a given.

For context I'm not booked for induction yet but there is every chance I'll be sent in some time during this week. As it's induction on antenatal I will likely tell him to just drop me off and leave me be as I know I'll manage and also suspect it will be a slow job. But I'd be worried about whether he will be allowed to come in once things start happening if he's coughing, even with a negative PCR?

I also know it's different trust by trust but curious if anyone else has had a conversation about it or experienced this recently, just to give me a rough idea how it might pan out?

Negative LFTs that should say 🤦

I've been wondering about this as we are in the same situation (I'm about 39 weeks now) but DH (and DD for that matter) had negative PCR tests a few days ago. They both also have asthma so cough all the time on and off anyway it's just worse when they're unwell. My hospital trust website states that all birth partners have a PCR test upon admission, if they refuse this they are still allowed to be present during active labour but not at any other time and no postnatal visiting. This is all well and good but the website also states anyone with symptoms won't be allowed to be present and that test results from outside the hospital aren't considered. So I have the exact same question as you, what happens if I go in to labour whilst he has a cough, but we already know it's not covid as we've had a negative test (my DH is also double-vaccinated for good measure)? It would seem highly unreasonable to not allow him to be there in those circumstances . I have a midwife appointment at the end of this week so will ask her but tbh she's a bit useless and probably doesn't even know as she doesn't work on labour ward at all or anything.

They didn’t even test my DP when we went in recently.

They tested me even though I had covid 5 weeks ago and they shouldn’t retest for 90 days so just shrugged and said well ignore the results and treated me/us as normal.

If he has a negative pcr test I assume he'll be treated as normal. You only have to isolate 10 days from the start of symptoms so wouldn't he be past the 10 days of symptoms anyway by then?

Thanks all, we've had a stroke of luck in that he's managed to get rid of the cough far quicker than he normally does after a bout of man-flu and his PCR was negative as expected so I think we will be good to go without any complications. We are seeing the consultant to get booked in later in the week so will double check and report back for anyone else that might have this question coming up, I think there'll be a lot of it in the coming months.

Interestingly my local hospital says you should have negative LFT for the partner to join you for appointments, which we have as we do them anyway, but nobody checks. When I was admitted a few weeks ago they did an LFT and later a PCR on me but didn't so much as glance at my partner while he was sat with me. And this was in the triage area. I guess they weren't poking him with needles and stuff but I was really surprised they didn't mention it to him as he stayed with me for several hours while they were deciding what to do with me, he'd got a negative LFT a couple of days old on his record that he'd have happily shown them.