What do you think about spouses/partners staying overnight on postnatal wards?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

The organisation Birthrights (with whom we've done some stuff in the past) are planning a new campaign called First Night, and wanted to know whether it's something MN could support - so we said we'd ask you lot!

Here's Birthrights' description of the campaign:

'Birthrights is a human rights in childbirth charity, and we will be launching a campaign later this year to ensure women aren't left alone on often over-staffed postnatal wards, but instead can choose to have their partner remain with them overnight. We will be researching what's important to women, partners and staff, the barriers and benefits, and working with units who've implemented this policy to draw up best practice guidelines to use as they lobby for change.'

So please let us know what you think. Is this something you'd like us to swing behind?

Thanks
MNHQ

Its a no from me. I liked close family visitors etc post all of my three DC but also remember the sense of relief when the ward went quiet and I could do things like waddle to the toilet, not through loads of strangers just those on the ward. I could also do things like strip wash and spend more time just bonding with my DC and feeding etc. It was also when it was quiet that I could ask questions about things to the staff and rest.

I guess actually to be fair, even in our circumstances, it was useful for DH to go home. At least one of us was getting some decent sleep and he could bring stuff in as and when we needed it.

Better equipped wards, a higher staff to patient ratio, and a ward where recovering mums and sick babies can be treated together is what is really needed.

What about single mothers? Would there be an option for her mother/friend/whoever to stay with her or would she be left alone? I was told by the old bat on the hdu the night I was taken in that my mother wouldn't be allowed to visit as only partners could, and if I didn't have one then that wasn't her problem. She was lying of course but I was in no state to realise that.

I would have loved someone to be able to stay with me but the reasons against given above are very sensible.

I had a private room (paid for) after my EMCS and the nurses gave DH a zed bed so he could sleep in our room the first night. I wouldn't have been comfortable on a public ward with men staying. As it is I had to shuffle to the loo holding a kidney bowl that I had to wee my blood into and that is not something I liked DH seeing, let alone a strange man.

Hi MNHQ, it's a definite NO from me too, from a 'female space and experience' point of view. I wouldn't have wanted anyone other than staff and other patients on the ward at night when I had given birth - when I was breastfeeding, bleeding, feeling vulnerable etc.

I have no objection to partners staying in a private hospital room - but on shared wards is a no-no.

Can I just say, I would want MN to go the complete other way. I would expect them to campaign for the protection of women's spaces and new mothers' privacy after birth - not campaign the opposite. Improvements in maternity wards/after birth care would be very welcome though.

Thank you.

I had my dp stay with me, for health reasons. I was in for 7 nights and his support was invaluable. If I hadn't had him there I wouldn't have managed.

When we had DS the hospital was doing a trial of allowing the partners to stay the night. This was invaluable for moral support for me, especially since DS had health problems so I was stressed. The rule was, he couldn't leave the bedside from 11pm-8am and had to sleep in the visitors chair. This was uncomfortable for him, but he did it to be with me and DS. It means so much to know that he shared that unique time with us and I felt fully supported through the aftermath of birth and brand new baby.

I think families should have the choice to stay over or not. Perhaps a camp bed or something so they can sleep a bit better but no need for overboard luxury.

I had my DD then was taken in a wheelchair to the lift and told to say goodbye to my hubbie until the next day as he was not allowed on the ward with other women after 9pm. This was incredibly upsetting and isolating. I just sat staring at my new born in her cot next to my bed and cried the whole night. This has stuck with me ever since.

I don't know what the solution is, as reading other peoples comments I can see that having other husbands in the same room is not ideal. It is definitely something that should be looked into .. all having private rooms is an ideal .. even just being able to be together for one night would have been better than not at all.

I would say no because as much as I would want my dh there I wouldn't want others. I have been in a position where I had to call my dh in the early hours of the morning because I was in prem labour and the midwife was ignoring me/being rude.
I think it's ok in a private room and there are times when I wouldn't have been able to eat, sleep or pee if he hadn't been able to come in at non visiting times.
I was in for over a month that time though

Soon you will have those partners demand their toddlers stay overnight too....

I'd have loved my DH to have been able to stay, and I wouldn't be bothered about other peoples male partners on the wards.

Odd how on threads about a "dodgy looking chap" OPs are usually bollocked for thinking all men are potential scary sex offenders, yet put men into a postnatal ward scenario and suddenly everyone's thinking the other men on the ward will all be abusive arseholes.

I didn't want support from MWs or HCPs, I wanted my DH which is why I planned a home birth (both times) but sadly it didn't happen (both times)

No from me too, unless there is a complete redesign of the facilities so everybody who wants this gets a family room to use.

I found the other mums bad enough, with their loud phone calls all day and then until after midnight. And the female visitors during the day, e.g. what looked like great granny who seemed to stay for hours, sitting in a chair not even looking at, let alone talking to, the new mum she was presumably visiting and staring directly at me hour in, hour out. Very intrusive.

So, I don't think it is a gender thing at all. I think all visitors should be as discreet as possible in those shared spaces, and certainly not at night time when we're trying to sleep.

Flisspaps I think you are talking about how vulnerable you felt. The point is that everybody else will be feeling vulnerable too, and they may find the presence of unfamiliar men incredibly unsettling. That's not the same as saying they are all abusers at all.

Personally, I think that any organisation that puts their name to a campaign for this will lose quite a lot of credibility.

Absolutely not because of all the reasons stated above.

"However what angers me most about this debate though is the argument is the prevailing notion that men = bad"

Really? Poor menz being traduced because so many of them act entitled and scary and women don't want that shit just after they've had a baby and if even one of the men there is one of the many nobbers, that's enough to be threatening and horrible at the most vulnerable time most of us will ever have known? That's what you reserve your greatest anger for is it? Men's reputation being defended above women's safety and security? See me, what angers me most about this debate, is that the NHS is still treating post-partum women like total shit, just like it's done for decades and we're having to have this debate at all. But then, I believe that the interests of the most vulnerable person in the room should be upheld, not those of the most powerful.

Sodding birthright.

What a misplaced campaign.

A no from me, for the reasons given by almost all other posters.

I would like to add that the information given by Birthrights (via RowanMumsnet (MNHQ)'s post of 13:34:42) to address some of the questions that have been raised, struck me as more of a political spin, than it did a human rights campaigner giving full, clear, balanced information.

I agree with others, that it does seem as if Birthrights have already made up their mind and so, to borrow the words of Sabrinnnnnnnna, I too

"would want MN to go the complete other way. I would expect them to campaign for the protection of women's spaces and new mothers' privacy after birth - not campaign the opposite. Improvements in maternity wards/after birth care would be very welcome though."

"On a personal level, I had my first dc at 3am, was around 5 by the time we were both cleaned up and DH was left at the ward door. Those were the loneliest, most frightening few hours of my life"

I'm sorry your first experience was so bad.

I had DS at 2am, got to the postnatal ward about 5 or 6am as well. I'd had a bit of a sleep in the labour room so DH got some one-to-one time with DS then, and once I woke up I got to have a bath as well so he kept him for a bit longer but once we arrived at the postnatal ward he had to go.

I also felt very anxious and in pain and worried about sleeping in a room full of strangers with my newborn. It would have been reassuring to have DH but I think that reassurance would have been cancelled out by the extra presence of everyone else's partners or chosen extras.

It meant I only had a couple of hours sleep before the partners and other children did start to arrive for 8am but those couple of hours without them were vital. DS slept too and even though I woke up terrified that he would, one way or another, but gone, I still believe that sending DH home was the right thing for the hospital to do.

When our first son was stillborn we were allowed to stay overnight in the special suite, which had a pull out sofa bed for DH. We were in the same room when our daughter was born prematurely, and again DH got to stay. At that time I was very close to dying as well and the room was designed to allow families to stay together for as long as possible.

But under more normal circumstances I don't think it can work for everybody on a shared ward. I would have been constantly on edge through the night waiting for someone to come crashing in on us and it was hard enough to sleep with just the four new mothers and babies as it was.

Are the men to be CRB checked?

Are the women?

I gave birth to dd2 by section in a Singapore hospital. I was in a private room (with a private bathroom) and there was a sofabed. I was told that dh and dd1 (who was 3 at the time) were welcome to stay as long as they wanted and sleep over too.

We decided that dd1 could probably do with staying in some sort of routine and not be up all night while dd1 fed and changed etc so they didn't stay over at all. I relished those early hours alone with dd2 - dh and dd1 were in and out all the time anyway (mostly for meals!)

I just gave birth a few weeks ago. I developed an infection during a long induction and as a result had an emcs and spent the first 12 hours on the labour ward in a recovery room while they pumped me full of antibiotics and tried to get my fever down. Ds2 had to go off and have a cannula sited and iv antibiotics administered.

I was transferred to the recovery bay of the postnatal ward at 2am a few hours after Dp had gone home for a shower and sleep. The midwife looking after me and another lady on labour ward was amazing. helping me figure out breastfeeding and keeping an eye on my blood loss due to previous pph.

Once on postnatal it was awful. I was draped in a gown but so hot and sweaty due to fever I couldn't bear to be clothed. Yet I was told the curtain couldn't be closed and I was surprised to say the least to see the lady opposite me sitting there with her husband. I felt really uncomfortable. I asked to move to a private room and wasn't allowed to until I got up and showered and had catheter removed. I asked midwife for help showering and she took my towel out of my bag walked me to the shower and closed the door. I could barely move and couldn't believe the lack of care. If Dp had been there it would be helped so much. Yet I felt very uncomfortable but the other people on the ward who weren't patients.

Obviously once in a private room it was great that I could have someone to stay overnight. But its not feasible to have all private rooms so I'm not sure what the answer is...

No way. Whilst the idea of feeling threatened by there being 'strange men' on the ward doesn't apply to me at all, it is the sheer noise that would drive me mental. It's bad enough when you are stuck two inches away from a woman shouting loudly on the phone for hours with only a poxy curtain to separate you but Actual People (medical staff excepted) to chat to is a def no no. The post natal ward is for recovering from birth. That said, I support the prospect of there being more support on the wards overnight to fill this 'gap'. After I had DS2 I kept asking for pain relief for the afterpains (no-one told me how awful they'd be with a second child!) and none turned up. Post natal wards are hell on earth in my experience anyway.

No no no no no.

I had a baby in neonatal unit. In that situation they make provision, be it sofa in the unit, private room or parents' accommodation.

I was then back on the ward and found it very hard without my partner, begged to be released so I could be back with him where he could support me. Found it incredibly hard. Yet still with that experience it's an absolute no. Women who've just had babies need to be able to bleed, piss themselves, hell shit themselves, leak breast milk, sweat buckets, try and feed, cry, moan in pain and all the rest without worrying about someone else's partner being there.

I am very very disappointed that birthrights are suggesting it! I thought they were more switched on to women's rights than that.

On the ward I was on it didn't have to be your Dp. Everyone was entitled to one overnight visitor. the rules were that you had to be on ward by 9pm and couldn't come and go - you had to stay until 8am and couldn't walk around the ward during that time.

It helped a lot...and they were flexible when I had someone come for just a few hours when I was quite distressed about Ds2 having just had a rushed lumbar puncture. But like I said I had a private room after the first night for the rest of my stay (7 nights total). I would have been badly affected by other people's partners had I been on the bays in the main part of the ward.

I totally agree that more privacy and better staffing is the real solution. And I don't agree that if you want a guest you should pay for a private room - how is that fair if you can't afford one?!