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

"By the morning I was the 'expert' in looking after dd1, and that was a dynamic which coloured our early months.

I think allowing partners to stay the night would be a comparatively easy change that would reduce the inherent sexism in our society."

I passed my driving test the day before DH. Amazingly this hasn't prevented him doing 50% of the driving to school, work, holidays..."

Well, quite. Losing a couple of days of being fully involved, doesn't stop you being fully involved thereafter. Men who don't get fully involved in caring for their babies, aren't doing it because they weren't allowed to stay in the hospital, they are doing it because they've found the loop women's cognitive dissonance allows them to slip through.

Thanks for reading and engaging Birthrights.

Can I ask where birthright gets it's funding from?
I find it is always best to understand these things from grassroot level.

I think breastfeeding supporters are absolutely crucial on wards. It's stunningly negligent that they're not already there. That would be a major improvement to women's post partum care and to the health of babies. Funnily enough, men on wards is more likely to disrupt and sabotage the establishment of BF (not because they're evil but simply because of all the cultural baggage that goes with BF).

I think they have the right motives?

The irony of the sleepless night comment! I also have a feeling this bit will not go down well: "We can see now how easily our desire to improve things for women is seen in the wrong light". Nobody has taken issue with your values, just this particular idea.

I do agree with previous posters about the asking the wrong questions will get you the wrong answer.

Most women will say they want better support on a postnatal ward. Most women will feel that their partner is capable of that support. However, if you don't offer them other options to provide that support or directly consider the issues of abuse, facilities and other women's partners who are strange men for the most part then your results will be skewed.

So many women have posted on this thread saying they couldn't have done without their partner because: the buzzer wasn't working; they were ignored by staff; they couldn't move to look after their baby; they needed help to wash; they were not given anything to eat or drink. Yet all of those problems are things that are not directly related to having a partner on a ward. The buzzer not working is a technology problem and should be fixed. The rest relate to quality of care due to staffing.

I really hope you do do a better survey and ask the right questions. In fact, I'll design and build you a survey for nothing if you like? I do this sort of thing for work sometimes.

Birthright aren't planning to change this to campaign for better staffing cover on the wards then? Still partners instead of medical professionals?Good grief.

Agree with ik8 and Maryz

- A trained bf consultant on every ward at night.

- More health assistants able to pick up babies, help women to toilets etc

That would have made so much difference to my experience.

I hated saying goodbye to DH - but what made it so much worse was being left at my worst on a ward already dark - with no help and a new baby I was in charge of. Any support would have made me feel less helpless - even vaugley helpful staff would have helped.

I do see where the idea has come from - it's just the practical problems that could that put me off.

Oo, i have an idea

Two seperate wards, one for mums to relax alone, one for dads to sleep with the babies. If baby is breastfed and wakes needing a feed, bf trained person takes baby to mum, waits for the feed and takes them back.

Like a new and improved approach to the old "nursery"?

When one of the midwives on the ward passed out as she hadn't had a break/ eaten all day I realised how shit the cover is. Having dads on the ward is more work for the staff not less. More beds to make, more people with questions, more behaviour to manage, more people in their own rooms, more meals to deliver, more noise, more disruptions, more challenges, more loos to clean etc etc

it's just the practical problems that could happen that put me off.

Missing word there - I don't know why.

BeyondTheLimits - my pfb would be the one to scupper that - I was only one acceptable for many exhausting weeks. There's always one to muck up any perfect plan right .

Agree totally with ik8 and maryz (beyond you may be onto something there too )

Why the fuck can't Birthright change their campaign to "more trained midwives, more HCAs and more BF supporters/trained people on postnatal wards"?

Seems pretty bloody obvious to me. Would be easy to get midwife and ob/gyn representative bodies on board with it too. Whereas their current proposal is likely to just get the backs up (quite rightly) of midwife representative bodies.

Agree with zara8. Birthright need to change the whole nature of this campaign not tweak it.

- Birthrights is a women's rights organisation. The idea behind this initiative is not to insist that all partners stay overnight but to put an end to the frequent situation where a woman (tired, vulnerable and overwhelmed) is begging for her partner to be allowed to stay and s/he is forced to leave. We just want policies to reflect a woman's frequent need to be supported by someone she knows immediately after birth and permit her to make that choice

I think everyone realised this and we still think its a shit idea. Nobody thought you were suggesting all partners have to stay overnight, which would be ridiculous.

Thank you to other posters for explaining why this is a bad idea, it really worried me when I read it

And thank you to Birthright for listening, can't be easy to read this thread!

And the problem with supporting a woman's choice to have her partner stay is that that choice will be in conflict with the other 3 or 5 women in the bay who don't want other womens' partners to stay.

So does the choice of that woman outweigh the choice of the majority?

Do they just have to suck it up?

Birthright can see from here that the majority of women don't want this. To say they're going ahead with the campaign anyway is stupid and thoughtless.

Sorry, I see they say they may not go ahead with the campaign but will do more research. I can only hope any further research is more thorough than their initial research.

Birthrights:

Many patients - women and men - feel tired, overwhelmed and vulnerable and would love a DP to stay outside visiting hours, including overnight. In the interests of equality, surely this should then be available to all patients, not just those on post natal wards? Other than your arguments in your document you linked to earlier which were very much about improving the overall birth experience for fathers (this was prominent in that doc, but I notice you are backtracking now), you have not given any reason why post natal patients should be given any special treatment over and above other (equally, but possibly differently, vulnerable) patient groups. And why these needs of post natal women can best be met by untrained family rather than extra/improved hcp support (as is argued in the case of other patient groups). You really need to think about this, and I don't see that you have.

You also need to square how this fits with your broader campaign on dignity, as well as the right for patients to be nursed in a single sex environment, medical need permitting. That the members if the opposite sex who are resident on the ward are not patients is splitting hairs. Why are post natal patients not entitled to this right, when all other patient groups are? You have not advanced an argument for this at all.

Although you have said that you are not motivated by cost-cutting in the NHS, you need to think about the knock on effects such a policy could have, both to the quality/quantity of HCP involvement on post natal wards, and in other areas of care, if this us seen as being a cheap fix to inadequate staffing levels. These concerns are real. I gave family abroad, where nursing care is much reduced and the expectation is that family will provide much of the auxillary, including overnight. It is not a good system. It exhausts patients and family alike. Those who are without family able to provide this care are seriously disadvantaged.

Please do not conduct research into this yourselves! Even if you are qualified in research methods, you have made public your overwhelming bias in favour of this scheme. Such bias is a huge no-no as far as research goes. Better to commission an independent body to undertake it for you, including all aspects - devising the questionnaires, everything.

You should also consider more quantitative aspects such as rates of infection. Keeping infection down is another reason why hospitals try to limit the numbers of extra people on the wards.

Research costs money. Who is funding this organisation? Fathers for justice?

Birthrights, how about you campaign for a woman's fundamental need (and right) to receive proper midwifery care in the immediate postnatal period?

Because it seems postnatal wards (from my own experience, and anecdotal here and in RL, and from what my midwives caring for me in this pregnancy tell me) are providing crap care because midwives are massively overstretched and more staff is needed (A). People (like me when DS was born) discover this soon after arriving on the ward and that's why they want their partner to stay (B). Fix A and you don't need to fix B. Campaign on A and it is uncontentious and I dare say you'd have massive public support. Campaign on B and people will tell you your idea is unworkable and shit (because it is).

Some women don't want to be cared for at all by strangers in the immediate postnatal period and that can be a factor in them deciding to have a home birth.

Sorry for typos! Sodding autocorrect.

I agree with NewNameForSpring it would make me feel very unsafe. Also the fewer people that are around to witness embarassing leakages and teary attempts at breastfeeding the better.