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

No. I'm sure most of these reasons have been covered upthread but:

1. Privacy - I don't want strange men around the place while I'm waddling around in my nightclothes or desperately trying to establish a decent latch with a newborn, or trying to pump.

2. Threat of violence - a significant number of women have the horrible experience of having violent partners. I want both me and them to be protected from having such men in the vicinity overnight on a post-natal ward.

3. Cost - the NHS is stretched to breaking point already. This wouldn't be zero cost. I'd rather the money was spent on more midwives.

Just because a man has become a dad doesn't mean he is to be trusted in such a special environment

This is my main objection. From my job I know that having a child doesn't preclude someone from being violent or worse. On open, shared wards I would not feel comfortable in an exhausted state, wanting to sleep or tend to myself (which would involve things to do with breasts and private parts a lot) with a mere curtain between myself and a male stranger 24 hrs.

And I'm a pretty shameless, brash person. If someone was religious, shy or had been abused in the past I can imagine it upsetting them ... perhaps to the extent of leaving 'too early' and this having health ramifications for them later?

No.

DS is 16 so I don't think it was done then apart from in exceptional circumstances and where the parents and child are in a separate room.

I also agree about the need for strict policies and zero tolerance - with security guards to remove them.if necessary.

Even having read the response which birth rights provide doesn't change my view.

Having zero tolerance is great but will probably lead to an increase in the levels of abuse towards new mothers and midwives. Do we really think men who aren't obeying the rules will happily agree to leave the ward?

Having seperate areas for women who aren't comfy with having men staying is very good in practise but impossible in reality.

Where are these men going to shower/use the toilet etc in a department where the facilities are designed for the amount of women staying not possibly double the amount of people.

Anyone who has stayed on a children's ward (where someone staying is very much needed) will know that having that extra person staying does make it nosier and in a curtained area even normal, whispered conversation can be disrupting when your trying to rest.

What about cultural objections? How would you address those issues?

No is a full sentence, HQ

Campaign for better care.

I would have loved my DH with me (I did have a private room but he wasn't allowed to stay), but the reasons were mostly because of poor care. I had had an EMCS and couldn't reach my baby, and she was crying and crying and I tried to get someone to come and they didn't for over an hour and when someone finally came they refused to hand me my baby because she couldn't possibly be hungry as she'd nursed 3 hours previously. No one remembered that I had had a catheter and it took DH coming in at visiting hours the next day (which didn't start until 2pm) to get someone to take it out. I also got no food or water or pain medication until DH arrived and was able to get attention for me. So my first night would have been less of a nightmare if DH was there, but it also would have been less of a nightmare if the staff had actually taken care of me properly.

I agree with loads of these posts. Although I would have loved it (I felt absolutely bereft when DH had to leave, about 2 hours after a traumatic EMCS) I think the general public couldn't be trusted not to abuse this.

What about abusive partners?

What about loud partners?

What about infection control?

What about privacy?

What about dignity?

What about sleep?

What about religious objections?

mumruration - similar here

Yes.

This was the exact reason I decided to have my second and third children at home. My experience on the labour ward was fantastic and I can't rate it highly enough - but on the postnatal ward with limited visiting, I had no help with baby, nobody to look after him while I had a shower, and it was awful being separated from dh when we had just had our first child. Our hospital doesn't allow fathers to stay on the ante natal ward when women are in early labour either, or to wait with their wives who are waiting for a planned Caesarean outside of usual visiting hours, or being induced.

I don't think the argument about women feeling uncomfortable stands up - there will be male staff, cleaners, and on any other ward there would be male patients. Women will have to breastfeed in front of men when they get home from hospital anyway, surely, and anyone being examined should be examined in private anyway, regardless of who is on the ward.

Teladi I think its about recognising the need to expand services and identifying those women who NEED such facilities and additional support. I don't believe they are adequate everywhere and this is the point more than all partners being able to stay over.

Acknowledging that partners can be a positive thing in such circumstances and finding ways to accommodate that safely is what I would be looking at achieving. At the moment, I think a lot of maternity services don't look at partners as being anything but a nuisance.

For me it isn't about all women having their partners on the ward or in a private room. More about realising that there are benefits to encouraging it more under certain circumstances and building towards a future where this is more common rather than facing the roulette wheel of whether there are enough private rooms available on the day.

I feel fortunate in that the hospital I am attending, realise that my anxiety is problematic enough to merit being termed medical need. They have also commented on the stress it is clearly placing on my husband and how he also needs to be supported because of it for his mental health. This is not the case everywhere.

I think upthread someone used the example of a woman with a carer who was not allowed to stay, which highlights the problem here to me.

I think its an issue to be tackled over 25+ years (hospital premises usually have to be updated once every 25 to 50 years to accommodate changes in technology/facilities etc). But unless you start thinking about it seriously now, then nothing will change.

Can anyone imagine another hospital scenario where poor amounts of sometimes truly shit and unfeeling staff mean that the public get drafted in to fix the problem, and its worded as something we should be thankful for?

Thought not. Womens health = lowest priority.

Male staff don't tend to settle into the chair for an indefinite period. You know that they'll be off again within minutes.
The move towards mixed wards has been a pretty big fail, and hospitals are now working towards offering separate wards (or at least areas of wards) to men and women. It is highly unlikely that you would find yourself within inches of an opposite sex patient in anything other than exceptional circumstances.

little

the argument about men does stand up - it stands up because women feel it at an intensely emotional and vulnerable time.

Never saw a male cleaner in the two NHS wards I was on (never saw a cleaner actually....). There are almost no male midwives, a few consultants.

Private is not very private in a cramped ward. It's a curtain, that could be swished back at any moment

My husband stayed with me after all three of my births, and it was great. But, it's typical to have private rooms here. I would not like being on a ward with a other new mothers right after giving birth, let alone with their husbands/partners.

Male staff will be aware of the dignity needs of the patient tbough I would hope. Male staff won't be sleeping in the same room as vulnerable women.

And, "on any other ward". The point is, it is not "any other ward", it's obstetrics.

You post has annoyed me.

Male staff are totally different, they are not total randomers they work there an have standards to adhere to and comeback if they don't.

providing private rooms when requested- where is the money coming from to create more private rooms?

zero tolerance policies when the rules aren't stuck to - and who is going to chuck out the visitors who don't stick to the rules? Who is going to police this? There wasn't a HCP on my side ward when I was in hospital. If I wanted to report someone who was breaking the rules, and I was bed bound, I'd have to press the buzzer, then tell a midwife, and it would be all too clear who had complained. And if the person who needed throwing out was impolite (to put it nicely) enough to cause big problems, they are hardly going to be friendly towards the person they know has just complained about them. Yet another unnecessary risk.

having areas of the wards where women who don't want their partners present can remain private. - how is this workable? What if someone wants their partner but all those 'partner-allowed' side wards are full? What if someone doesn't want their partner but beds are only available on the 'partners-not-allowed' side wards? I honestly doesn't see how that is workable.

I get the impression Birthrights don't want to listen. This thread is about 98% no right now.

A conversation that includes their actual plans, not airy-fairy statements, would be better.

I don't think the argument about women feeling uncomfortable stands up - there will be male staff, cleaners, and on any other ward there would be male patients. Women will have to breastfeed in front of men when they get home from hospital anyway, surely, and anyone being examined should be examined in private anyway, regardless of who is on the ward.

Seriously fuck off.

Thurlow

It's interesting how "No" it is. It's interesting some of us are able to see beyond our own personal circumstances (how great it would be to have our lovely partner there) to the needs of other women

I needed a private room for medical reasons - I had to stay on the labour ward until the doctor had discharged patients and a private room became available.

I would be mighty pissed off if my medical need for a private room was unable to be met because of another patients 'need' to have someone staying with them