Postnatal ward - Partners staying?

[SadCupcake]

Just kinda wanted to get people's opinions on whether partners should be allowed to stay with wives and babies on postnatal wards.

And if your partner was or wasn't allowed to stay with you and baby, what was your experience like?

@Iusedtobecarmen well said!!

it's awful that the dads can only see their brand new baby at visiting times

When I was in hospital dads’ visiting was from 11.30 am unti 9 pm. Long enough. Maternity wards are there to provide care for women and babies. Not for dads to coo over babies.

I’d have hated some other woman’s partner having been there when I was at my most vulnerable, lying in a pool of my own piss and blood on the ward floor after collapsing there following the pain of going for a pee for the first time! Imagine how much more humiliating that would have been in front of an unknown man.

70baubles I think you quoted me. You’re right adequate staffing would have been great but there wasn’t and there is nothing I can do to change that. I can pay for a private room and have my husband stay over with me.
It’s not me being selfish. My waters broke at 4am and I gave birth at 10pm the following night after a long painful induced labour. I lost a lot of blood and was borderline needing a transfusion. I collapsed when I tried to go to the loo. I was too weak to hold my baby. I needed someone there who could hold my baby for me so that he didn’t scream all night long alone in his cot. I did get some support to feed him but it wasn’t enough.
I won’t feel guilty for not putting myself in that position for my subsequent births.

I agree. Our midwives HATE the change in policy. They say it's a nightmare working round men on phones. Men who insist on sharing their partner's food. Men who sit on the bed while their wife has the chair.
Men who rattle around the bays putting things in bins and nosying past other women's bays.
I wish, when this had happened with my youngest, that I had screamed the place down, rather than sitting on my bed too worried to sleep.
It is a matter of time before a woman is raped after giving birth. By someone's DH who they 'couldn't cope without' and who 'isn't like that'. Hopefully then, this awful policy will be revoked.
My friend works for the perinatal MH team and her women have actually lodged complaints to the Trust because the presence of strange men in what is supposedly a safe environment has removed that safety and set the basis for PND and difficulties attaching to their babies. Also premature discharge and the ability to ask for help and wander round freely.

schmoo
Exactly.
The visiting hours are long enough. I dont understand why dad's don't go home. Get.some rest
Come back refreshed the next day. Maybe have other kids at home to see to as well. Why both parents be knackered?
Yes it's a new baby and it's exciting but I bet these same dad's don't intentionally sit up all night in a chair at home 'helping' once the mother has been discharged
You don't both need to be up 24 hours a day.

It’s an awful idea. I also had a random bloke stare at me while I was trying to establish breastfeeding, the pervert.

Also had to wait for some bloke to finish shitting in the patients’ toilet so I could wash some of the blood off me.

But this paled to insignificance by the horrible abusive man who was constantly horrible to his poor wife in front of the whole ward.

Thankfully they were all chucked out by 11pm. God know’s whatnot would have been like through the night.

That’s a disgrace derRosen all of it. Vulnerable women shouldn’t have to tolerate that.

At a time where DV escalates, women potentially have no space to disclose that they're scared to go home. They will never get away from a controlling partner for a minute.
Frightening.

Exactly 70s. Plays right into the hands of these controlling abusive bastards. Chilling.

@MrDarcyWillBeMine when you walk into the hospital where you'll give birth your husband instantly becomes 'dad'.
The doctors and midwives working won't give two hoots whether he's an obstetrician or not.

Him being a doctor should mean that he's compassionate to the needs of a vulnerable, post-natal woman.

But the support isn’t there. I needed my dh. So much so that with my second I discharged same day as he had to go home to our 3yo and I couldn’t get through the night without him. Getting up and moving around gave me a stabbing headache and made me vomit, I wasn’t well enough to be discharged but I also wasn’t well enough to look after my baby alone as you have to do on the wards. The system is broken. I was back in hospital 3 days later and again 5 days later. I’m not having a third baby in the uk.

Oh, DD1 has several friends who discharged early, against medical advice even, due to this policy. The extra noise alone meant they couldn't get any rest. They all stopped trying to breastfeed, too, so they could just leave. So much for the hospital supporting breastfeeding but expecting women who've never done it to do so with the curtains wide open and a load of strangers, all usually with phones, milling about night and day.

It was bad enough with long visiting hours and entire families barging into my bay, trying to take the chair if my visitor had left momentarily, unruly brats pulling on the curtains or throwing them open.

The toilets! The visitors just do not respect the 'patients only' as it's inconvenient to them.

That sounds awful time but still not a good enough reason for women at their most vulnerable to have to share such intimate space with unfamiliar men.

It wasn't permitted when I gave birth early 2000s. I'd have lived DH to stay. My baby was born in the early evening and I was put on the ward near 10pm and DH was immediately shooed away. I felt helpless and very sad without him. I had an awdul first night. I had to stay in a few nights but luckily was moved to the midwife led unit and better cared for. So, whilst selfishly I'd have liked DH there, I can see its not practical and has the potential to make other women feel worse. It would be better if they employed more maternity assistants in all postnatal wards to work throughout the night to be on hand for support. I can still remember how deserted I felt during the night.

Yet again men are painted to be perverts and probably only stayed so they could get a look at a woman's nipple, not try and help their partner/ baby

And yet multiple women have indeed posted about how they were leered at, even round curtains, whilst their breasts were exposed trying to feed their babies. Not to mention their segregated toilet space being commandeered by men. Why should women have to tolerate that?

Also I remember years of campaigning to remove the indignity of mixed sex wards in hospital. So it’s not OK elsewhere in hospital so why should it be OK in maternity where the males aren’t even patients!

Actually the more I think about this the more anti it I become!

Nope partners shouldn't be allowed to stay.

I type this from a gynaecology ward where I have been for the past week. At night and weekend it is extremely understaffed (3 staff to around 20 patients). A majority of the patients have undergone extensive surgery that includes the removal of additional organs, not just womb/ovaries.

A number of these women are also receiving various cancer treatments on top of their surgeries. One woman also has broken bones.
A number of these women could do with the support from their partner not just in terms of physical care, but also emotional support and some are, in private rooms as should be the case in postnatal wards.

Wards are noisy places to begin with without the disruption of additional people staying, hence the NHS are trying to put strategies in place to stop noise pollution which accounts for a high rate of patients discharging themselves early and jeopardising their health.

What is needed is more staff on wards, not partners. I stayed for over a week for each of my 4 births and I never witnessed the struggles that these women are going through at the moment.

If a woman wants partners to stay they either pay for private room or have a home birth, but inflicting more noise at the detriment of everyone else isn't on. This daft policy also sends home 2 tired parents when dad/mum should be well rested to take their partner and child home and there he can look after them.

Thankfully this hospital came to its senses. They tried it, concerns were raised including the extra strain having 'helpful' partners had on staff and the policy was scrapped. In its place, as it should be, maternity wards are properly staffed.

Schmoobarb - that's another good point about mixed wards. Hospitals now get fined for this, but random none patients staying on ward overnight is fine in maternity wards.

the prat that came up with this policy for maternity wards should have been asked wtaf are they on, not given the go ahead.

I think an MN campaign would be in order here actually. The only way to ensure all women are comfortable-as opposed to happy-in hospital at their most vulnerable ever.

WEP has allowing partners to stay overnight in post natal wards as one of its first five 'demands'. It was one of the reasons I left the party.

I think an MN campaign would be in order here actually.

They may have done one? I’m certain they were canvassing opinion on it a few months ago.

@70sbaubles

Yes, we need adequate staffing, but there isn't adequate staffing and care on many wards is shocking. So, in the absence of enough staff I would like my husband there thank you very much. Oh and my mum died 2 weeks before my baby was born, so not sure what I'm meant to do about that..

So, in the absence of enough staff I would like my husband there thank you very much

What about the other women who don’t want your husband sharing their sleeping and toileting space?

My baby was born at 8pm after a 4 day induction and DH sent home at 11pm when we'd just come to the ward, not allowed back till 11am. I was vomiting, had childbirth injury, pain of breastfeeding, woken constantly. I found it really difficult and his being there would have changed the experience for the better for me.

I think if the baby is born afternoon/evening the partner should be able to stay the first night as some mothers desperately need the help and support.

And again, the other women who are patients have a right not to share their sleeping and toileting space with males.