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?

In a surrogate situation you are dealing with two indervidual patients ‘woman’ and ‘baby’ - so is the baby not entitled to a parent being present in the same way that a child in the kids ward is?

The woman who gave birth to the baby is the parent. Surrogacy arrangements mean jack shit.

While I totally agree that the ward should be a patient-only space, as long as the policy is that the nurses won’t help you look after your baby, some patients will need partners to be there because they’re not physically capable of looking after the baby themselves.

Is that a policy anywhere?

I don’t know why policy went bold there :/

*As it was, I spent a very unhappy first night being kept awake by other people's babies - my baby only stirred and cried when other babies were left crying (and one of the women snored).

The whole ward thing was my nightmare to be honest and I was so glad I was only there for 12 hours.*

Yup, it’s shite for sure. My post natal experience sounds similar. I can’t see my husband being there would have improved it though

I don't necessarily think it's right that women should have to share their space post partum overnight with strange men. But some hospitals absolutely have to improve postnatal care otherwise they are often needed IMO.

I had my first in a major London 'centre of excellence' hosp by CS at 5pm and my partner was chucked out 3 hours later. I was delirious with blood loss and morphine and was literally unable to move let alone do anything else. I pressed the bell during the night and kept my baby on me as i dozed as i didn't trust them to come back. It took hours to get more pain relief. When OH came back at 8am I was in tears and covered in blood, and DD was not latching on. A very young mum across the room had been unable to have her mum with her and spent a lot of the night in tears.

For my second CS i chose a different hospital purely as i knew OH would be allowed to stay but the care was amazing so I sent her home. The two hospitals were as polar opposite as you can get in their patient care. The men who stayed were quiet and were definitely helping in this case.

as long as the policy is that the nurses won’t help you look after your baby

That really shouldn’t be policy anywhere. I had my first by EMCS in a huge busy city hospital a few years ago and the HCAs and midwives were great.

I worry about hospitals which are relying on partners to do this. Not everyone has a partner, not all partners are good and lovely and supportive, not all good partners can even be there. What happens to those women?

Is that a policy anywhere?

It was certainly a policy in the hospital where I gave birth last year. I was alone and buzzed for help, the nurse came and when I said I needed help with my baby she stood right in front of me, watched me (1hr post c-section) struggling to move, and said “You have to look after your own baby, that’s the policy”. So DH slept on a chair all night because someone had to look after the baby and I couldn’t.

@frazzledasarock has it 💯 everything she said.

I just hope that with the complete transformation of maternity care that will make ‘Britain the best place to give birth’ apparently, that there is enough money for postnatal care and wards to be improved. Private rooms and en-suites are a lot more ideal or at least separate wards where some accommodate a partner but women who don’t want that can opt for a partner-free ward.

I do think it’s very important to have that choice. And I think with childbirth and postnatal care you do have to look at it a bit differently to just being a patient in a hospital with medical needs to meet. Birth trauma, ptsd and maternal mental health are starting to be spoken about a lot more. We know childbirth and the whole experience of birth/postnatal stay can be a massive influence on how much a woman struggles mentally or whether she’s traumatised or not. So I do think the whole ‘experience’ IS an important issue.

I've just finished watching Manhunt and can't get Levi Bellfield out of my head and the thought that someone like him could be wandering around a ward unaccounted for and not challenged because the father's experience trumps the dignity and respect of women.

And Rose West or Myra Hindley could pop in at visiting hours or actually be the woman sitting in the bed

I agree that sufficient measures are in place for fathers now (12hr stints for them to visit) when their OH has had a straightforward birth, so agree that fathers/same-sex partners shouldn't be allowed to stay on the ward overnight (unless you've paid for private).

It was certainly a policy in the hospital where I gave birth last year.

What did they actually do then? Is that not kind of a midwife’s job, to look after women and babies in the postnatal period?

There simply weren't enough midwives/HCAs when I was on postnatal. No one came when someone rang the bell. I saw a midwife twice a shift in our bay.

I couldn't have coped with my week in hospital after an EMCS without DH being able to stay most nights. The nights he wasn't there I cried myself to sleep, woke to find DD crying and the staff took ten minutes to come to lift her to be (I was bed bound), struggled with feeding etc.

In an ideal world there would be enough nurses that you wouldn't need partners around, but that's not how the NHS is right now.

Using partners to replace health care staff is appalling and women should be outraged that post natal care is treated so shittily, imo because it's a service entirely for women in a vulnerable state.