Dad's overnight on postnatal wards - yay or nay?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Taking this debate off another thread so as not to derail

For me, unless you book and pay for a private room, overnights are for mums and their babies only.

No recovering woman should have to handle overnights with upwards of 4 stranger men sitting in chairs in close proximity to their bed.

Dad's there to care for the woman and baby is unacceptable - not their job. Not at the expense of the other women wanting privacy overnight.

Yes, my husband stayed overnight as I had lost lots of blood and couldn't get out of bed to change/feed/comfort my baby without fainting.

It's a shame that some women have chosen inconsiderate men as partners if they can't be trusted to be respectful on a hospital ward.

Those complaining about so-called men staring at them...well that's what a curtain is for.

Some people on here are too fragile for the real world sometimes.

I had EMCS and traumatic birth with first and less traumatic section second time and definitely don't want men on the ward overnight. Yes it was really hard being alone and the ward was massively short staffed but it makes you feel even more vulnerable having men on ward. I'm sure there are plenty of decent partners who aren't inconsiderate or inappropriate but I was there for nearly 2 weeks and there were plenty that made the experience worse. If ward is short staffed its pretty unlikely the midwives on are going to do anything about partner bad behaviour.

I think your meant to just levitate the baby to you or be a superior woman who despite being sliced open, drugged up, full of needles etc is perfectly able to run around the ward carrying for her baby. Nct should do levitating classes

Sorry but these things are not the same at all and it’s a false equivalency if ever I heard one.

How are mixed sex wards any different to maternity wards with partners staying the night?

In fact if there is any difference it would be that mixed sex maternity wards are less safe than other wards that are mixed sex because the men on them aren’t there because they’re ill/had a baby, they’re perfectly healthy so pose more risk than the men on mixed sex normal wards.

If you think it is ok for men to spend the night on a maternity ward (hence making them mixed sex), then you also think it is ok to have other mixed sex wards.

Did you read the post you're quoting from??

My DH stayed after the birth of DD2, didn’t think about the impact on other women at the time (rightly or wrongly) but my DH was focussed entirely on me and our dd so not great to tar everyone with the same brush so to speak. The help I needed was a slightly more uninterrupted nights sleep after giving birth - too much to ask?

after my dd1 was born I had already had no sleep the night before due to being in labour, she then didn’t sleep all night and I’d had a GA and a small haemmorage (hb just over threshold for a transfusion) so felt pretty groggy. I then had some significant unrelated trauma shortly afterwards so a little bit more sleep and support may have made things immeasurably better. And I don’t think more staff would help as it’s the parents who should be looking after the newborn not the hospital staff.

Those complaining about so-called men staring at them...well that's what a curtain is for.
Some people on here are too fragile for the real world sometimes.

unless you didn't understand the many posters who said that the nursing staff/midwives open the curtains otherwise they can't see if there is an emergency. It's been mentioned several times. (and some people can't get up to close them)

Yes lets just passively accept the situation and allow unchecked and unqualified men into secured wards rather than campaign for more staff.

Most women do not need 24 hour care after giving birth, if they need 24 hour care then the father is unlikely to be qualified to give it. The argument should not be "let men in" it should be "get staff in".

It amazes me that we have endless threads on here with women posting that they can't possibly let their precious boy alone in men's changing facilities until they are 46 but at the same time are happy to be vulnerable with that baby to any man with fertile sperm.

100% this.

👏🏻

When you put it like that, it’s indefensible!

Fortunately it doesn’t need to be defended. My husband was allowed to stay, I wanted him to stay, so he stayed.

I needed care and it wasn't available to me and my partner who would have been able to give it got sent home. So what is your answer. HCP don't just appear by clicking your fingers.

It will if the staffing ratio ever picks up! 🤞🏻

I spent 5 days in hospital with my first.
My second was born at home.

A major reason was the post natal ward hell. People have visitors to gone midnight, with the lights and noise. Not being able to sleep because men were there (ptsd after a man tried to pull me down a dark alley a couple of years before)
Trying to breastfeed or pump with men gazing around out of boredom

Second time... own bed, just me any my baby,plus my mum around to help with toddler. Snuggling on the sofa with toddler and baby when baby was a few hours old.

DH wasn't there as he is in the Army. First time he visited me when he could while trying to deal with an emergency. Second time he got home two weeks later.

Based on my experience I wish my DH could have stayed! I had emergency C section during pandemic. DH kicked out an hour after surgery. My first DC so felt a bit like a rabbit caught in headlights and had been in Labour 4 days priory . Not enough staff on post natal wars so buzzer pressing was an average of 1hour for respond to. No one gave me food for 24 hours and no one checked us for about & hours at one point . It was just so hard because they were in such dire straights with staffing. Had DHs been allowed to even visit for even just an hour or would have made such a difference to my first 48 hours as a parent

Agree with all of this.

I am so glad DH was there after I had major abdominal surgery and had a tiny living thing - OUR baby, not just mine - to look after.

I also don’t think all men are rapists and am not automatically afraid of men being on the ward. That said I wish everyone was considerate - men and women. It’s bloody annoying when someone talks really loudly all the time or is unreasonable with their time in the bathroom.

It's a no from me. It's just there is a lot of personal things happening and I'd just prefer if they stuck to visiting times. The majority of people are only in for a few hours or over night so surely they can wait that long. If you're in a side room fair enough, but not on the communal bed wards. I think they should put longer stay patients in a side room if their partner needs to be in more

I also want to point out the percentage of dads who actually help is not as high as some mumsnetters might think. Thankfully your husbands might be hands on but trust me, a high percentage of dads on our ward do very little to help their partners. We see it every single day. They make jokes, make demands, are usually asleep, snoring, tables a mess with dirty nappies, mum can’t eat her food because she doesn’t want to wake her husband up to ask him to hold the baby. It’s amazing how these men can sleep through a babies cry but women usually can’t… don’t you think?

Yes there are some wonderful dads we see each day but an awful lot of dads seem to think that they are the patient and they should be treated as one. They expect a cup of tea, food, for us to change nappies and they can just relax etc. it’s quite worrying actually. All I can say is my husband would never dare behave like that and I’d be so put off by him if he behaved like that. How these women can defend these “men”. It’s just embarrassing. Like I said, this doesn’t include the lovely men I meet, however it’s a small percentage.

I developed PTSD as a result of my first daughter’s delivery - we were admitted for a week due to concerns for my baby. The staff for the most part were lacking in empathy, judgemental and too busy to help most of our stay. I couldn’t sleep because I was so hyper vigilant, was in tears all the time and only managed an hour or so of sleep when my partner was able to visit during limited hours. I needed my DH to stay as he is the only one that would have made a difference but it wasn’t an option. I struggled through alone to all intents and purposes and wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone else.

Strange men/men that are strangers, better?

Not all dads are nice people, when you're at your most vulnerable, bleeding, catheterised, half naked and unable to walk, you want to be able to sleep without people wandering around on the other side of a curtain. That's not "demonising men", it's common bloody sense.

‘My DH stayed after the birth of DD2, didn’t think about the impact on other women at the time (rightly or wrongly) but my DH was focussed entirely on me and our dd‘

But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? A man doesn’t have to be actively harassing the other women in order to cause trouble for them. He just needs to be so focused on his own dw and baby, as any normal man would be, that he doesn’t think to keep his voice down, go to the other toilet, look away as he walks past the bed where a woman is uncovered etc.
The vast majority of men are decent and would be mortified if they knew they were making other women uncomfortable, but just by being crammed in with them in a small space not designed for them at a time when women are exposed and vulnerable some of them will be.

Then either pay for a private room if it’s that important to you, or if you won’t or can it then, as the youth say. You’re just going to have to “suck it up.”

Visit yea, but there was a husband in my ward of 4 who kept staying til really late, he'd go and come back later! He was noisy, brought his partner fast food (jealous!) but it was so disruptive. We weren't meant to have anyone stay late either! My DH came a bit early one day and had to wait outside before he was allowed in.
Whilst it may be she had a disability or such like, they ought to have put her into a side room or even the patient hotel (if well enough - that's there for partners to stay post baby if they're ok)
Big no thanks from me

Why the hell should I need the curtain pulled around me all the time?

Men don’t need to be sex offenders to be really bloody annoying though.

I don’t want to share the ward toilet with men after giving birth. The last thing I want to do is bend to wipe piss off the toilet seat before using it. Nor do I want to to wait for a bath because a man is using it so I’ll have to ‘come back later’. They also snore like pigs.