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.

Not allowed at my hospital! Thank fuck.

Don’t be so ridiculous they can spend half the day on the ward.
if you’re that insistent about having your partner and everything in your space on your terms then have a home birth

the main reason I object to men on the wards overnight is the sheer amount of noise and general lack of consideration when the ward is supposed to be winding down and be quiet save for babies and the usual first nights with a newborn. I just saw them using postnatal patient facilities, snoring, on their phone or watching tv, up and done all the time, bringing takeaways in, and quite frankly foul language at times.

I’ve had three babies all in hospital and all involving some degree of overnight postnatal stay. Hand on heart I didn’t see a new dad do ANY patient care that so many of these entitle women are wittering on about. I saw skid marks on patients toilets and all of the above.I didn’t see men advocating for the partner or doing anything hands on . Most decent men with a bit of common sense and respect for other women fucked off home to be honest.

don’t try telling me or anyone else that not being allowed to stay overnight on a ward lessens the bonding experience that is utterly risible.

my reasons for not wanting a strange man near me when I had just given birth are just scratching the surface of why many serious and triggering reasons postnatal women don’t want strange men in a ward overnight: think about that.

So many people are blithely saying just pay for a private room, it's not an option for everyone. Not even talking about the cost, but none of our local hospitals let you do that. As I said, if we had gone for a second we would have temporarily relocated to be able to access decent private maternity care.

Glad you want women to experience what I did.

Would have been virtually impossible for me to have managed without dp there. Emergency c section, 10 lb baby I couldn't lift. When DP did pop out to get some supplies, the hospital staff left me there for hours without any help or pain killers, and baby screaming to be fed, depsite onstantly ringing the help button, I was literally in tears because I was in so much pain and couldn't even move or get to my crying baby. It's disgusting tbh that women would happily let other women physically suffer and go without help because they don't feel comfortable with other people's partners there. Just because they don't have a caring partner they trust 🙄

Yes they should be. And are, which is good. Don't get the hysteria tbh.

I have a caring partner who I trust. I don't trust any number of random strangers wandering around. But nice go at victim-blaming.

Have you read the thread at all?

It’s not appropriate and is potentially dangerous for the gap to be left un filled so until it is, fathers being with their partners and newborns is entirely appropriate.

If HCAs and midwives aren’t there to help then obviously someone else has to.

Women have much more right to be cared for effectively after giving birth than they have to privacy. Privacy is a nice to have, not an essential. If parents are that desperate not to share a ward with the partners of postpartum women, then they can book and pay for the private room so that women who need care can get it.

I agree with this. I was in labour with my DD for over 36 hours and had not slept in that amount of time. First night in hospital DD cried most of the night. A student midwife tried to help me and I heard her getting a bollocking by a senior member of staff saying she had other things to do. They were completely understaffed.
I tried to sleep during the day when DH was allowed to visit as this was when DD also slept however the ward was too noisy. Second night exactly the same. I left the hospital practically on my knees as had not slept for 4 straight days. I basically just needed someone else to hold her.

But all the no's assume that the care for the mother is actually there from the staff. It was horrendous on my ward in London. I was never offered any food. I couldn't move after a complicated c section. No-body would come to help me change my son. I couldn't get him to latch but no-one had time to help me breastfeed. I'd lost two litres of blood and felt dreadful. I don't know what I would have done without my husband.

@BloodAndFire How are you a victim because you gave birth? o.O

Also, I expected a vaginal delivery and a healthy baby. Are people really suggesting in the midst of DS being critically ill and me having had an regency CS someone should have been coming in to ask for a card payment of £100+ in order that DH could stay so I could get to and from NICU as needed and so I wasn't alone if DS died?

Do you not see that the answer is for an overhaul of the healthcare system, for it to be properly funded and therefore staffed? Not to allow Tom, Dick and Dirty ‘arry constant access to a shared ward with women who have just given birth?

Women who may be trying to establish feeding, women who are bleeding, women with stitches, women who are uncovered or in gowns, women who are being examined, women who are occasionally forced to keep their curtains open for observation?

If there’s one time when women should be protected and allowed a man-free space, surely it’s in a postnatal ward?

You are no more important than the next women in a PN ward, but your chap is a nobody and has no entitlement to be there at all.

@doadeer I'm saying the same thing, but they're not addressing that! They're gleefully ignoring that fact that oftentimes help is essential and needed. Where as catering to their emotions is not!

@BunchHarman shooting their load? Wow makes it sound as if you only see them as sperm donors, done their job to give you your child now irrelevant.
Trust me my 'strange partner would not be taking a second look at anyone else nor interested in what anyone else is doing.

Post natal wards are a barbaric element of maternity care that should be abolished.

Every new mother should have her own room. I can't believe women don't rise up en masse and demand appropriate privacy and adequate nursing care for maternity settings.

Omg! Absolutely unacceptable!!! Who the hell did this man think he was? And shame on the midwives for not dealing with it. Call security!!

Anyone would think the man had given birth.

@BunchHarman okay well until the healthcare system is overhauled my DP is staying by my side the entire time thank you very much.

“It's disgusting tbh that women would happily let other women physically suffer and go without help because they don't feel comfortable with other people's partners there. Just because they don't have a caring partner they trust 🙄”

are you as self absorbed, entitled and plain tone deaf in all aspects of life or just this topic?

tour snarky little comments about these women who have issues because they don’t have a caring partner they can trust is both factually incorrect -in that many women with such a person DON’T want him overnight on the postnatal ward - but also appallingly non empathetic and insightful into why for some women this so the case and the impact it’s wrought upon their pregnancy and their lives.

most people who don’t agree with this set up are actually articulating their disagreement from an inherently selfish point of view whereas those who do want it are.

Yeah, cos the Govt care 🙄

Yes yes yes. I can’t imagine anything worse than recovering after a traumatic birth ending in an emergency C-section, not being able to move to lift the crying baby, and nurses not reacting to being called due to understaffing. All of this happened to my friend. She left traumatised and I can’t imagine how I’d have gotten through this without someone to support me.

@Whiskeypowers I haven't said I want my partner to stay, I'm pleased the option is there if he wants to. I've already told him it would be better for him to go home and get the rest. My point is that the option is there if necessary.

He won't if you got told he wasn't allowed.

They would care if enough women made enough noise about it.