MNHQ here: have you got strong feelings and personal experience about partners staying overnight on postnatal wards?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

A broadsheet journalist is looking to write a piece exploring the pros and cons of partners staying overnight on postnatal wards, and we're trying to help her out with finding some case studies of women who have personal experiences and opinions one way or the other.

If this sounds like you, please email us on [email protected] to let us know:

a) what your opinion is about partners staying overnight on wards; and
b) what your personal experience is.

Ideally, anyone featured in the piece would be comfortable with divulging some identifying details, and possibly with being photographed.

It's for a good, reputable journalist working for a broadsheet newspaper - she's keen to explore all the angles.

(If you've already contacted us about this, thanks very much - we just need to find a few more candidates and then we'll let you know how the land lies!)

Thanks
MNHQ

Why can't women monopolize a new baby that they have just pushed out of their vagina / had major abdominal surgery to bring into the world? Why can't we celebrate that childbirth is exclusively a female accomplishment? Why do men need to muscle in for their bonding in the hours and days immediately afterwards?

And my point about a PP having a guy see her boobs wasn't about gender/sexual attention at all. The point was it's unfair to justify that particular logic of having privacy invaded when you don't use any measures provided to you to allow privacy, and yet complain of the lack of it still.

But I'm done anyway, I'm sure my hospitals guidelines re partner's being allowed to stay won't change before I give birth, so I'm sure theres no need for me to get anxious and worked up about this whole thing.

It just does make me sad how on this and the other thread people were grouping together to completely dismiss valid concerns of women with different perspectives just because they don't agree with them. Accusing them of want to take away womens rights, of being unsympathetic towards sexual assault victims etc. Very nasty indeed.

Olenna but that pertains to your own partner? If that's how you feel about childbirth then it's your perogative to ask him to go home. It doesn't mean that there shouldn't be optons for women who want/need the father there.

I'm challenging you because you made a comment that is offensive and wrong.
I couldn't care less about what you think about partners on maternity wards, but I do care very much about comments like yours going unchallenged.

Here is your comment again.

"And if you are concerned about privacy why are you breastfeeding with your curtains open so "some wanker" can "stare at your tits"?"

I presume you take it back and apologise to the woman who you accused of leading that lecher on?

And if you are concerned about privacy

Followed by a more logical comment underneath expaining what I meant.

Perhaps her incredibly rude and condescending post directed at me got my back up a bit? I feel no need to apologise.

There isn't a central NHS policy on partners staying overnight on postnatal wards. That Telegraph article is oversimplifying. Different NHS trusts/boards and hospitals make their own rules, in the same way they do with visiting hours in general. There really, really isn't a central UK-wide NHS policy on this - there isn't even a central UK-wide NHS!

And honestly, Cherries, it is really unfair and dismissive to tell someone she shouldn't have had her curtains open if she's that concerned about privacy. First, because often women on shared wards aren't allowed to have their curtains closed all the time - on the ward I was on, they HAD to be open in the day unless you were being examined. Second, because FFS it's not her fault if she feels uncomfortable breastfeeding with some bloke gawping at her! We should be protected from leering idiots like that on PN wards, even if that leering idiot is someone else's beloved partner.

And how on earth was it an incredibly rude and condescending post directed at you, Cherries? It wasn't directed at you at all! It was very clearly directed to the poster upthread called Poppet, not at you at all

Cherries "I feel no need to apologise"

You've made a sexist, offensive comment on a website frequented mostly by women. You refuse to apologise. You continue to feel unfairly challenged and ridiculed.

Cherries no, my comment was in response to the "what about the menz" posts, suggesting that men had an equal right to be on the ward at all times and that they would be unable to bond properly without doing so

I never said anywhere it was a nationwide policy, why are people so focused on the fact that I refer to it as a policy?! It is the policy in my hospital and all I meant was it's my understanding that it was being rolled out in quite a few and was just musing on the fact that there must have been some reason/perceived support for it!

53rd, I do apologise. I didn't have to open the curtains at all on my ward, and didn't the whole time I was there - no one had to. So I assumed it was simply the case in any ward that allowed visitors or partners staying. Clearly I was wrong, and that does sound awful if that's the case that people are both forced to have curtains opened and be around strange people (also what I meant by "public place".

It's very hard, on the one hand incompletely stand by the points I've made in my original OP, but I honestly didnt realise some places also had an open curtain policy, obviously that is a huge thing. I wouldnt feel comfortable even on a same sex ward with that being the case?

So I still think alternative measures can be put in place to allow families who want to stay together the capacity to do so, but of course I sympathise if you are on a a ward full of strange people and you don't even have a curtain to hide behind :(

And of course my DP is an angel and is so considerate of noise etc, but there are plenty of people who aren't. But then again there are plenty of women who aren't too!

God I don't know what to think, sorry for the waffling thought stream. I do know in wouldn't cope without him though... This whole argument has made me feel so anxious about giving birth again now :(

I can't even give birth at home/MLU because I'm on consultancy care due to last birth. At least then I'd know I could hae DF around without worrying and (selfishly and massively hypocritically) not having to have other people's partners around - what if theyve changed the curtain policy or I just got lucky last time??

Are you and Poppet are the same person, Cherries? #namechangefail

Sorry 53rd, the comments she was referring to sounded like the comment's I had made and I did look but didn't see a post from someone called poppet, I must have missed it

Haha no we're not!

I thought she was calling me poppet, like "hun"

I was fortunate enough to give birth at a NHS hospital were you had your own ensuite room after labour.

Partners were asked not to collect meals for new mums, mums either need to collect or it's to be bought to her.

It was a really nice experience. My partner was with me the whole time

Lexie where do live??

do you* goodness

This is why people have taken issue with you arguing it's NHS policy to allow partners on wards Cherries:

"This article says that it is a policy that was rolled out? Everything I've read in media refers to it as a policy."

"In the hospital I'm at it is standard that partners can stay overnight and I actually thought this was NHS guidelines"

Though you're now starting to sound contrite I note you still haven't apologised or retracted your victim blaming comment.

"It i's already the case that the NHS has changed its policy and that partners are allowed to stay on wards overnight"...

I don't get why that's an issue - it was a question and I specifically said it was my local hospital? If I didn't convey what I meant very well, all I meant was that I assumed there must have been some kind of reasoning or support behind this move to warrant it being practiced in hospitals, even if it's not all of them.

Also, I said "I do apologise".

I don't owe you anything Littlekiwi, and FWIW I did find that post condescending, regardless of who it was aimed at. I made a mistake in assuming that everyone was entitled to have their curtains closed and therefore have some semblance of privacy. Another poster pointed out I was wrong about this and I have apologised, as I genuinely didn't know this was a thing.

When I said I felt ridiculed, it was in regard's to my opinion laid out in my OP on this thread, long before that comment was made.

Assassinated I still don't get the huge offence caused by me saying it's a policy? It is in some places?

And okay, I was wrong, I absolutely concede that, the stuff I read online gave me the impression that it was a thing (can't bring myself to use the P word again) that they were intending to roll out everywhere. I'm still not entirely sure why it has quite so much relevance to all the other points I made (which are my opinion, which I am entitled to just like you are)

And wtf Assassinated - the next sentence I said after the quote you just posted was "obviously I was wrong!"

You're mistaken in thinking it's NHS policy, i.e. that it is policy for every postnatal ward to allow men 24hr access. It clearly isn't, and it isn't necessarily going to be taken up by every NHS trust. I gave the example of the hospital I gave birth in where they recently had a trial and chose not to continue with it due to overwhelmingly negative feedback from women.

The reason I think it's being pushed by some as a great idea is to paper over the cracks, to cover up inadequate care by using relatives to provide basic care to patients. How is that an acceptable idea in one of the richest countries in the world?

No, sadly, it's really common to be told you can't have your curtains closed all day. Mostly so the staff can easily keep an eye on everyone in the bay, and on my postnatal ward it was also so the jaundiced babies got sunlight apparently. You could sometimes have them closed during visiting. The rest of the day, no curtains, and other people's partners sitting there feet away.

No, that isn't what came next after that quote in your post Cherries. This was the whole paragraph

"As I said there is no either/or solution that will suit all women. It i's already the case that the NHS has changed its policy and that partners are allowed to stay on wards overnight, and I'm not aware of mass self discharges occurring since this decision was made." That was the end of your post. I'm not sure what you think I was quoting.

Anyway, I think it's helpful to be clear that this isn't an NHS wide policy that will be soon be enforced in all postnatal wards.