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

My DH has never been allowed to stay and
I'm ok with that. The kick out time was around 10pm and he could come back from around 9am. I managed fine each time, even when I'd been put straight into the ward on my own after giving birth late at night. Most women are ok on their own with proper midwife support if needed.

More People could potentially mean more stress on midwives and less support for women whose partners have to stay home with older kids.

A post natal ward is noisy and crammed enough without extra people and I have felt very vulnerable after each birth. I wouldn't have coped with having partners on the ward as well over night. Some partners I encountered in my 3 times on postnatal were incredibly loud, rude and sometimes intimidating. I wouldn't have coped with that overnight.

I am aware that I am lucky however and would like to see better plans in place for women who have had very traumatic Births and really need the extra support overnight. I feel they should be put into a private room where a partner could stay or kept longer in the labour ward where a partner could stay.

@CherriesInTheSnow I live in Wirral (NW England) and my hospital is Arrowe Park x

What can I say.

I knew there was a possibility I would need my partner there and ensured that I was in a hospital which allowed partners to stay overnight.

I have family members who wear a Hijab, They likewise carried out their own research and ensured their chosen hospital didn't allow partners to stay overnight as it meant they would not only need to ensure it was in place during visiting hours but 24/7. One was able to pay for a private room and done so. (This was for religious purposes and is clearly not the only reason for not wanting men on the wards 24/7)

Had there been a rule which stated the only way a partner could stay overnight would be if it was a private room then I would have paid for one.
I understand there are some ladies who for a multitude of reasons will not have a partner who can assist them.
As said my partner was there to assist his family. That is all.

If there are partners who attend the ward, stay overnight and subsequently cause trouble/harm or cause a lady to feel uncomfortable it is wholly unacceptable and should be dealt with accordingly. I am fortunate to not have been witness to or on the receiving end of this. Reading some of these posts; I can see that some ladies have been in very uncomfortable situations/ intimidating even. This is wholly unacceptable!

I needed assistance and my husband was the only one to provide it to me. My husband provided me with this assistance as there was no staff member to do this.

Should I have refused his help? I don't know any person who has been in a vulnerable position who would refuse the help of a loved one.

I wish there was enough staff to fulfil the needs of the ladies admitted to the wards; but unfortunately there isn't. This is something which clearly needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, but in the mean time there are ladies who genuinely need assistance and it is their loved ones who provide this.

I have always and will always follow the rules. If I need to pay for a private room to have my husband present then I will do so. I am not by any means wealthy; but I do research when necessary and would put money away each month to ensure that I can cover this. (I'm aware there will be some ladies who may not be in a position to do so).

Until there is a system in place which provides enough staff members who can and will provide ladies with the assistance they need, I will continue to attend (when necessary) a hospital which allows my husband to stay overnight.

Not rom experience, but I have read people say that men on the wards sleeping in chairs and snoring have kept them awake more than all the babies on the wards.

New mums need as much sleep to recover as possible x

I had my second baby in a public hospital in Australia. I had my own room (no wards) but dads were not allowed to stay. DH couldn't anyway as we had another DC at home. I looked forward to them leaving at night so I could sleep. The wonderful midwives helped me with everything so I didn't need DH to be there.

Posted too soon... I don't think that men should be allowed to stay on the wards. I would have hated to have random men walking around when I was pumping and bleeding.

I very much wanted my husband to stay, that was one of the worst parts of being on the shared ward for 5 days. BUT if the midwives hadve been able to correctly support us (ie. There were enough of them and they were nice) then I don't think it would have been as much of a problem.

Thank you Lexie :) Unfortunately I live in the South East!

I had a private room and DH was allowed to stay. This was because it was important to my mental health and this was arranged with the hospital.

This was the reason I decided to travel 45 mins to a hospital that was not my local hospital.

My local hospital would not have been able to accommodate my mental health issues - they simply have so few private rooms that you couldn't make arrangements of this nature.

This isn't about whether partners should be able to stay or not. Its more a question of how hospitals are failing to provide appropriate mental health support to women in a maternity setting. Inadequate staffing in its own right is a contributor to this.

In my case, and due to the nature of my issues my partner was the only person able to provide this support.

I think this is all about asking the wrong questions about why women want partners to stay and ends up blaming women for somehow not sucking up the system and the justification used is lack of money.

The problem with that argument is - for a variety of reasons - its ultimately a false economy that ends up costing us more both socially and economically.

If you go to Europe, private rooms are far more standard - as is the ability for partners to stay. Our mindset in this country towards this, is incredibly backward thinking with no ambition and a politically driven downward set of expectations of what women should and should not be almost 'allowed' to have as part of their maternity care.

In this country most women do not even have the option of the choice of going private, even if they can afford private maternity care, because there are not private maternity facilities across the country.

We are at the mercy of a culture that has no political will to recognise the issues within maternity care, much less improve them. Often this culture is led by women who support this bollocks about there being no money.

It would be enormously helpful if voices like MN actually focused on the right things and asked the right questions rather than following these political arcs that don't get to the heart of why women want partners in the first place: there are really good reasons why they do and these are the issues that should be addressed not framing it purely as a single issue without a background of complex problems that is driving the whole thing.

If the broadsheet writer wants to do a good piece on this, they should start by thinking very carefully about how they frame the piece and how the headline leads it.

Frankly I'm sick to death of articles on maternity which put women in the position of being ungrateful and demanding from the word go and then write the piece to justify the opposite - but the point has already been made loud and clear in the headline.

And frankly I don't trust even good 'reputable broadsheets' on this as they ALL have a poor record on this score.

Happy to discuss why in private and bore to tears on the whys on this, but not inclined to have my name put to anything despite my very strong feelings on the subject.

That in itself should be something that this journalist should think about hard.

In case you are wondering the questions being asked should be:

Why are women not feeling like they are supported enough by health professionals alone?

and

Why are women who need partners with them during and after they have a baby not able to get access to the appropriate facilities and support?

Where you lead from these questions makes all the difference.

Instead by saying partners on wards, and how lots of women feel intruded on, sets up a completely different debate from the one we should REALLY be having.

my first night in hospital my husband stayed till about one in the morning before the midwife shooed him home for some sleep because nothing was happening at that time, I was in a single room.
when I was in a shared room with four other women in the upcoming days to my section my husband left at the end of visiting time which was nine o clock, sometimes half past nine if I was particularly upset (was due for a c section 10 weeks early due to preeclampsia so naturally was upset at times) but didn't stay into the night, there was no point in him sleeping in an uncomfortable chair beside me!
after birth I had a huge single room to myself on the postnatal ward (don't think they wanted to put me into a shared room with women and their babies when I had a sick ten week early baby in icu) and even then he didn't stay during the night, he left at about ten o clock at night.

It's really not about dads staying or not, is it. It's about underfunding - too busy midwives who cannot be there for the women who need help and assistance so women need their partners there to do the job on one hand; lack of private rooms so women do not want other people's partner there on the other.

And in my opinion, also the fact that women in labour are not considered important enough to spend resources on, they are just expected to get on with it.

I had my babies in Switzerland and France - either private or double rooms, your own personal midwife, all the help and support whenever you wanted. Or just as a comparison, those are the rooms in a bog standard state hospital in Estonia, not the richest of countries, with universal health care. The fancy ones will cost you 50EUR and not Lindo Wing prices. The free rooms are for 1-3 people.
www.synnitusmaja.ee/departments/maternity-centre/maternity-department/maternity-rooms-postnatal-rooms/?lang=en

So as RedToothBrush asks, shouldn't the question be why women can't access facilities and support?

I don't think it's fair on a shared ward due to;
Quality of sleep - not that we get much.

Privacy- changing pads, dressing and nursing the baby.

Loneliness- if a mother doesn't have a partner this could trigger PND
Or if her partner has to watch existing children.

Safety- although other mothers are also a potential threat are the partners going to have crb checks who are staying with vulnerable women and babies?

Overcrowding- facilities, beds and resources.

When I had my first child I was offered to move to a labour ward in another town which doesn't provide emergency care such as sections. If there was a room available there would be a bed for dad. When I had the child and asked to be moved they said no that's not an option. This was very upsetting and I was in hospital alone with my daughter for 5 nights. All because they had not witnessed her having a bowel movement. Very depressing and isolating.

When I had my first child I was very jealous that my husband could go home and sleep whereas I was stuck on a ward with a baby. I had no experience of caring for babies whatsoever and had hardly slept due to contractions the previous night. So I would have liked to have had him there for support.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I would have wanted other people's partners staying, particularly if they were talking or snoring, and therefore they might well have felt the same about my husband being there. It was noisy enough when everyone was visiting during the day. A private room would have been ideal. I was so glad to get home from that postnatal ward - the midwives were fine, but it was noisy, hot and the food was rubbish.

Everyone should have individual rooms unless there's a specific clinical need.
Then partners should stay. In the individual rooms.

It works fine in other single payer public healthcare systems in Europe, why can't we do it here?

And yes agree totally with redtoothbrush

I had my baby in Sweden. Private room (nothing flash, quite tatty but very clean.) little kitchen thing just over the corridor, could make food at any time. Well looked after, joined up healthcare. Husband was charged 25 quid equivalent to stay per night.

Awful stories about men on wards is going to get you page views but it's not the real debate. The real debate is wtf is happening in our maternity services that we can't provide the basic level of healthcare seen across Europe (in richer and in poorer countries alike.) why are women on postnatal wards in the first place? There are a minority who need to be on open ward situations but not most.

The U.K. Is failing horribly on maternity care.

Absolutely agree with the single ward suggestions.

It's what I was trying to convey (very badly) late last night.

There's no need for an either/or situation if facilities and standards of care is improved. And I do find it sad that we as user's of the NHS are justifying the poor conditions by saying there's just not enough money, if so many the countries can manage it.

They told us our baby wouldn't survive so they let me and my husband stay together

I'm torn. I just left hospital today after a week. Partners weren't allowed to stay overnight but had extended visiting. I'd had a section and felt very abandoned by staff in the first 12-24 hours as the ward was so busy. Another patient had to help me lift my baby from his crib because I couldn't move and the midwives expected us to just get on with it. Therein lies the issue with staffing. If there had been enough staff to help women in need perhaps those who need partners for the physical support post birth might not feel they need them there as much. This issue throughout the thread is more about lack of staff support than need for partners to be there and the article will struggle to separate the two issues. That said, I had a need for my partner to be there but he wasn't.

I'm autistic and I was terrified. My partner is also my carer and I did need him there BUT I needed him there because I felt so vulnerable and in such an alien and out of control environment that the endless noise, sleep deprivation due to 6 screaming babies, poor nutrition and the hyper stimulation of loads of other visitors in other bays left me verging on meltdown, which was inevitably identified as a mental health issue rather than an autistic woman struggling to cope with the environment. I needed his moral support and understanding that I wasn't able to get from staff who didn't have the time or inclination to learn about my particular needs or quirks or even autism. Side rooms in Scotland afaik aren't bookable or privately available and priority went to mums whose babies were in scbu /nicu - I got moved into a private room for one night after my mum had a word with them but had to give it up for more of a priority so was back on a ward where I had to fight with bolshy auxiliary nurses to keep my curtains closed and my environment as calm as possible. I get that this post is turning into less about the general need for partners in postnatal environments and more about making adjustment for disabled mothers (also a worthy article topic!), however, in my case, allowing my partner to stay with me would have been an adjustment I required. It's going to take me along time to recover from the anxiety and Trauma of an extended stay in a shared ward and I'm living in fear of having to return (baby was unwell so we had to stay longer and I may yet have to return) so I'm unable to wind down. -as an aside, if partners were allowed to stay with their sick as an alternative giving mums a rest, that would be great - If my partner had been able to advocate for me at times whEn I felt the midwives were pushing me into things I felt uncomfortable with but didn't have the ability or strength to argue with I would be in a much calmer less anxious place now.

If my partner had been able to advocate for me at times whEn I felt the midwives were pushing me into things I felt uncomfortable with but didn't have the ability or strength to argue with I would be in a much calmer less anxious place now.

Consent is a big part of why women want partners to stay...
Women do not trust HCP in the way they should and are feeling pressured by them. Why are HCP doing this? Targets, pressures on resources and staffing primarily.

Again it comes back to the same things, time and time again.

How many more scandals are needed before the penny drops?

Absolutely not on a shared ward. Maybe in a private room, but only if toilet and bathing facilities are completely separate. If people need more support then we need to employ more midwives and nurses.
DC3 was born during the swine flu scare - the hospital banned all visitors except fathers and reduced visiting hours. I was on a ward with three other women, we all agreed it was bliss.

All my deliveries were sections btw.

I have strong feelings for it, imagine how much weight would be lifted off MW shoulders of say a c section patient, who really can't do much, even pick baby up, might not have feeling in legs fully restored.

I get the whole women's dignity, but surely your dignity is a 24/7 issue, so visiting hours would be a problem hypothetically. How are they different?

I think especially first time Mums / Mums who have had a traumatic birth, they need all the support possible.

On a gynae Ward years ago, women and partners arrived at 8am due to MMC, which is awful, they stayed all day long and into the night. None of us had an issue.

But relatives shouldn't be shouldering the weight of personal care - this isn't the third world. I understand what you're saying but what's needed is private rooms as default and more resourcing of birthing and postnatal units.

The question shouldn't be 'should we have partners on birthing wards?' It should be 'why the fuck are women on postnatal wards and not in private rooms as standard?'

Most other European countries do this. Even the poorer ones. Uk maternity care is a disgrace.