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

I have really mixed experiences. I was on the ward from 20 weeks very frequently as I was so sick. The ward allowed partners and it was terrible for me. Women were being induced around me sometimes I was on a ward with newborns at times. People fought, watched tv at full volume and talked loudly and generally made it really hard for me to rest. Any rules that existed were ignored. Men weren't meant to use the women's bathrooms but did. The midwifes were to busy to police things or didn't have many options if people were not cooperative. What are they going to do get security to remove a woman's husband because he's noisy, while she's in pain as she's being induced? I think this is a problem on all wards but the amount of visitors and the need to build trust with women makes it worse on maternity wards. Some men made me feel unsafe and uncomfortable. I also think if you have strange men there all women will then want someone with them so they feel safe.

I was so sick after I had my baby however I could not possibly have cared for my baby and there were not enough staff to care for me or my baby. I was in for several days and it wasn't ideal for my husband with no shower and an uncomfortable chair but I really feel there was no other option. There simply was not the staff. Buzzers rang and were unanswered. I was expected to take my baby to neonatal for antibiotics when I could hardly get out of bed. Women frequently got help from the other women and visitors rather than staff if they were on there own. The reality is you really need private ensuite rooms. This would facilitate everyone's dignity and improve everyone's sleep. Let's be honest a curtain is not enough. Maternity is a very different situation than most wards. I know in some hospitals you can pay for this where I was it was not a possibility. Many women leave hospital before they should (I did as the situation is so unacceptable to them).

I gave birth at midnight following a traumatic 4 day induction ending in emcs. I was an exhausted and scared first time mum that could barely move. Yet my partner was told to leave just over an hour after the birth of my son. It was an awful experience - mainly due to midwives shouting if I dared press the buzzer for help.
What was more confusing was my partner was encouraged to stay the four days previous in a ward with vulnerable women in labour but was unable to stay to help care for his son. Private rooms should be given as standard to postnatal women.

Oh yeah, totally appropriate to have strange men around when you're bleeding, lactating and struggling to walk around following delivery

I hid behind my curtains and prayed the visitors would hurry up and leave. I'm autistic and a sexual assault survivor so I felt very exposed and vulnerable, even behind curtains.

@reikizen 's post sums up my feelings perfectly.

Absolutely no way should men be allowed on postnatal wards.

I'm a domestic abuse specialist who used to have an office in a hospital.

I've seen women who have been raped on a postnatal ward.
Beaten on a postnatal ward.

I've seen women who have had other woman's husbands/partners threaten them for making noises whilst they were in labour and threaten them because their baby was crying. Be ridiculed and humiliated by other women's husbands/partners because of breast feeding.

I've seen women pushed out of their own beds because the delicate husband/partner wants to sleep, have their food taken because he wants to eat.

I've heard women beg staff to enforce the rules about partner visiting hours because they wanted their own partner gone so they could at least try and get some rest in peace.

For a lot of women giving birth can be a trigger for leaving an abusive relationship if help is obtained on the ward the longer partners stay on it the less chance you have to make it safe for a disclosure and request for help to be made.

You may be ok with your husband/partner and you may think their behaviour is fine but not everybody else will and they shouldn't have to deal with it.

I wouldn't stay in a hospital that allowed it in a shared ward

1. Father's should be allowed to stay with their partner and new baby.

1. There shouldn't be postnatal wards.

Where my friend gave birth in France there were individual rooms for every mother. These were literally double the width of the bed (so it could be wheeled in and out) with a chair, small table and the baby's cot. Between the corridor and bed there was a toilet and shower. It wasn't fancy, and the walls were thin, but there was privacy and dads could have those precious first days (yes, days) with their newborn too.

Where I gave birth they had the same "rooms" and then some bigger ones with sofa beds so the father could lie down to sleep. We paid extra and got one of those.

Dads have a RIGHT to be with their babies just as much as mothers who gave birth do. But, women who've given birth also have a right to privacy.

The question asked for this article is wrong. It's not whether fathers should be on the ward or not. It's why postnatal wards still exist in the first place when they impact the rights of the mother to privacy, the rights of the father to bond with his baby AND the rights of the baby to have both parents with him/her.

• not all hospitals have this set up in France, but a lot do

If a woman can't cope without her partner for a night or two , then they should be allowed to stay in a separate room but wards should be for recovering mums only. The last thing you want to worry about at night when you're bleeding, walking like John Wayne and trying to establish feeding is another woman's partner staring at you - because they do stare! It's human nature.

I sent my husband home the first night on the ward after my emcs. I had just been discharged from HDU. I had sepsis and was very unwell. Hadn't slept in 3 days. I received no pain relief. No antibiotics. Couldn't reach DD. Managed to drag myself up to stand and had a significant bleed. Despite calling and no staff member came near me. The husband of the patient in the next bay brought me DD, brought me some water and was very kind to me.

The following morning I got no breakfast, no antibiotics, no water and nobody cleaned my blood from the floor until DH came in.

I didn't let him leave the following night.

On these threads there are always comments about women being too precious to manage without their husbands. I'm not precious at all, I've spent 2 decades working in hospitals and know exactly what it's like. I think the care should be provided by the hospital. But if the midwives can't or won't provide care to unwell patients as nurses would on any other ward what are patients to do?

according to a nurse I spoke to there is a real problem with men insisting on having their sexual needs met on the ward

For DC1 DP didn't stay, and I really needed him. I was drugged up to my eyeballs and had different tubes limiting my mobility. I was in no real state to look after my newborn and the night staff oblivious.

DP was allowed for DC 2 and it gave me chance to sleep and recuperate.

While I totally agree on safe spaces and that men are often the aggressors and this should be considered, I think it's more about staffing visitors whether DPs staying or others.

I found it much more difficult with my neighbours mother who was her birthing partner who snored so loudly I couldn't sleep at night, made general critical remarks about new mum's and then the 12 college friends who turned up for 3 hours on a tiny ward. I found that much more insensitive.

I think the priority needs to be making sure the babies and mothers are safe and cared for. With the NHS on its knees that's easier said than done.

If you are bleeding and walking like John Wayne, why on earth would you spare a thought for the gender of the people who might see you?

Is female bleeding somehow more shameful if men see it than if women see it?

I honestly could not have given less of a shit about the gender of anybody I encountered during the childbirth experience, from doctors/nurses/midwives/anaesthetists to patients/partners/visitors/children.

I would have appreciated somewhat more privacy (for and from sounds more than sights) in general, but that applied to everyone regardless of sex chromosomes.

By all means restrict to patients and provide actual care, but don't make this about men = bad, lesbian partners = a-okay, because that is some seriously sexist BS.

No, they shouldn't be allowed to stay. NeedsAsockamnesty and helpimitchy explain why better then I can.

*than

I was on a four bed ward. Three men stayed with their partners all night. I was the only one by mydrlf and i felt very vunerable. They talked all night and kept me awake. It was awful.

I was in a hospital where partners could stay, and any partners that I saw who stayed were quiet, respectful and supportive. Didn't bother me one bit - though I do understand that not all partners would necessarily be like that unfortunately. If I could change one thing about DD's birth though I wouldn't have let DP leave until my catheter was out, as my overriding memory of the postnatal ward is wanting so badly to pick my DD up and being unable to - and the midwives being snotty every time I asked (one of them I would actually refuse to have this time as she was so sarcastic and rude). No one came to check on me even though I was on my own (and hadn't slept in days, had no clue what I was doing, and actually I think I was in mild shock over the whole thing). In the morning, I wouldn't have actually had breakfast if DP hadn't come in. It was bloody awful. The woman in the bay next to me had her partner there doing everything for her and I was so jealous. Despite the ward being quiet I was placed right at the end, furthest away from the nurses station too. It was just awful.

I'm pregnant again, and am already worried about the postnatal ward. In an ideal world I'd not let DP leave me at all in the hospital this time around, but we have toddler DD to consider. I'm just under six weeks pregnant and am already worrying about this!

In short, I would be happy with partners not staying if the postnatal staffing and care were better. But it was isn't, so I think partners staying are bloody sensible!

This is the reason I went with a midwife unit for my first dc and hoping to have second dc (if all runs smoothly!) in the same way.

The thought of being on a post natal ward with strangers, after such a full on event terrifies me. The thought of having to send away my dh terrifies me. The thought of other people's partners being there also terrifies me.

I just want to have my baby, relax, get sorted, feed baby, grab some shut eye and then head home!

After an elective C-section with twins I was in a double room at first, where my DH was not allowed to stay. I could not get out of bed to get to my children or to put them back again if I was holding them. It was lonely and unpleasant. Nurses didn't come when I rang the bell (bell was cancelled without anyone coming). It was too noisey for me to sleep (person in my room got moved out as I was dropping off, waking me up, an hour later nurse came in to deal with some of the equipment, an hour after that they brought another bed in to replace the one that went, another hour cleaners came in, etc...). Though I appreciate that was an unfortunate situation that probably wasn't totally typical.

36 hours later I was moved to a private room and DH was allowed to stay over. He got involved in the childcare straight away, covered settling the twins after feeds which was a godsend at night, helped me move about more and made me feel a lot more secure and safe. Even if staffing levels had been higher and I hadn't felt like things might be missed or a baby dropped because I was left on my own too much, his emotional support made things hugely less stressful. And honestly I think non-medical care of babies is best provided by their primary carers when possible and not a string of (to them) random people.

He was also in the same place I was in respect to looking after them when we went home and I didn't have the role of "expert" to his "novice" as we settled into our new life with kids.

I'm a dad but feel like throwing my opinion in to the mix anyway. The first night I was allowed to stay (in the visitors chair) but each night after that plus an hour during each day I had to leave (for rest time during the day if I recall) . I don't think I was aware of this policy before the birth, and it was a little jarring and I felt lonely, missing my wife and new child. Some nights I struggled to leave as my wife didn't seem to be coping well. She was having trouble trying to breastfeed, and was exhausted and our baby was losing weight at speeds that where alarming to us and mildly concerning to medical staff. It doesn't feel good going home while your wife is crying because our baby won't eat "in the natural way" that my wife was determined (at the time) to do. That said it meant that I was well rested each day, and could look after baby while wife napped during the day.

If a woman can't cope without her partner for a night or two

I must be a pathetic baby then, because I prefer not to be without my partner at the best of times - let alone after a potentially traumatic physical event, in the first hours or days of dealing with the minor life shift of being a new parent.

In fact, this is the thing which scares me most about having children (an event which will hopefully happen soon!). Having read Mumsnet threads on this topic I completely agree with all of the arguments against having men on wards, but I really hope we are able to find a room for my DH to stay. I have depression and I genuinely worry about the potential impact the days immediately following birth may on my mental health as a new mother.

absolutly not no never, the most vulnerable and frightening time of your life and fat slob idiot strangers gawking at you around your curtains at all hours. it should be a criminal offence. I hated hated HATED visiting hours when \i couldn't even go to the toilet and leave my baby alone with complete strangers wondering around the ward. i couldn't wash, or change or anything until they were gone.

I had a baby recently & there was a partner who stayed with his wife overnight.

He used the patients toilets when it clearly stated he should not. So each time I or the other women on the ward wanted to go toilet we had to wait as he was already in it. He even walked in on one of the women showering (she must not have properly locked the the door), as he wanted to use the toilet whilst the poor woman was in the shower.

He kept walking past my bed peering in thro my curtains whilst I was trying to breastfeed.
He spent most of his time sitting opposite me staring at me so I ended up pulling my curtains shut as it was uncomfortable.

Then the entire family turned up and took over the ward and sat staring at me till I shut the curtains around my bed.

I have no idea why I was of such interest to them but I ended up asking to leave as I couldn't bear it.

I'm sure everyone's partners are lovely and amazing to them. I'm totally against having partners on wards over night it was so uncomfortable it was unbelievable.

If a person needs their partner with them maybe a family ward or something would work better so everyone who wants their partner can be in a ward together.

It really didn't work when I experienced it.

'Any man who is put off parenting by going home for a couple of nights after the birth is very easily put off imo'

It's his new baby.

It isn't about 'putting off' parents.it is about setting a tone: fathers are needed, wanted and essential to the mother and baby in the first few days.

awholelotofhot
why on earth wouldn't they be allowed to stay, they're the baby's parent too. Because it's a hospital and they're not patients. Only the mother and babies are patients.
I'm strongly against this. I would have discharged myself if there had been partners staying overnight. I only had to stay in hospital for my first baby 28 years ago. There was no concept of needing your partner to support or help you. A member of staff was there to help if necessary, ie those who who needed post op care or who had complications but most people managed by themselves without any problems. Visiting hours were restricted so we had plenty of time and privacy.

fathers are needed, wanted and essential to the mother and baby in the first few days.
No , they're really not essential. It's perfectly possible for one person to look after a baby by themselves, and the baby doesn't care.
I do understand some women feel the need to have their partner there , but it certainly isn't essential.