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

It will be used as a way of reducing post-natal care poppet. Of course it will.

Apart from paediatrics, hospitals function on the basis of only the patient being present at all times. Why is post natal any different, other than the appalling standard of care in too many instances?

You are aware that there are barely the resources there for women to give birth safety and have some degree of after care?

It's a completely ridiculous conversation to be having when the NHS has NO resources for this.

And in any case, it isn't true to say partners can never stay on other wards.

My ward (three times) was horrendous, shouting, crying, TVs on really loud, arguing on their phones, arguing in rl, drunks,blood...Why would I want to add men staying in over at night as well?
Please get real.

X post

Woooo once upon a time midwives cared for the babies too (who are also a patient) supporting mothers as necessary to carry out basic care, establishing feeding etc

....but postnatal wards are completely different. You have just given birth, that is something that affects both mother and partner. It is a very different situation to be in, compared to being in hospital for another medical reason. You can't possibly think that being in hospital because you've broken your leg is the same as having just given birth?

Typically partners or other visitors can't stay with (adult) patients overnight on shared wards as a rule. The only time I've stayed with someone overnight was when the patient was very ill and the staff thought he was dying, and even then they moved him to a side room off the shared bay.

You can't possibly think that being in hospital because you've broken your leg is the same as having just given birth?

Having given birth shouldn't give me less rights as a patient than breaking my leg. Especially because I felt a lot more vulnerable post-birth than I did when staying over for other surgery.

No one is suggesting banning fathers/partners. They can visit usually for 12 hours a day on post natal, and are usually allowed some leeway if delivery and transfer to post natal happens outside of those hours. With those visiting hours, women who want their partners with them have them for 12 hours and those that want some privacy/dignity/feeling of safety can have that for the other 12 hours - overnight when most will be sleeping (at least in part) anyway.

This idea that fathers/partners are put off parenting due to not being able to stay for 24 hours post birth is just wrong. DS1 was in SCBU immediately from birth and I was unwell and in the HDU unable to visit him until a day and a half later. According to some on this thread being away from my baby for that crucial period would mean I was prone to not being interested in parenting my child! It's absurd.

Giving birth is a very emotional, personal thing to do. You might want your adoring DP there, the woman in the bed next you might not. Therefore it's best to work to the scenario which is less intrusive all round.

Surely people aren't arguing that the fathers who go home (maybe to look after their other children) have less idea of the division of labour or are less bonded than those who stay?

That would be ridiculous.

women who want privacy, dignity and peace & quiet to recover

I don't dispute this but I dispute that the presence of men prevents this and the absence of them creates it.

Partners did not stay in my maternity hospital but I was awake all night with crying babies, other patients on the phone, talking to nurses and so on. I overhead people's domestic and medical information and they mine. I had to waddle past people half-dressed and they had to waddle past me. I cried all over the consultant and probably lots of people saw and heard.

Whether there were men there made no difference whatsoever.

My husband wasn't even allowed to accompany me onto the post natal ward.

I had am emergency c-section and by the tine i was done on recovery it was 4am when i was moved through to postnatal.i had DD husband had our bags. We were walking towards lifts, stopped and midwife told DH that the exit was down the corridor. We were not given a chance to say goodbye or for him even to give me a hug which i desperately needed. I had no idea tbat he would not be allowed to come up with us to get settled although i did know he wouldn't be allowed to stay. He had to dump our bags on my feet at thd bottom of the bed cause there was no where else to put them.

I was then taken up to ward and left holding DD for 30 mins with bags on my feet before one of the post natal midwifes came to talk to me. I wasn't handed the buzzer or anything when i arrived and couldn't move because i had a catheter in.

I really needed him with me even for an hour because of everything that i had just gone through.

Spending 13.5 hours alone in the evenings was awful. My neighbour in the ward had noisy visitors all day so i couldn't sleep when my husband was there and at night DD wouldn't sleep in crib so i was holding her all night. I was in for 3 days and was in tears because i was so tired. If DH had been allowed to stay i could have got sone sleep.

I founf the fact that there were 12 visitors at one point with my neighbours and the fact that visiting hours were not enforced so much more intrusive (as they kept opening my curtain!) then if there had been husbands allowed.

I needed my DH.

"women who want privacy, dignity and peace & quiet to recover

I don't dispute this but I dispute that the presence of men prevents this So you're denying other women's lived experience and the absence of them creates it. Nobody is saying it does-but it contributes

imisschocolate I'm sorry you experienced such appalling "care". I hope you were able to make a complaint about the midwives and the whole set up.

What would improve that situation for you and for other women who may not have partners who can stay, is to improve the basic standard of care. Allowing partners to stay overnight is an attempt to put a very limited sticking plaster over the issue. It will allow hospitals to get away with appalling standards because most people will have someone who can provide the basic care that is lacking. But it won't fix the basic issue and it will bring plenty of its own problems too. Like exposing women to men who are not decent and trustworthy. Like removing the opportunity for women to disclose abuse and seek help. Money will be spent on facilities that are not for patients. Extra work enforcing behaviour for the midwives. Extra stress for women who don't want to sleep in a shared space with a several unknown men whilst they are very physically vulnerable.

histinyhandsarefrozen since women who are unable to spend much time with their babies when they are first born often mention difficulty with bonding, why would it be ridiculous to suggest men could feel the same?

To be honest Ollena, I highly doubt that postnatal wards in the UK will now be allocated sufficient resources to make that a viable alternative. Until such time as sufficient staffing is in place to ensure that buzzers are answered straight away women will continue to need their partners there with them, particularly those who have had C sections so cannot lift their baby to feed, change or cuddle it. It would be horrific and cruel to force women to watch their newborn cry, helpless and unable to give the baby the help it needs because they are alone.

I had a similar experience imisschocolate. I don't have a partner. It was completely crap but the solution is to campaign for better post natal care for all women, not for unqualified and untrained partners to do it.

In this end this comes back to the old Tory vs Labour debate: are you for the many or the few?

Imisschocolate I sympathise with that - I also had other people's noisy visitors to deal with all day, and then a baby that wouldn't sleep without being held/fed all night. I was dead on my feet, I was so tired I was hallucinating. It was horrible and I really, really wish that there had been more time without visitors there so I could've got some kip during the day. It seemed really upside-down that huge extended families wanting to troop in with helium balloons got prioritised over my need to rest and sleep after two days of labour and a major op!

But, if partners had been allowed at night, that would have made night times even noisier and busier on my ward. Maybe my husband could have held my baby and let me sleep, which would have been great - but the husband of the woman next to me was a noisy, inconsiderate arse, and I doubt he'd have been any less so at night. I certainly wouldn't have been more comfortable having a ward packed with blokes I didn't know 24/7. And there were women whose partners couldn't be there for various reasons - their needs should matter as well.

It would be horrific and cruel to force women to watch their newborn cry, helpless and unable to give the baby the help it needs because they are alone.

Totally agreed and that's why it's so great that MN are doing their Better Postnatal Care campaign.

But bringing in partners shouldn't be the fix for that. Not everyone has a partner, not everyone has a partner who can be there. It's not solving the problem if I have a partner there to help me, but the woman in the next bed still has to watch her newborn cry unable to help it, only now with the added stress of sharing a ward with blokes she doesn't know as well.

At 11pm the curtains were all shut, the lights were off, and most people were trying to sleep. Far less intrusive than 11am, when the cleaners and hostesses kept opening the curtains without knocking (exposing me when I was BF) and everyone was coming and going.

It's great Mumsnet are campaigning for better care and any improvement would be welcomed by all I am sure. I just can't see standards ever being raised to a level where the support of partners isn't required for the mothers to receive the help they need and the babies to receive proper care because the current situation is a million miles from that. I would love to be proved wrong!

Then of course there are the emotional support aspects or having the partner present as highlighted by previous posters, which medical staff could never replace. And the importance of being able to share those special first hours as a family. I think it would be fine to ban other visitors at all times, especially large groups, but each woman should be able to have one person stay with them 24/7 if they choose to in my opinion.

If we're assuming that being away from the baby affects bonding, does that mean all father of 2/3/4 dc are automatically less bonded with the others than dc1 as they would have needed to be Home with dc1 when dc2/3/4 were born?

Wooo how would you address or minimise the issues that I mentioned? Or are those acceptable issues that just have to be put up with?