New campaign to allow partners to stay on maternity wards.

[MrsCakesPremonition]

MN have started a thread about possibly supporting a new campaign to allow partners to stay overnight on maternity wards.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_campaigns/a2129215-What-do-you-think-about-spouses-partners-staying-overnight-on-postnatal-wards?msgid=48200610#48200610

I feel very uncomfortable about this for lots of practical reasons, but also partly because it feels like another safe space for women being sacrificed for the convenience of men. However, I'm aware that I may be underplaying women's right to have whatever support they want.
Is this a feminist issue and how are the rights of one group of women (to feel safe) balanced against another group of women (to have the support they want)?

Oh my goodness, thecageisfull that is just horrific. Did you manage to complain afterwards at all? They should have called security to get him removed, or the bloody police if necessary.

I can't believe it would ever happen - not on a regular post-natal ward with several women staying. I just can't imagine all their fella's camped out next to them, even though I could strongly have done with more support and company after having dd, and felt quite abandoned with my new baby really. With dc2 (ds) I went home the same day - much better

Sorry to hear of your experience thecageisfull
Completely agree about the "fucking disgrace" bit regarding maternity care
(Though obviously some HCP's give good care and some women manage to have a good experience of birth and post-natal care. Far too few though)

Is the OP seriously suggesting men on a maternity ward are going to become dangerous?

You are welcome to come to work with me next week.i have many clients who are willing to meet people and talk about their experiences it may take some time.

I can introduce you to loads of women who had botched attempts to flee violence and rape because they couldn't disclose abuse due to the current visiting hours on the PN ward not being enforced.

Or several who couldn't even sleep in their own hospital bed due to a partner forcing them out of it or the ones who couldn't eat due to food being taken from them

At least 10 with babies under a year old who were sexually assaulted or raped on a PN ward

More than 25 who were physically assaulted on a PN ward

Many who reported their ex/partners verbally abusing or threatening other patients,staff and visitors

Or one who had to have a security guard posted by her bed because she happened to give birth the same day as her ex's girlfriend

Many who were bullied into leaving when they had undeclared (to HCP) complications, at least 2 of those you can't meet because they are dead.

Or a woman whose extensive work to repair the results of FGM was effectively undone by her husband less that 12 hours after birth.

The protection of women from domestic abuse and violence and the protection of safe environments for women's health will always be a feminist issue

Needs, that's heartbreaking

I posted this on the other thread, but Needs' posts underline how important these issues are to the protection of women from domestic violence and how central that concern is to feminism.

Another important consideration is educating medical professionals about the links between pregnancy and domestic violence and the importance of affording pregnant women some time with medical staff without the presence of the partner. The private room option does address the issue of privacy, but it does not address the issue of whether there is abuse in the relationship.

Needs, hope you don't mind but I have reported your post to MNHQ to see if they can make sure Birthrights see it

Needs - it's all so depressing, but thank you for sharing that.

I've spent way too much time on mat wards over my 5 difficult pg and births, about 13 weeks altogether. Would have loved dp to have been able to stay. He could have fended off some of the total arse holes I had to put up with, men and women.

needs andthecages posts sum up perfectly why men should not be staying on wards, along with others post of pastexperiance of rape/ sexual assult anfd how uncomfortable it would make them feel.

It really is awful having to put up with listening to someone else's abusive twat of a partner during visiting, never mind 24 hour a day. Not to mention the fact that these poor women should be protected from their own partners at such a vulnerable time. For some ofthem its the only calm safe time they will have

Two heartbreaking posts there form Needs and THeCageIsFull

Wouldn't it be much better to campaign for a HCA for PN wards than allow overnight guests and have to spring for a guard anyway because you don't know is tonight the night you'll need him

the dv argument isn't weak SillyLass

Nobody should be having to choose between themselves getting abused in hospital or their children at home.
Nobody should be suffering abuse from HCP's either.

the nhs can't do much to reduce dv outside the hospital, but it can and should control the extent to which abusers have opportunities to abuse inside the hospital

sillylass i'm sorry you had such a horrifying and traumatic experience at the hands of people who should have been caring for you. you are right that that shouldn't happen

I can't speak about the NHS, but in the US state I live in, physicians and other medical professionals are required to have continuing education about domestic violence and about how medical professionals can intervene to help women who may be victims. An important aspect of this training has to do with domestic violence and pregnancy. Victims of violence will sometimes disclose to medical staff, especially in a supportive setting, and be able to get help as a result.

The point is sillyLass is that it does make a difference, a significant amount of the women I referred to had a crisis plan that actively involved them using the PN ward as a way to safely leave and had spent the last few weeks of their pregnancy preparing for that.

25 years ago the vast majority of my referrals came from maternity services or via disclosure to them now its a tiny amount unfortunately the rise in husbands/partners being at all midwifery appointments the birth and open access visiting hours(or overnight visiting or not enforcing the no overnight visitors) has hugely decreased abused women's ability to self report abuse and obtain help.

We know that violence and abuse often starts with a pregnancy or other large commitment yet in our drive to involve fathers we are reducing the safety of mothers.

I've had 2 children in the last 2 years at both booking in appointments I was asked infront of their father if I was experancing abuse,how is asking me infront of him productive? It is now normal within maternity services to rarely or even never see the mother by herself

I was one of the women who sat on the campaign group that fought for these questions to be asked,I was involved in designing the policy behind them and pushing it and I'm ashamed that I did not foresee what would happen with it.

Post natal wards being closed for visitors at night is quite literally the last chance some women have before interventions can become almost punitive and its the best chance we have of cashing in on the "I have this tiny little person to protect before they have been exposed" thing that happens to many abused women. It's one of the reasons we try to make sure we have specialist midwives sitting on DV forums.and a reason why lots and lots of DV workers do other training like the breast feeding peer support.

If mothers need support over night on a hospital ward do it using HCP or support services not family members because they may be the reason why they need support

Jesus I can't believe the crassness and idiocy of asking a woman in front of her partner, if he's abusing her.

Surely everyone involved knows that this is a surefire way of ensuring that that question is merely a tick-boxing exercise and they will never get a truthful answer from a woman who is in fact being abused?

How is this being allowed to continue? Why is no-one questioning the value of this?

That is indeed what it has become basil unfortunately when you respond "well if he's abusing me I'm hardly going to announce it in front of him and chances are one of the reasons he's sat here would be to stop me,don't you think" result in the midwife deciding you are difficult

SillyLass

That's why pretty much everybody on both threads are saying improve the services.

Why does anybody need to go down the road of making them worse.

When you start normalising things people start viewing them as a right. Like them men who think its their right to attend the birth even if the mother does not want it,or the men who think its their right to stay on a PN ward even when they are being asked to leave,or attend what in essence are the woman's private medical appointments.

Visitors on PN wards are a major contributing factor in the lack of rest obtained and hassle for staff.

Random them instead of the

My gut reaction is that post-natal wards definitely should be a calm, safe women's (spouse-free) spaces.

And then I read thecage and Needs posts...that's shocking.

Oh my goodness, thecageisfull that is just horrific. Did you manage to complain afterwards at all? They should have called security to get him removed, or the bloody police if necessary

I didn't complain afterwards. I just wanted to forget it happened. I went for a home birth the next time but unfortunately ended up with a crash section and 10 days in hospital. It was a very different experience as the visiting hours were relatively short and strictly enforced.

At the time there was no-one to call security. He wasn't asked to leave. I didn't have my mobile with me to ring for help and I wasn't in a position to go far enough to the ward phone at the unattended nurses station. I did try.

I'm not surprised people want their partners there when all to often the alternative is being alone but the answer is to increase the number of HCPs, not fill the wards with a whole spectrum of untrained men looking after them and theirs. At best they will provide support to 1 person and only be mildly annoying to the other 5. More likely they will be vaguely useful to 1 person but also be absolutely shattered and a bit clueless and have a noisy whisper and keep bumping into things and not be able to work out where the toilets are so will take a 30 min shit in the patients one. At worst they will physically/verbally/sexually assault either the woman they are with or the other women.

Personally I would like to see visiting hours cut down, or a lounge provided for visiting during a certain time to allow women to rest in the bays if they want to. It's exhausting having a baby and the length of time you have to put up with visitors not conducive to getting adequate rest. My sis gave birth in a hospital which had 8am to midnight. She cried with exhaustion. Every other inpatient is allowed time to rest (except children's wards which are a special kind of hell but maternity wards are for adults)

thecageisfull, I absolutely didn't mean in any way to imply that you didn't try hard enough to get rid of him. I meant that the staff let you down in one of the worst possible ways. You shouldn't have been in that position, and when you were, the staff should have been able to remove him immediately using their security staff or the police if necessary. You shouldn't have had to struggle to get attention from the people that were tasked with looking after you.

I was just wondering whether the hospital gave you a response or an apology - if they recognised that they failed you.