Postnatal ward with male partners

[Badhairtoday]

Hi everyone,
I don’t want to debate whether other women should be allowed partners staying overnight on postnatal wards but this really gave me anxiety in my last birth (I won’t go into details of what happened but was too ‘out of it’ to say anything at the time)

I want to know what my options are this time. I will be speaking to someone from the hospital to discuss but wanted to know if I have any rights at all to challenge this, legally even.
I’m usually high risk so have to give birth on labour ward so inevitably will end up on postnatal ward for a number of days. I know they aren’t going to kick out the men for me but wondering If I have the right to ask to be on a female only bay? Side rooms are only for those with a clinical need.

Another hospital would be ideal but it’s too far away and I don’t see why I need to inconvenience myself because the hospital aren’t taking my feelings into account.

Would be great if someone can help. Have contacted various birth rights type organisations but haven’t had any response.

Thank you

Interested to know the answer to this. I’m 28 weeks pregnant and don’t want to share a ward with unknown males.

I discharged myself 6 hours after my last birth so stayed on the labour ward and will hopefully do the same again but want to know my rights if I need to go to postnatal.

Hey sorry you’re going through this worry too. I posted on the normal part of Mumsnet and instead of people answering my actual question or attempting to help in anyway I got a tonne of women telling me all the reasons why they were grateful they were allowed to have their partners stay over and why I should be ok with a curtain for privacy etc. It was shocking and upsetting.

Unfortunately my babies are always tiny and need further monitoring otherwise I’d consider homebirth even though I’d feel much more confident at the hospital with immediate medical help

I would speak to your midwife. If you have had a previous trauma or bad experience then there is a reason why you might be entitled to a private room rather than being on a ward with other people. That's not to say you should have had a trauma for your feelings to be valid, but I imagine the hospital would be more open to accommodating you if they deemed there to be a reason.

You haven't mentioned when you are due but it's also worth remembering that visiting rules have been changed in most places due to covid. Where I am for example fathers or birth partners are allowed to stay with mother and baby until just after birth and then have to leave and book a two hour slot during visiting time, they are not allowed to stay the whole time.

Hi thanks, the ‘lead nurse’ will be contacting me from the hospital but didn’t want to be fobbed off so just wanting to do some research beforehand. I know lots of women want their partners which is fair enough but others who don’t want to share should have the choice. I reluctantly got my partner to stay the final night just to ease my anxiety so I didn’t feel outnumbered and he did help a lot as baby was struggling to feed but I much rather he have been at home with our eldest who needed him more than I did.

Sadly I don’t think they’d be able to ‘guarantee’ me a side room which is what’s worrying me, I can imagine turning up and they tell me they’re all occupied with those who have clinical need to do so (which of course I respect). When I had my first even though it was a traumatic birth and postnatal ward was bad enough but compared to this experience honestly I can’t bare it again.

I am not yet pregnant, we will be ttc soon but I hate not knowing beforehand if that makes sense.

I also cover for religious reasons but my needs for privacy aren’t more important than a woman who simply isn’t comfortable with sleeping near random men. It’s a matter of principle which is why I want to know if there are any legal rights all women have no matter what religion etc.

I feel for you OP. Those of us fortunate enough to have had our children before the NHS decided that women's boundaries about privacy dignity and safety mattered less than male demands to access sex segregated spaces are watching in horror at what is happening to younger women.
Of course, it is as ever competing rights between those women who are desperate to have their partner's support / women with abusive men who are not allowed privacy and the demands of other women who want the privacy and safety of a woman only space.
I've not seen any of the knowledgeable women who understand the application of the law relating to single sex spaces talk about maternity wards but hopefully one of them will be along soon.

Thanks for your input. I had my first in 2010 and they didn’t allow them to stay over then. And the (much better funded) hospital in the next city don’t allow them to stay either.

I just wish somebody had informed me beforehand so I could kick up a fuss but sadly once you’ve had baby you become so occupied with baby that you put your feelings to the side and get on with it. And you don’t realise until you’re in that situation how it will actually make you feel. I’m not afraid of men or talking to them etc I’m a confident outgoing person but this sort of thing really gets to me as we are given no choice as women.

I also felt scared to complain to the staff about their behaviour incase one of the men intimidated me. I think it was a bay of 5 beds and it seemed like there were 4 men there.

I have done some reading on single sex ward breaches (as the default for nhs is single sec and not mixed) and having men sleep in a postnatal ward doesn’t count as a breach, which is pathetic.

Yes I know what you mean about abusive men. In my culture there’s a lot of that sadly and in the cubicle next to me the man spoke to the midwife the whole time about his partners care and I didn’t hear a word from the woman. Maybe there was a language barrier but it made me quite angry just hearing him ask all these questions but didn’t seem to give his partner a voice and I didn’t hear the midwife even speak directly to the woman it was all done directly through the man. Many prefer to stay over not because they’re hands on dads but because the prefer to have control, part of the reason many of the women are not learning English. The men are given too much importance on postnatal ward. I understand why that’s happening because of father groups but it’s not helping women, even though many will say it’s great men can come and ‘help’ they are ignorant of the dark side of relationships.

There must be plenty of women who do not have a partner staying over. Surely it makes sense to put them together in a bay.

I wonder what the effect of doubling numbers is on capacity of bays.?

I had my baby in June last year and unfortunately had 2 stays on the post-natal ward. No men stayed overnight that I could see, probably due to Coronavirus. I had a long shuffle to the bathroom so passed a lot of people there and back. With the extra restrictions, I doubt partners will be allowed to stay longer than necessary now. Visiting officially ended at 9pm and everyone was definitely gone by then.

So sorry that you felt unsafe. I can understand why. A lot of women want their partners with them, which is more than understandable, but maybe a lot of them don't pause to realise that the women around them don't know their partners. They have to sleep in a room with a man they've never met before, whilst in a vulnerable state too, and they're alone for whatever reason, it can probably feel quite odd sleeping in a room with twice as many people as you imagined.

Some NHS hospitals will get you a private room for a fee. Might be worth enquiring.

I am so shocked that they have changed this - I had my last child in 2008 and didn't stay in more than an hour because I was in shock and they couldn't find any blankets so I went home to get comfortable but with my older children they were extremely strict about partners having to leave at a certain time and I was glad of that.

There was a mix of age-groups on my ward so some very young people as well as my age - having seen some of the partners I certainly wouldn't have felt comfortable trying to get to sleep/move around with them around.

Do we know how/when this changed?

Ex midwife here, and I'm so glad I don't work in that branch of the NHS any more. I couldn't deal with this at all. I think it's disgraceful though I know two minutes over on AIBU not to want other women's partners sleeping next to me on the post natal ward will trigger an avalanche of "how selfish you are, I absolutely needed my partner there" type responses. Women get little enough care and rest after giving birth but to have some random man snoring and farting in a chair two feet from your head would be intolerable.
I also think there are significant safeguarding issues around this, not to mention issues relating to women in abusive /controlling relationships. Why the hell aren't the men at home making sure the house is clean and fridge well stocked ready for when their partner and child come out of hospital?

I'll answer my own question on this - I well remember one couple, the wife's waters broke in the night and flooded the bed. She came in and had the baby. The manchild moved into the spare bedroom until she came home to find the ruined mattress and bedding left untouched. Offer a man like that the chance to move into the postnatal ward and he has the perfect excuse for being a lazy slob!
Oh, and his mil was outraged and gave him more than a piece of her mind.

Can you pay for a private room?

The reason why, in my opinion, so many hospitals allow men overnight in postnatal wards is because the postnatal care is so appalling. The men are there on many cases to fill that gap in care for women who are often not very mobile due to caesarian or instrumental birth. Better postnatal care would lead to less need for men to be there overnight. I work with postnatal women and the most common complaint is that the postnatal care is awful and even trauma inducing in some cases.

I am aware of why men are allowed and why women want them there so I wasn’t contesting that, nor am I trying to ban them I want to know what options there are for women like me. This thread is about the rights of those women who don’t want to share with a random man. So please I don’t mean to be rude but can we stick to the topic of whether women have any other option or are they compelled to deal with this set up.

No unfortunately don’t get an option to pay for private at my hospital which doesn’t really solve the problem for those women who can’t afford it.

From my reading this started being allowed in 2015. Obviously not all hospitals follows this but unfortunately the one near me does.

EvilEdna1 have any women complained of the opposite, the behaviour of some men and the lack of privacy, gaps in curtains, shuffling curtains, no enforcement of rules etc cos when I mentioned to my health visitor she told me lots of women she spoke to had a problem with it but didn’t really talk about solutions

When I had my two, dads were allowed unrestricted access, so technically they could have slept in the ward. To be honest though none did. It was probably too noisy and disruptive for them. For a "western" woman, the shuffle to the toilet in my nightie in front of strange men was bad enough. If I was from a culture of being required to be covered in the presence of men it would have been torturous.

Men are allowed to stay on postnatal wards now?!

That is truly awful! Safeguarding, privacy, dignity, trauma from male violence, cultural and religious sensitivities and coercive control in relationships are all reasons why I absolutely can’t understand how this ever became a thing!

So sorry OP and others who have this as an additional worry during childbearing. I hope that someone with legal knowledge can offer some help. I would have thought that at least maternity and gynaecology would still be woman only spaces!

I think women as a group may need to start campaigning generally in this context and in others as they will all support each other, that women's spaces now need to move into two types. Those for female people wishing to be in a mixed sex space, which will admit male people in the range of reasons and situations where this may be requested, and those for female people who need a single sex space.

There is no reason for either group's needs not to be met; it just requires differentiating the space.

I would speak to your midwife. If you have had a previous trauma or bad experience then there is a reason why you might be entitled to a private room rather than being on a ward with other people.

I’d agree with this. I was given a private room so that DH could stay overnight and not be sent home because (due to various reasons I won’t go into) it was felt that while physically I didn’t need him to be there, mentally I did. I know yours is the opposite issue but I guess my point is that they gave me the room for mental health reasons.
Obviously it still comes down to availability on the day though.

Just to add, and with a lot of sadness, I know this will not be of any help at all to female people whose male partners will not allow them the choice to be alone in case they seek help to escape, or whose presence is not welcome or will not permit the woman the rest she may need.

But no one seems to feel this is a problem worth other people putting themselves out for.

I can’t believe men are allowed to stay overnight on postnatal wards. I had my baby 6 weeks ago and they were booted out at 8pm (Coronavirus related) so I didn’t really think about them staying the night. While I personally would have loved my partner there overnight I would have hated other people’s being there - so surely the only fair and safe thing to do is have no men overnight? When women are vulnerable and maybe establishing breastfeeding / dealing with catheters etc, they shouldn’t have to worry about strange men being close by as well.

I’m so sorry you’re in this position OP. I hope your midwife is able to come up with a solution. I would expect you to be given a side room given your past trauma, but I understand that it is a cause of concern that one might not be available on the night.

I would contact the local NHS trust, and ask them for their policy on this in writing and ask what provision there is for women who don't want to share a ward with a man that isn't an in-patient. PALS may also be able to help in guiding you.

It appears that safeguarding vulnerable women has taken a back seat to wokery on this issue.