Hospital visitors after birth

shreko

Princess Calla wrote: »

It's hard on your second and subsequent births as someone has to be minding the other kids, so unless you swear them to secrecy too everyone will still know

I was actually talking to my brother in law about this the other day, they live far away so they were not part of my visiting entourage.

He genuinely couldn't see the problem with visiting though, (they have kids). I was trying to explain how out of sorts, vulnerable, embarrassed I felt and he just couldn't comprehend it at all.

I don't think people realise how completely overwhelming the whole thing can be.

We should be able to enjoy our new baby. Not be sitting there with a smile stapled to our faces, wondering what parts of us are being leaky and messy. Talking about our bits n bobs when never before have our bits n bobs been up for discussion... I found the whole thing really surreal and not in a good way

Totally agree, all my in laws kept telling me not to worry and not be embarrassed but its easy to say that when you are not the one in the bed. I think people just completely look beyond the mother and only care about holding a tiny baby. 2 of my visitors who just HAD to come and hold her straight away have actually never gone out of their way to come and see her since.

This time I have already arranged to have the girl from the creche who babysits for us bring him home that day and stay with him until my husband gets home. Ill be having a planned section so obviously that makes things a lot easier to plan thankfully !

witchgirl26

I think I was lucky in the sense that my OH helped enforce and sort out visiting as well as relatives having some cop on. Baby was born in the morning so he told people they couldn't come in until the evening visiting at the earliest. We had his 2 brothers, my sister and my mam come in. That was in. And they alternated around so there wasn't too many at once. And only stayed about 40 mins each. I appreciated the visitors (allowed me to go get a quick shower knowing baby was well looked after) but glad they had the cop on not to stay too long.

Yellowmac

From recent experience (January) Rotunda enforces their policy strictly. So your partner can be there all day til 9ish at night (they can stay a bit later if it's your first night with the baby). Grandparents or other kids during the day 2-4. Open visiting 6.30-8. However it is always strictly 2 visitors at a time - visitors have to get a card at security so they may be asked to wait til your previous guests leave and exchange the card with them. The ward nurse manager will ask people to leave if there are too many. Security do a sweep at about 9pm to check visitors have left. Tbh it is really necessary as you could be on a 6+ bed ward, so with all the women babies and visitors the number of people in the room could get out of hand and it's sooo warm in there that the body heat would knock you out! Be prepared to sweat

seamus

Rotunda has a lot of footfall, so they have to be pretty strict on it.

They're more strict in the public wards. We went semi-private on the first two, and it was a ward of 3 or 4 beds. While security came up and did their "sweep", I was there till 11pm a couple of times and nobody said anything. I expect if you were making noise though the nurses wouldn't be shy about calling security to ask you to leave. By contrast friends who'd gone public did indeed find security hoofing people out at the set times.

On the first, a number of people were able to visit and call up to the ward without a visitor card or anything. On the second, the hospital was on lockdown due to the winter vomiting bug, so it was strictly partners and children only. My mother in law was spitting feathers about not being able to go in.

We happened to be talking about this last night; my wife quite enjoyed the quiet of the hospital on lockdown. When there were visitors, she too found herself feeling very vulnerable and not altogether comfortable - people arriving decked out in fancy clothes and perfume, and she sitting on the bed, leaking and hurting and generally feeling like crap, but expected to play the beaming happy mother.

We're going in again in a week and a half, and I'd be surprised if the Rotunda isn't locked down again with Coronavirus. My wife's main concern this time is that I won't get to spend as much time with her because I'll be minding the other pair, so she might feel lonely.

shreko

seamus wrote: »

We happened to be talking about this last night; my wife quite enjoyed the quiet of the hospital on lockdown. When there were visitors, she too found herself feeling very vulnerable and not altogether comfortable - people arriving decked out in fancy clothes and perfume, and she sitting on the bed, leaking and hurting and generally feeling like crap, but expected to play the beaming happy mother.

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Couldnt have put it better myself. When I had my baby it was roasting outside and all these people were coming in in their floaty dresses and tans and lovely hair and I was in the bed feeling (and looking !) the worst Ive ever felt in my life. I really could have done without it !

Neyite

My ward was like a train station, totally unregulated amount of visitors. Dads could stay as long as they liked and the whole world it seemed could come in and gawk at you if they wanted. I was elated to be home in my clean quiet house where my baby and I weren't getting woken every 10 minutes.

Thankfully my visitors came in pretty much one lump on the second day. Half an hour to have a cuddle then off they went, leaving me in peace until I got home a few weeks later. I'd prefer that to a relay team of visitors for hours on end.

There really needs to be a change in attitude towards visiting people in hospital. Not just for maternity but for all patients. I know it used to be the done thing when hospitals were boring and you were bed-bound so couldn't get to the common room to watch a bit of tv, and welcomed the bit of company but these days with technology there's lots of ways to keep yourself occupied. But people forget that patients need lots of rest after a big illness or operation, or having a baby! And it helps with infection control too.

For any other reason you can go into hospital without telling anyone and people respect your privacy and wishes but for maternity it seems that goes out the window. These days I won't visit a new mother. I send her a text congratulating her and tell her I'll pop in to meet baby when she's home and settled and when it suits her.