Women disclose worst experiences sharing a room in maternity ward
By Merryn Porter |
We all know how hard it can be to get a good night's sleep in hospital. So it is hardly surprising that when a woman took to the internet to complain about being kept awake all night by someone's snoring, others would rush to share their own hellish hospital experiences.
A woman who called herself Winterfellismyhome took to the Talk forum on Mumsnet this week with a post about someone on the antenatal ward who had been snoring for 12 hours.
"Currently in for reduced movements (again) and doctors talking about a section tomorrow," the woman wrote. "A woman in the opposite bed is the loudest snorer in the world. Each time she's been woken up for monitoring, she's fallen back to sleep very quickly. I have no idea how she does it. Tell me your ward horror stories to make me not lose my mind."
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The post drew hundreds of responses, with commenters recounting their own horror stories. While many revolved around snoring, others complained about people talking loudly on their phones, arguing with their partners or ignoring visiting hours.
"Got zero sleep because the midwife at the desk was snoring," one wrote. "I remember being on a prenatal ward with a professional snorer over 30 years ago. She sounded like a freight train going through a tunnel," said another.
"I was in for suspected preeclampsia and the woman across from me snored so loud I couldn't sleep. I went over to the day room with a pillow and tried to sleep in there on one of the rubber hard chairs," wrote another.
One person said the partner of her roommate "kept peering round my curtain while I was breastfeeding" and ogling. "He did say something about my 'milky tits'. He seemed to think he'd wandered into a porn fantasy," she said, adding the last straw was when he asked his partner to perform a sex act before the midwife kicked him out.
Food was also a trigger for others. "I was on an antenatal ward for hyperemesis, attached to a drip and feeling awful after weeks of continual vomiting. The partner of the woman next to me arrived with fish and chips, and stunk the place out. That didn't help my vomiting at all," said another.
"My baby was taken into special care. While I was visiting him, the partner of the woman opposite me ate my dinner," wrote another.
Another said she was in hospital, unable to eat or drink, when a nurse did the unthinkable. "A nurse came and pulled the curtains around my bed, so I thought yet another pre-operative procedure was about to happen กช no, she proceeded to take a Mars bar out of her pocket and eat it in front of me! When she had finished it, she opened the curtains and went on her way," she said.
Another said a lady whined constantly about needing a cigarette. "After a few hours she asked me if I could watch her baby when she went for a fag. They ended up just leaving him and sauntering off."
"I was in hospital recently and the lady in the bed opposite was vaping under her dressing gown!" another wrote.
"The woman next to me was talking on her phone all night long to relatives in a different time zone and she refused to go a few steps down the ward to the lounge to do so, then spent all day snapping at people to be quiet," another said.
"I had long stays with both of my children... [and] there are so many horror stories," another wrote. "With my eldest, the woman in the bed next to me decided it would be a great idea to loudly discuss my labour with her family."
Another woman said the woman next to her had her TV on "blaringly loud and when told to turn it down, did so for a minute and then turned it back up". "The woman opposite finally cried great heaving sobs and begged her to switch it off. She then occupied herself with ringing every single person she knew and yelling her birth story down the phone."
"Young woman on the postnatal ward was too timid to tell the nurse she'd already been given laxatives so took a second dose... dreadful scream followed by an even worse smell. Poor woman," said another.
Another said she had experienced it all. "Noisy eaters, midwives who will not whisper, no matter what time it is, loud FaceTimers. Awful."
"Couple in the bed next to me on the postnatal ward. Teens, whose baby was in special care," one wrote. "The boyfriend stayed and was so unpleasant in the way he spoke to his girlfriend. Played the TV at full blast all night and yelled into his mobile when they weren't yelling at each other, or snoring like pigs. Then [when] they were asked if they wanted to go and visit their newborn in NICU, she said "Nah, we're watching TV. Love Island's on in a minute'."
"When I was in hospital after having my first I was opposite a woman who's baby needed to go in the blue light incubator thing," another wrote. "The woman was annoyed as she wanted to be discharged so that she could go to a party. She asked the midwives if she could go to the party and leave the baby alone on the ward next to her bed and then come back later."
But a few admitted it was them making the noise.
One woman said her baby was the noisiest on the ward, while she was suffering from trapped wind pains. "I woke up with a bit of a jolt but feeling a lot better. The ward was quite full and EVERYONE was looking in my direction," the woman wrote. "The nurse told me later that day that I'd let out the most enormous fart, loud enough to wake myself up. Thankfully we were discharged that day."
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