"Please change this."

I had a planned caesarean section for my second child in September 2023. My previous child had been born via an emergency section in the middle of a lockdown and I was looking forward to a better hospital experience without social distancing measures in place. Sadly the experience on the postnatal ward at the Princess Royal Maternity Unit was so overcrowded that I pushed for the earliest possible discharge, less than 24 hours after I arrived on the ward.

On the postpartum ward, I was one of six people with a baby each and there was nowhere near enough room for all of us in one room, quite aside from the non-stop noise of that many people and babies being in the same place.

I had my baby six months ago and without a doubt the worst night's sleep I've had in that time was on that ward - and my daughter slept quite well, my issue was the other people (I do not blame the other patients!).

The whole environment was far, far too busy and noisy, both because of the other patients and their visitors. I had a few nights stay on an antenatal ward earlier in my pregnancy and the difference was marked - antenatally we were 4 to a room, not always with full occupancy, and even with admissions at strange times of night, it was still a comparatively peaceful environment with lots of opportunity for rest. Not the case on the postpartum ward.

Visitors were a real issue because of how little space there was between the beds. I was brought onto the ward in the late afternoon, and after my partner went home to look after our older child, I was by myself. I was happy with being left having skin to skin and establishing breastfeeding with my daughter, but was unable to stand up as I was recovering from a C section delivery.

Multiple times other patients' visitors and on one occasion a midwife left the curtains to my bed open, leaving me open to the world with nothing on except a pair of maternity knickers. Most of these were accidents, although one visitor's children were running up and down pulling the curtains as they ran.

At one point I had to call to one of the other patient's partners as they were passing to please close my curtain for me as I couldn't move to do it myself (I don't think it would have been a good use of a midwife's clearly busy time to do this!).

I can't quite believe I'm typing this, but I would sooner have had the experience of my lockdown postpartum ward again, even though my partner could only come for two hours a day, no-one else could come in and it was so much easier to get on with getting to know my first child - and better sleep as a result.

A secondary issue to the overcrowding and lack of privacy was the sheer heat on the ward. I know that hospitals are always warm, and it's important to keep newborns warm, but when the heat is so much that the babies can't stay awake for a proper feed when you're trying to get feeding established, it raises questions.

The staff on the ward were reasonably responsive to any queries I had although were clearly very busy. Some people around me were e.g. waiting a long time for painkillers.

They were helpful in getting everything together for me to be discharged once I'd said I wanted to leave the day after my section (to get back to my household of three adults and two children for some peace!).

In summary: six to a room is too many. I was lucky in that this was my second child, so I was confident enough to push hard for an early discharge. Everyone else I know who had their baby at the PRM when I did had similarly horrible (and worse) experiences with the overcrowding / related lack of staffing. Please change this.