# Male NICU nurses?



## WantsALittle1

I mean *no* offense by this, so please no replies putting me on blast! Just putting it out there to see if I'm alone in this feeling.

I am uncomfortable with my daughter having a male NICU nurse and I feel really awful, but I think I'm going to request only female nurses from here on out. Does anyone else feel this way? 

I am all for workplace gender equality, and yes, I realize that there could be sickos of any gender. I just feel like the odds are better with my daughter in the care of a woman and, to me, a female NICU nurse is like a substitute mother. It feels very natural, and while I don't like all the female nurses she's had, I do generally feel more comfortable with the idea of her being cared for by women. Also, I really don't feel comfortable BFing or having my boobs out in the open around a guy! I have a male OB/GYN, and would trust him with my life. I absolutely adore him and wouldn't/couldn't replace him! There's something different about a male caretaker in the NICU setting because of all the intimate (BFing, cuddling, diaper-changing) moments I'm trying to share with my daughter. It just feels weird to me to have a dude looming at her bedside when I'm BFing. I don't feel the same weirdness when it's a woman...


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## AP

Tbh Hun I am not sure many would agree with you. I would say the best NICU we had was a male, he was by far the most fabulous nurse we met there. (some members here know who I am talking about would no doubt agree) I used to walk in and he'd be singing songs to the babies, making the neonatal journey less clinical as such an trying to re-create the norm. None of the female nurses did that. None

I did feel a little worried about the bfing but with practice and confidence I did express and bf in front of him. He's seen that kind of thing all his career, it's not even an issue??


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## dizz

To be honest - with the bad treatment we had through the NICU and transitional care system - I'd have preferred to deal with males a lot of the time... we had lots of examples of the worst of female behaviour (it was like being back in my all-girl convent school again) snidey digs, bitchiness, vindictiveness (this was more when I was in labour though). It was the male doctors and male staff who were straightforward with us and honest - even to the point of saying, "yes, this bit's crap - but after this, comes X Y and Z" and I preferred that to people trying to empathise and not giving me a straight answer.

The intimate care bit doesn't bother me, the breastfeeding and expressing angle didn't bother me - I hit the point where I was sat there with the pump on no matter who was in the room... to any nurse a patient is a patient is a patient - and it's hardly as if NICU is ever going to be an environment where there's one staff member only around - the places are like Clapham Junction even at the quietest times!

And having seen the attitude of many of the staff (I've said before our experience was very much a bad 'un though) - substitute mother ain't in the vocabulary of many who work there at the best of times!


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## Ozzieshunni

When Alex was in the NICU, the worse midwives I dealt with were female. The males tended to be very helpful. In fact, I prefer male doctors to female ones. I think you need to look at the level of care your child is receiving and not the gender of the person giving the care :)


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## dizz

Ozzieshunni said:


> When Alex was in the NICU, the worse midwives I dealt with were female. The males tended to be very helpful.* In fact, I prefer male doctors to female ones*. I think you need to look at the level of care your child is receiving and not the gender of the person giving the care :)

Oh god particularly the one who looked like a young Richard Gere...


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## Ozzieshunni

dizz said:


> Ozzieshunni said:
> 
> 
> When Alex was in the NICU, the worse midwives I dealt with were female. The males tended to be very helpful.* In fact, I prefer male doctors to female ones*. I think you need to look at the level of care your child is receiving and not the gender of the person giving the care :)
> 
> Oh god particularly the one who looked like a young Richard Gere...Click to expand...

:rofl:

My distaste for female medical professionals comes from one telling me I was too fat to get pregnant and another telling me I shouldn't hold my child so much :wacko:


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## WantsALittle1

OP here, thanks for all the earnest replies. It really doesn't help that I haven't had a male nurse at our NICU that I've clicked with... This is odd for me! Most of my friends are guys. In fact, my two best friends are guys. I really don't have a lot of female friends or female persons of importance in my life, and it's always been that way. I've had weird feelings about 2/4 male nurses that my daughter has been assigned, and I assumed yesterday that this meant that, deep down, I had a problem with male caretakers looking after my daughter. I assumed this because I have NOT had problems with 50% of the female nurses to whom she's been assigned. Looking at it now, I don't think it's the fact that they are male. I think I honestly just don't click with half of the male nurses in our NICU and it's probably just a coincidence.

I don't have a problem with male medical professionals--my OB is a man, and I wouldn't have it any other way!


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## Agiboma

TBH im with you OP i prefferd the femals and so did my son, he always did better with them. Once a male aws looking after him he would alsways pull out his tubes more frequently and just misbehave. I do think in terms of nuturing, bf'ing i was way more comforteble with females.


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## jbolady

I felt a little uncomfortable with the Male Nurse taking care of my daughter as well. I'm not sure why but I did. I'd cringe when I'd know he was the nurse on duty, especially if I was unable to visit that day.


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## Liesje

I personally would not have a problem with it but I guess it's all down to one's past experiences. 
If it makes you uncomfortable, just tell them due to personal reasons, you'd rather have female only caretakers. They're there to care for you as well as your baby and you have enough to worry about. 
With that said, in my experience with my baby, the male nurses were always the most gentle and caring. My baby had to have a lot of blood taken and he always seemed way more comfortable in the male nurses' "big strong hands"... I guess they feel more secure with them? :shrug: with the females he was always flopping around and crying.


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## dizz

There's ONE transitional support worker that, should I end up in the situation again (I intend to fight all possible transfers to the hospital in question if we end up with another preemie though) that I'll adamantly refuse to have any involvement with the treatment of my baby.

She's female, she's utterly rude, callous and uncaring (and a little birdie told me - with a string of complaints about her attitude). She's the only one - and she will NOT touch any child of mine again... no doubt should the situation arise - the hospital will tell me I have no rights to restrict who nurses my child and call social services on me though.


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## Srrme

In all honesty, I preferred the male NICU nurses over the females! Majority of the female nurses were rough with my baby, but the male nurses were not -- they were very, very gentle, soft spoken, etc. My baby was rarely assigned a male nurse though, because they normally put them on their most critical babies.


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## Srrme

dizz said:


> There's ONE transitional support worker that, should I end up in the situation again (I intend to fight all possible transfers to the hospital in question if we end up with another preemie though) that I'll adamantly refuse to have any involvement with the treatment of my baby.
> 
> _She's female, she's utterly rude, callous and uncaring (and a little birdie told me - with a string of complaints about her attitude). She's the only one - and she will NOT touch any child of mine again... no doubt should the situation arise - the hospital will tell me I have no rights to restrict who nurses my child and call social services on me though._



That's crazy! We had a few nurses like that, and we complained about them immediately. Needless to say, they were no assigned to our baby any more!


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## WantsALittle1

dizz said:


> There's ONE transitional support worker that, should I end up in the situation again (I intend to fight all possible transfers to the hospital in question if we end up with another preemie though) that I'll adamantly refuse to have any involvement with the treatment of my baby.
> 
> She's female, she's utterly rude, callous and uncaring (and a little birdie told me - with a string of complaints about her attitude). She's the only one - and she will NOT touch any child of mine again... no doubt should the situation arise - the hospital will tell me I have no rights to restrict who nurses my child and call social services on me though.

They can really do that! As far as I understand, it's the hospital's job to do everything in their power to accommodate the parents' requests, and that *includes* preferences in nursing/care staff. Have you complained about her to the charge nurse?


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## WantsALittle1

Srrme said:


> In all honesty, I preferred the male NICU nurses over the females! Majority of the female nurses were rough with my baby, but the male nurses were not -- they were very, very gentle, soft spoken, etc. My baby was rarely assigned a male nurse though, because they normally put them on their most critical babies.

See, in my case it was the opposite. The first male nurse we had handled my daughter in a way that made both my husband and I *very* uncomfortable. He was careless in his handling and was ignoring her feedback about the way she was being held. The guy was generally sweet and well-intentioned, and I know he's not the only one who feels this way about babies (i.e that most people coddle them too much), but sometimes I think that having decades of nursing experience makes nurses (male and female) think they know it all.

My daughter was doing all kinds of distress signaling--arms flailing, back arching, head jutting forward, and he was just ignoring it, turned around talking to me while flopping her around like a chicken on a spit, with no neck or back support. SO angry was I...

TBH, it was probably this single experience that made me feel uneasy with the male NICU nurses. I don't know why, but when something negative happens we tend to latch onto novel contextual cues (I've never had a male nurse before) that co-occurred with the experience but had nothing to do with the actual bad part. This guy was sort of an ambassador for male NICU nurses as far as I'm concerned, and the first impression was not a good one.


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## dizz

WantsALittle1 said:


> dizz said:
> 
> 
> There's ONE transitional support worker that, should I end up in the situation again (I intend to fight all possible transfers to the hospital in question if we end up with another preemie though) that I'll adamantly refuse to have any involvement with the treatment of my baby.
> 
> She's female, she's utterly rude, callous and uncaring (and a little birdie told me - with a string of complaints about her attitude). She's the only one - and she will NOT touch any child of mine again... no doubt should the situation arise - the hospital will tell me I have no rights to restrict who nurses my child and call social services on me though.
> 
> They can really do that! As far as I understand, it's the hospital's job to do everything in their power to accommodate the parents' requests, and that *includes* preferences in nursing/care staff. Have you complained about her to the charge nurse?Click to expand...

We're long-since out of there now thank God, but I'm pregnant again and despite having in big bold letters all over my current maternity notes "DO NOT TRANSFER TO X HOSPITAL" (thankfully there are two in my city) - if I end up with another preemie and it's anything but the most straightforward of cases - they're likely to try to send us back there (with me clinging to all the furniture in protest like a toddler tantrum on the way out of the door no doubt!)

Seriously that woman left a tube fed baby I couldn't get an aspirate off to check the tube before feeding her so buzzed for help crying with hunger while she finished reading Heat magazine, then wandered up and said "I'm not going to help you."


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## Liesje

How can they call social services on you for requesting another nurse?


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## Dinah93

I really don't think gender makes a difference to care, you can have unpleasant personalities of both genders. There were no male nicu nuses on our unit, out of 48 staff, but every doctor was male and they were fantastic handling and engaging with our LO. It does make me sad that a few people have said they don't trust male nurses, my husband is currently applying to go back to uni to do a second degree in pediatric nursing - he's always been great with children - and it does upset me that there could be the assumption that a man nursing has such a high risk of their being an ulterior motive. Of course you read about patients, young and old, being mistreated, but I have to believe this is the exception rather than a commonplace incident otherwise every hospital would have every child's room on cctv to monitor the staff and parents would be there 24/7.


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## toothfairyx

I didn't come across any male nurses but my OH commented how uncomfortable some of the female nurses made him feel, like unwelcome, ignored and irrelevant in one of the hospitals.


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## WantsALittle1

toothfairyx said:


> I didn't come across any male nurses but my OH commented how uncomfortable some of the female nurses made him feel, like unwelcome, ignored and irrelevant in one of the hospitals.

OP here--we had this experience too. A lot of them were very patronizing to my husband.


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## katy1310

AtomicPink said:


> Tbh Hun I am not sure many would agree with you. I would say the best NICU we had was a male, he was by far the most fabulous nurse we met there. (some members here know who I am talking about would no doubt agree) I used to walk in and he'd be singing songs to the babies, making the neonatal journey less clinical as such an trying to re-create the norm. None of the female nurses did that. None
> 
> I did feel a little worried about the bfing but with practice and confidence I did express and bf in front of him. He's seen that kind of thing all his career, it's not even an issue??

I know who you mean :haha: He was lovely though, he was so so nice with Sophie, and I loved the way he sang to the babies. You're so right, he made the neonatal journey much less clinical - and he was so lovely and gentle with the babies, much nicer than some of the female nurses (I bet you know who I am thinking of right now...). I didn't express or BF in front of him, but I didn't start BF Sophie till she was nearly into special care, and he only looked after her in intensive care and the first couple of weeks in HDU. I don't think I'd have been comfortable with it - but I wasn't comfortable doing it in front of anyone!


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## Crayz

I actually liked the male nurses MUCH better than the females. My daughter had one male nurse in particular who was always cuddling with her when I would come in if she had a bad day (like when she had that horrible eye exam). He always kept me updated on how she was doing. I had to always ask the female nurses, and they would get really frustrated with me when I'd ask a lot of questions or get really upset over something. Plus they always tried to force feed her, which I hated. The male nurses were the only ones who could get her to eat without screaming.

That was just my experience. There were maybe 3 female nurses that I liked, but all the male nurses were just much more nurturing.

I actually caught my favorite nurse sniffing a baby's head while he fed him, and said, "Mmmmmmm, you smell nice." You know, because baby head is like, the BEST SMELL EVER. It sounds weird, but it was a sweet moment he shared with that baby, and he didn't think anyone saw it.

I do get the whole BF thing though. I felt bad for one of the mommy's in there. The one male nurse would always sit there and talk to her while she would BF and he had that pervy quality to him. That doesn't mean he was a perv, he just gave ME that vibe.

It's okay for you to feel that way. It's your child, and you do whatever you think is going to get her the best care. My experience was just better with the men.


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## Crayz

BTW Katy-your daughter is so GORGEOUS!!


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## menb

We only had one male nurse while in NICU and he did wonderfully with our twins. We even requested him a couple of times. I think the gender was less important/of an issue than the quality of care and concern. We had some pretty clinical female nurses and that's just the worst.


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## ahcigar1

When my LO was in the NICU she had 2 male nurses and the remainder were female. I much prefered the male ones over the females. Partly because they treated me as a mother so badly. Telling me that after over 24 hours that I still couldn't even touch my daughter, and after I finally was able to hold her for the first time she fell asleep in my arms and they pushed for me to leave so she could get good rest. While the males were much more understanding towards me. When she had one of the male nurses they allowed me to sit and enjoy her some more rather than rushing me away and making me feel uncomfortable. And as far as the care towards LO I noticed pretty even amount between the male and female nurses. I didn't notice any one doing more than another or less than another.

To me the sex of the nurse doesn't matter. What does matter is their general attitude about things and how they take care of situations.


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## New2Bumps

The nurse that took care of Ethan on neo-natal was a guy and he was amazing with him. I wonder if I'd have felt more threatened with a 'surrogate mom' kind of female nurse figure. This guy was brilliant and so so caring and in touch with the babies but I never felt like he was trying to take my place and I often wonder if I'd have been jealous of a female nurse getting more cuddles than me at first.
With the bfing I'd feel uncomfy with a guy around and I'd just have asked for privacy! As it was waiting until bfing was established for us would have meant a much extended stay and I wanted him home x


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## katy1310

Crayz said:


> BTW Katy-your daughter is so GORGEOUS!!

aww thank you so much :cloud9:

xx


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## dizz

New2Bumps said:


> The nurse that took care of Ethan on neo-natal was a guy and he was amazing with him. I wonder if I'd have felt more threatened with a 'surrogate mom' kind of female nurse figure. This guy was brilliant and so so caring and in touch with the babies but I never felt like he was trying to take my place and I often wonder if I'd have been jealous of a female nurse getting more cuddles than me at first.
> With the bfing I'd feel uncomfy with a guy around and I'd just have asked for privacy! As it was waiting until bfing was established for us would have meant a much extended stay and I wanted him home x

The ONE staff member that actually respected my privacy when chained to the breastpump in the hospital and didn't rampage through the curtain (leaving the damned things open so I had to stop pumping and go and get up and close them again...which was SERIOUSLY driving me insane by the middle of week 2) was a (gorgeous - gawd he was edible!) male doctor who heard the pump going and came back later. Everyone else - from the cleaners to the hospital rats just rampaged in regardless (and saying "knock knock" as you yank the curtains back doesn't help!).

Mental note to add to hospital bag for this time - bulldog clips to clip the damned thing shut!


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## Sam182

The most competent NICU nurse was a male at our hospital. I don't think you should descriminate against someone because of their gender. Think about how he might feel.


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## WantsALittle1

Sam182 said:


> The most competent NICU nurse was a male at our hospital. I don't think you should descriminate against someone because of their gender. Think about how he might feel.

It's not discrimination. It's a personal comfort level thing, and I was just wondering if other women felt the same discomfort. I asked not to be judged or blasted in the original post.


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## Poorah

In our unit there were only two male nurses. One of them regularly looked after M and he was brilliant. He had a soft spot for her, would let us know of her antics on a night shift, was always very respectful when I was bf'ing on the ward (not that I was remotely bothered) and would chat away to us. He had his own kids and was just a nice guy, I was more than happy for him to look after M. Sadly not all of the female nurses were as compassionate towards or M or my husband and I. 

The one thing that did make me snigger was that the male nurses were always referred to as doctors by visitors/newbies. Just shows you years or feminism/equality later we're fine with a male doctor, but are suspicious of a male nurse.


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## Liesje

I would guess people are more uncomfortable with their first child being cared for by a male than any subsequent children... I don't quite know how to explain it but once you've changed enough babies, you start to forget they even have genitalia. I doubt anyone male or female is going to pay much attention to it while they're changing the diapers. At first I was a little weirded out by what I saw (because I hadnt changed diapers before) but now I just get in there, clean everythig up, check for diaper rash and apply cream if necessary and I'm totally detached from what I'm even looking at. I'm sure it's the same for caretakers of any kind.


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## Lottie86

I really couldn't give a damn, we had a couple of male nurses at our hospital and they were fab. I care only about the quality of care a nrse gives and not what they have in their trousers


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## chelseav1213

Ive not seen one male nurse at our NICU but ive loved every female nurse hes had :)


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## toothfairyx

I would be on total agreement here with Lottie and Sam here.


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## melissa84

I guess it depends on the personality of the nurse. Luckily we had a really nice male nurse. I felt really comfortable when he showed me how to change her diaper, and even breastfeed, because I was totally clueless. One of the male doctors on the other hand was curt and patronizing and I didn't want to be around him at all.


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