Sabrina Heyns laboured for 36 hours, had two failed epidurals, general anaesthesia and an emergency caesarean section.

So when nurses handed over her day-old daughter, Sophia, on October 24, Mrs Heyns didn’t feel able to cope.

“I was afraid the baby might spit up and start to choke and I would sleep through it,” she said. “I was still on morphine and drowsy. The nurse said the baby had been released into my care and couldn’t go back to the nursery. She offered to leave the baby in the hallway.”

Mrs Heyns did not feel comfortable with that.

Then King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEMH) staff made another suggestion. The 34-year-old’s husband, Deon, could stay overnight to help to care for the baby.

The Heyns seized on that idea and Mr Heyns spent two nights with his wife and baby at the hospital.

“My husband was there to hold Sophia upright after feeding to prevent her from vomiting or spitting up, and to be there to take her in and out of the bassinet, as I couldn’t,” she said.

Until recently, fathers had to leave at 8pm when the hospital closed to visitors, but last month the policy started to change. The hospital now has a pilot programme in the works to allow fathers to stay overnight, at the discretion of the hospital.

Stephanie and Daniel Willmann were the first to take advantage of the scheme. Their daughter, Eleanor, was born on October 17 in an uncomplicated delivery.

“We are both accountants from Canada,” said Mrs Willmann, 30. “We asked what the protocol was with fathers staying overnight and we were offered this option. I had a semi-private room, but my husband was allowed to stay because I did not have a roommate.”

Mr Willmann, 29, said the three nights he spent in the hospital were pretty uncomfortable.

“You couldn’t lie down,” he said. “There was a footstool but I am tall and my feet stuck over the edge. By the second or third night I certainly would have enjoyed a bed.”

But he confessed he spent much of the night just standing gawking at his new daughter.

“She was awake every couple of hours so I wouldn’t have gotten much sleep anyway,” he said. “I loved having that extra time with my daughter.”

Baby doula Fiona Dill said she entirely endorsed the programme.

“Often when couples find out the dad can’t stay, they are devastated,” Mrs Dill said. “There they are, they’ve done the most important thing of their lives and dad has to go home at 8pm.

“It just feels very strange and uncomfortable. If a mother has had a long or uncomfortable birth it is ideal that dads can stay because they can rock the baby and give it to the mother to feed.

“The staff in the maternity department are doing the best they can with the facilities they have, it’s just that the facilities are not adequate.

“If they are going to give this a proper go then they need to provide reclining chairs so dads can properly sleep.”

KEMH’s clinical director of maternal child services, Christine Virgil, said: “We recognise that this service is long overdue in our department, as fathers alongside mothers should start caring for their newborns as soon as they are born.”

The British National Health Service (NHS) began offering a similar option last August, and a 2011 study of a pilot programme at the Royal United Hospital in Bath found that having a partner present at night particularly helped women who gave birth at night or had difficult deliveries. It also benefited midwives because fathers could handle simple tasks such as nappy changing.

The KEMH programme comes with a list of rules. Fathers must not wander the halls or visit other rooms. They cannot sit in or sleep on their partner’s bed or on any other bed in the room. If fathers are disruptive they can be asked to leave.

So far, only two couples have been offered this option at KEMH.