Do you have restricted visiting hours in labor and delivery?

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 18, 2009

No,no restrictions except for overnight guests for pp moms. Only a person over 18 and only ONE per room. Other than that, if they are in labor, they get unrestricted 24/7 visitation.

beautifullyblessed1 · Mar 18, 2009

We only allow two people during labor, and three pp. Oh. and the pp visitors must be over 16, unless their the moms kids.

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 18, 2009

We allow only 3 people in the 2nd stage...but other than that they can have visitors all over the place. And they often do.

mommy2boysaz · Mar 18, 2009

No restrictions during labor or delivery (we've considered setting up bleachers...) but only 1 at night for post partum (although that gets bent someetimes, too.)

It can get pretty crazy sometimes. Thankfully we have huge rooms!

lisamct · Mar 19, 2009

For a UK perspective we have no visitors in labour ward at all.

Women can have 1 support person with them during labour/birth or on occasion 2. but only with special permission from whoever is in charge and doesnt happen very often. We dont even have a waiting room for visitors in LW, if you want to hang around outside the hospital than thats up to the individual families but after the birth they are allowed in for 10 minutes only then they have to leave till official visiting times.

Post natally birth partners are allowed into the ward from 10am-9pm otherwise visiting is 2pm-4pm and 6pm-8pm. Post natally there are no overnight visitors, not even birth partners.

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 19, 2009

Wow that is strict there. I am sad there are no overnight visitors for helping PP moms out when staff are busy. I presume you have a nursery for babies to go to so moms can sleep or get respite when they are beyond tired?

lisamct · Mar 19, 2009

Wow that is strict there. I am sad there are no overnight visitors for helping PP moms out when staff are busy. I presume you have a nursery for babies to go to so moms can sleep or get respite when they are beyond tired?

No nursery's here, babies and mums are together 24/7.

Us midwives do try to help out at night on the post natal wards as much as possible but often on a night shift there is only 1 of us to up to 16 mums and babies so often its just not possible.

babyktchr, BSN, RN · Mar 20, 2009

OH MY WORD!!!!!!

angelash2005 · Mar 20, 2009

Where I delivered we could only have 3 (although 2 was prefered) during labor and delivery. There were visiting hours (grandparents had slightly different hours than any other visitor) and only your children and father could be there at night. I hated it because my parents (whom I didn't want there) called and got to stay outside of visiting hours despite how tired and ****** off I was, yet my mom (who was the only one I wanted there) was asked to leave.

GooeyRN, ADN, BSN, CNA, LPN, RN · Mar 20, 2009

No nursery's here, babies and mums are together 24/7.
Us midwives do try to help out at night on the post natal wards as much as possible but often on a night shift there is only 1 of us to up to 16 mums and babies so often its just not possible.

That doesn't sound safe!

lisamct · Mar 20, 2009

That doesn't sound safe!

I totally agree, quite often it doesnt feel safe either. They do try to have 2 midwives on a night shift but often that can be 1 MW with a support worker or, on occasion one MW on her own. Only the basics are done at night, in the main its mostly breast feeding support and dealing with the odd crisis when it happens. Day's usually have 3 MW's and a support worker (with a student or 2 thrown in for good measure)

Something else to consider is not all our mums get a single room post natally. If they deliver in our midwife led birth centre we have LDRP rooms so they are obviously single en-suites (where they will often go hame after 6hrs anyway) but, if they need to go to the post natal wards they may be sharing a room with up to 3 other women and their babies therefore overnight visitors just isnt feasible.