Baby switches

[gwk]

Does anyone know where I can obtain statistics on babies who were given to the wrong mother on couplet units??? I work in couplet care now but have noticed this error has happened at every place I've worked...I would like to research it...it sure is devastating to the nurse when it happens and many times it is a function of understaffing ...my opinion I know... but I would love data to support my hypothesis so that I can try to institute better nurse patient ratios where I work...

[karenmcd]

I have heard that it happened where I am and the nurse basically did not check the band. Of course, she was busy and that is what she said her reason for not checking it was. It is something that could easily be prevented by simply checking the bands.

[BabyRN2Be]

We use a security system called HUGS...the mom's tag and the baby's tags are matched in L/D and if the wrong baby goes to the wrong mom it sends a signal to the central system and an alarm goes off for that room. It is also our security system so that if a baby gets near or out the door and the alarm is set off our floor goes into lockdown.

We had the wrong baby go with a social worker one time...that was pretty bad!

We have the same thing, called the "Halo System." If the wrong baby goes to wrong mom, an alarm will sound (mom is wearing the other sensor). If a baby is kidnapped or if someone tries to remove the sensor, we go into lockdown and a "Code Adam" is called.

I haven't heard of baby switching too much. I've heard mostly of babies being the victims of a potential kidnap.

[fergus51]

That's nuts! One more reason I want rooming in! I can't imagine the sh*t that would rain down if a mom breastfed the wrong baby here. Think lawsuit. Think firing.

[imenid37]

We just got halo. How do you like it? It's difficult to get used to. No baby switches at my current job, but at my former job where we had a much higher census, I do remember a couple of switches. I had a tech take a breast baby to a bottle feeding mom. Mom had some formula at her bedside and fed the breast babe a bottle. When we told her what happened and asked if we could bring out her own baby, she said no. She just wanted to go back to sleep. Breast feeding mom was NOT HAPPY, but did calm down later. We had ob doc do the circ on the baby that another doc was supposed to circ because nurse did not check the bands and neither did doc. Thankfully, it was not on a baby who was not for circ.