Closed nursery: where are your pp mag babies staying?

[rdnkmommy]

I work in a fairly busy LAD unit, averaging around 300 deliveries a month. We recently closed our nursery and implemented the Newborn Admission Nurse (NAN). It has been a rather painful growth for us but we are managing. However, we continue to struggle with postpartum magnesium sulfate moms and their babies. We are being encouraged to leave the baby in the room with mom, even is she is unattended by family. This is not sitting well with many of the staff and I am struggling to locate any EBP articles to support the practice.

What does your unit do?

[klone, MSN, RN]

Being on mag doesn't preclude the infant being in the room, but logistically it doesn't work well because our NBN is on a separate floor from our high-risk OB unit, which is where the vast majority of mag moms are. The high risk OB department does NOT do anything with babies, it's the low-risk OB/mother-baby nurses who take care of all the babies, regardless of which floor the mom delivers on. Because of the security system, it's very inconvenient to transport the infant between the two floors, so the babies generally stay in the NBN. We have admit nurses who admit all newborns, and one of them will be assigned to the infant. So if those babies aren't with their moms, then they're either in the nursery (if a nurse or resident is in there - during the day there's usually always someone in the nursery) or out at the nurses' station being babysat by whatever nurses are out there.

[estrellaCR, BSN, RN]

At my hospital, the babies await in the Newborn Nursery for the mom's arrival to Postpartum floor from the L and D Recovery Room. If mom requests to see her newborn while she is in Recovery Room (sometimes moms are there up to 24 hours, depending on condition) the newborn is transported to her to breastfeed/have some bonding time and later returned to the nursery. Postpartum floor encourages Rooming In. However in Recovery Room, No rooming in unless mom is able to take care of baby needs but usually moms on Mag Sulf or other treatments are usually very tired or weak and not very mobile so besides breastfeeding/bonding, baby is usually taken care of in newborn nursery until mom is able to tend to him/her.

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

Our mag moms can have their babies in the rooms with them as long as there is another able adult willing to be in there and help her out with her baby. If not, baby goes to the nursery (which you guys just got rid of). It wasn't always like this, but we had several instances of babies being dropped by mag mamas who were just too weak to handle them.

[southernbelle08]

Mom on PP Mag is welcomed to keep her baby IF she can care for him/her. I strongly discourage it if Mom is alone in the room and I have never run into a single issue where Mom refused to allow baby to come back to Nursery while on PP Mag. Usually she's exhausted, not feeling well, and doesn't argue letting someone else care for the baby. I can't fathom not having a nursery. There are so many situations (aside from PP Mag) that results in Mom needing to send baby to Nursery. Would be a major adjustment for my hospital as well!

[DalekRN]

All our pp mag moms room in, none of them are ever so magged out that they can't care for a baby. If so they need to probably have their mag turned down! We are baby friendly and I rarely have a baby in our newborn observation area. I would be more likely to suggest putting a baby in there if mom is super anxious and I'm worried about a panic attack...