Low Census

Not us! Busy, busy, busy for the past few months. Lots of high-order multiples, a few micros, quite a few MAS/PPHN kids. We also recently started admitting any baby born under 36 weeks. We used to send babies that were over 35+1 (and otherwise healthy) to the NBN.

We're up and down up and down but in general this year we are down.

Lot's of late pre-term babies. Darn elective c-sections.

We have been waaaay down the past 3 mos. We are at 50-60% capacity and the "oldtimers" haven't seen it this low in 15-20 years! We do expect it to turn around soon, though!

Our 22 bed unit has been filled to capacity off & on for the past few months-having to close at times (which management hates to do), so it looks like everyone's having their babies in San Francisco

We were extra slow from Feb-June. We have been busier lately, but not the type of busy we used to be a couple of years ago. We used to be at full capacity much of the time, our new 'busy' is about 3/4 full.

Our NICU is usually staffed for 8 babies. We have been having anywhere from 14 to 21 for the last two months at least. The overtime has been getting excessive. Where we used to have a few methadone babies a year, we have been having 5 at a time. So definitely no low census in my neck of the woods.

We have been generally bursting at the seams for awhile now, with slow being 3/4 full in all of our neonatal units. Can we send you some babies?

We are kind of slow right now with 105, this time last year we had 138, way too many!! But in reality 105 or so is just perfect. I think the economy is not affecting our population, there are lots of folks still having babies; however, what the economy is affecting is there is more NPC even though there are clinics.

At my new unit we are up and down. At my old unit i am told that they are super slow.

we've had some unusual back and forths with our census too...usually we are just low in the late summer (we have a capacity of 82...in the summer, we are in the low 50s sometimes)...but when h1n1 hit, we seemed to be low while the rest of the children's hospital was busting at the seams...we've kinda stayed on the low end for a little while...hoping it'll pick up soon!!!

So where do you live? We are in central California. Our census has been down since about last September. Staff are called off way too much, it's hard when you lose a day or two every paycheck. We have 8-10 staff available for every shift, and are using 5-6, sometimes less.

We have been told that this is a national trend. Mothers are getting prenatal care and the babies are healthier, so less babies are being admitted to the NICU. Reading this thread, it seems that some places are still busy, so where are you located?

We have been told that this is a national trend. Mothers are getting prenatal care and the babies are healthier, so less babies are being admitted to the NICU. R

I'm sorry, I think maybe you are getting fed a bit of line here to make it seem like uncontrollable and positive circumstances. I have attended two talks on prematurity by the March of Dimes in the last year. There was mention of decreases in prematurity, but they were SLIGHT...as in 0.1 % nationally. I don't think that we would be seeing a massive low census from this decrease.

Something we were wondering was if...with the economy....people might slow down on their rate of having children. The local paper ran a big story on this and asked lots of families, and lots of families said they were holding off on children. However, if anything, we have been more busy of late. (We are wondering if it is that with less money, people are more likely to spend the night in rather than out!)

Unfortunately, I just don't think that vast increases in prenatal care nationwide can be responsible for your low census. (It would be great if so many more babies were healthy!). Maybe you live in an area more heavily impacted by the economy where people are actually slowing down on kids? Is there a competing hospital in the area that may be taking some of the patients? Or maybe it's just a rut...I feel like we all hit what feel like exceptionally slow periods sometimes. I'm sorry to hear you're getting cancelled so frequently!