Low Census

littleneoRN · Feb 22, 2010

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!

Mimi2RN, ASN, RN · Feb 22, 2010

Actually, there has been no change in the delivery rate (350-400 a month), but rarely do we see moms with no PNC. We are the only hospital in town. The few that transfer to our Children's hospital don't seem to be coming back, their census is down, too.

littleneoRN · Feb 22, 2010

Well that's great that you're seeing increased prenatal care in your community. I would not say that we are seeing this, although in general we don't see a ton of moms with no prenatal care. I still don't buy that this is a national trend. National data is not typically evaluated in real time, and if it was, somebody would be singing a big song about such a vast improvement. Also, I'm not sure what type of unit you work in, but many/most of the admissions to our unit have actually had extensive prenatal care due to known or discovered risk factors with mom or baby.

pattyjake64 · Mar 21, 2010

Level III NICU, Los Angeles area...we slowed down in Nov '09 and have been getting slower since. At first, we thought it was due to changes made in contracts with our hospital. Now, we're thinking it's the economy and fewer ppl having babies/possibly fewer immigrants working here. My remedy for the lack of work in my own unit was going to be Registry work (but they are stating NICU requests are severely down/rare). It's like the bottom has dropped out in my neck of the woods! Good luck to anyone else struggling to get by in NICU :)).

debsto · Apr 5, 2010

We are a small 6 bed unit in WA., officially listed as a SCN. WE have been down for a long time. IN fact our unit is rarely open! We have had a busy streak 2 weeks ago and was full for 2 weeks..now just a slow "leak" of 1 baby in/out over 24 hours....we routinely get called off 2 of an 8 night stretch. We are 40 minutes from Vancouver/Portland. Don't know if moms are chosing to "go south", but even those that stay and deliver here, the babies are needing less intervention.

babyNP., APRN · Apr 7, 2010

We are slowwwww here in D.C.! But we expect starting in June that we will have an increased census and get our 25 weekers, right about the time from the snow storm. You know...being cooped up and all that

pattyjake64 · Apr 7, 2010

I'm here in the Los Angeles area, but a co-worker (from Michigan) told me her big unit there was laying off NICU RNs! Couldn't believe it! Economy???

babyNP., APRN · Apr 7, 2010

whoa! Sorta glad we have a union here so that couldn't happen here.