Morgue procedure?

[preemieRNkate]

I'm helping out our bereavement committee with something, and I'm looking to you guys for some help. Currently, when we take a baby down to the morgue, they get placed on a shelf on a cart. Also on this cart go the >20 week fetal demises from L&D. I remember bringing a baby down once and sitting on the floor, crying my eyes out and not wanting to leave her on the shelf like that. I was discussing this with some of the committee members, and we all agreed that it is kind of disturbing and disrespectful. We were talking about something better that we could maybe do, but we don't know what. What do you guys do, if anything different? Like maybe some kind of crib, or basket or something? I mean, adults get a stretcher. Thanks!

[BoonersmomRN]

We carry them down as well....security escorts us. When we get to the morgue they unlock the door and we enter in ourselves. We enter the baby in a log book and then enter the refrigerated room. In the room we either put the baby on an empty stretcher ( which is weird too) or in a clear plastic bassinet if there is one open. They keep 2 in there.

[preemieRNkate, RN]

A trasport person comes with a Moses basket and takes them to the morgue in that.

Something like this is what I'm talking about. What happens to the basket? Do they stay in it down in the morgue? Even if we continue to carry them down wrapped in a blanket, it would be nice to have a basket down there to put them in rather than the shelf. Thanks!

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

:uhoh21: I have no idea.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

We wrap the baby in hospital blankets and then put them in the infant body bag. Two nurses go down to the morgue together, for support, and security meets us down there to open the room. We also have a shelf that we place the infants on. I wish they had something else, but I also know it's just a holding area.

If it's night shift, we'll often just carry the baby downstairs. But if it's during the day or evening when there are visitors in the hospital, we place the baby in the drawer of a basinette and take them down that way. I know it might seem cold, but we are thinking of the visitors. And we kind of say our goodbyes when wrapping the baby up after the bath, I think that kind of helps us. It's much harder to say goodbye at the door to the morgue.

I used to work at a children's hospital and they had a fake book cart with drawers underneath where they'd place a deceased child. Again, many may think that is very cold, but remember this is a hospital full of wandering children and we need to protect them from trauma. Gosh knows they are traumatized enough just being at the hospital.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

I used to work at a children's hospital and they had a fake book cart with drawers underneath where they'd place a deceased child. Again, many may think that is very cold, but remember this is a hospital full of wandering children and we need to protect them from trauma. Gosh knows they are traumatized enough just being at the hospital.

For some reason that's not as gross to me as the drawer of a regular bassinette. My dad works in a hospice that's in a regular hospital, and they have a false-bottomed gurney that works the same way. I guess because that sort of thing was created with a specific intent, rather than stashing a dead baby in the drawer under where a live one would go. I don't know, it just seems different to me.

[Sweeper933]

After we place the baby in the "bag", we put them in a cardboard box. We then carry the box down to our Labor and Delivery Unit. L&D has a special fridge in one of their rooms that is designated for fetal demises, and deceased babies. Once we place them in the fridge, I have no idea what happens to them.

[preemieRNkate, RN]

Thanks for all your help! Maybe I will suggest a Moses basket for the morgue, and we'll continue our practice how we take them down there.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

We have mortality services that come and pick up the baby. We wrap the baby according to hospital policy and then they come and get the baby. They just carry the baby in their arm, it is wrapped in a white pillowcase kind of thing. They immediately go into a drawer in the morgue.