I am wondering if anyone has a polcy for new moms who are readmitted for therapy (in this case mom had fever on course of IV antibiotics). Mom is breastfeeing her baby and wants to keep baby with her. Baby is not a patient but the mom is. She is physcially able to do this (care for her baby while an inpatient). The question is, can she keep her baby with her by herself or does she need to have someone with her at all times that could assume the care of her baby(i.e. significant other or grandma).
I agree w/ you that if they're well enough to go smoke they're well enough to make the trip on home. When we first went smoke-fee there was a big thing aboug rxing nicotine patches for smokers, and I'm not sure why we don't do it any more. It would be great if we did.
There is a place about 100 yards from the front entrance to our hospital that's technically not considered on-campus, which is where employees and pts alike go to light up....sigh.
Yep, we're non-smoking. But she had a pushover doc who didn't care that we couldn't pick her up on tele when she left the floor and refused to make an issue out of it. Most of our docs will have the patients sign out AMA if it's that big of a deal to the patients.
We do have a protocol in place for the patch and Xanax if needed. Most of the time the pharmacy is good about giving us the patch even without a MD order on new admits on nights; if they're being obnoxious about it the doc's don't mind if we TO it without calling. We are not allowed to have "standing orders" on my floor, so it comes down to knowing what the docs want from experience.
Myself, I was anticipating a hard time not smoking when I was in the hospital recently, but between the morphine and the nicotine patch I was good. I didn't even smoke when I went outside on a post-op get-the-gas-moving walk with my hubby and he lit up.
Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, IM, OB/GYN, neuro, GI.
One of the facilities I worked at allowed it. The rule was that they would bring you a "crib" for the baby and that was it. The nurses weren't allowed to help with the baby because it wasn't their patient. The mother also had to have someone either take the baby or watch it while having procedures done. There were several times though that patients would get caught leaving their baby with the other patient in the room to leave the floor. If they were caught privelages were over for that patient.
We just had this happen and it was a mess. The baby can stay, but an responsible party MUST stay also. There is the rub. Most want to just drop the baby off and leave, despite mom just having major surgery or is sick as a dog. Had a man bring his 5 children in and LEAVE while his wife was in bed with DVT, on heparin etc. The kids were 2-8 in ages...plus the newborn, and she wasn't breastfeeding.
I worry for the security of these babies when they are in rooms with patients. They are not secure (we have umbilical tags for our newborns) and just see a huge messy thing if something were to happen while the baby was in there.
You do need to have a very clear policy in place, signed and acknowleged by the patient and family that the staff can have NO responsibility for the baby and will perform no care for the baby. Otherwise your legal liability could be catastrophic if something should happen to the infant. And all staff should remember this when they are "just being nice this once".
Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP
4 Articles; 5,259 Posts
I agree w/ you that if they're well enough to go smoke they're well enough to make the trip on home. When we first went smoke-fee there was a big thing aboug rxing nicotine patches for smokers, and I'm not sure why we don't do it any more. It would be great if we did.
There is a place about 100 yards from the front entrance to our hospital that's technically not considered on-campus, which is where employees and pts alike go to light up....sigh.