Do you have a nursery at your facility?

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

For moms to take babies for the night if they are tired? I just find this such a foreign concept. Our hospital has a 24 hr rooming in policy and where I work on low risk there is no nursery and even on the high risk side there is a nursery but it is not staffed so it is still 24hr rooming in. The only time that nursery is even used is if the mom is critically ill, then they will staff it, other then that it is you and your baby 24/7 until discharge.

So what does your facility have?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. It happens alot. The question was "do you have a nursery" which to me implies that not every hospital has a nursery. My question, if no nursery, where do they go? Or do all hospitals have a nursery? But those with rooming in only don't always have a NICU to send baby so they can be watched closely.

Also, is there an increased risk for infant abduction for rooming in only? If mom is sleeping after taking pain medication she may not wake up if someone walks into the room. Or is waking up a mother's instinct?

Sorry - looking at my response now it seems rude. I didn't mean it to be.

We don't have a NICU - we are a small rural hospital and have maybe 2 deliveries per week, sometimes none, sometimes 4 . . . .

At our hospital it would be pretty hard to abduct an infant.

steph

Specializes in Telemetry, Nursery, Post-Partum.

We have a nursery, the moms have the option to keep the baby with them all the time (except when we are doing PKU's, hearing, weights,etc) or letting them hang out with us between feeds or having us feed them for bottle babies. Its amazing how many babies we wind up with by the end of the night! The other night we had about 13 out of 17 babies with us at one point. But we have not started "mother-baby" nursing yet, that's starting in May for us, so maybe things will change then somewhat.

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

I have found that if, upon admission, I explain to mom and dad that we try to keep mom/dad/baby (or whoever the family unit happens to be) together 24/7 and the advantages to that, the family is usually pretty cool with it. If no one has explained it to them and night rolls around (which is my shift), then people assume that their baby is going to the nursery for the night. Or grandma comes in and because that's the way they did it 30 years ago, asks about it or whatever. We are a high risk facility and have everyone from drug addicts to princesses and all in between, and by and large, the patients who are most satisfied with their care are the ones that keep their babies with them. There are exceptions of course, but that's the rule.

A caveat: I do think there need to be exceptions. Example: we had a 15yo who had been sexually abused for a number of years before the abuse finally resulted in a pregnancy for her. If she's not emotionally ready to be with her baby 24/7, that needs to be understood and respected.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

There is always room for exception. But sending babies to the nursery for all night who are breastfed, just for convenience, is simply not realistic. And sadly, we are just not staffed for this. I wish we were. I would love to see a nursery nurse who just did this, but we just dont' have the volume to allow for such a person to be staffed 24/7. The real trick comes when we have a CPS hold who has to remain in the nursery. We have to provide a nurse for that baby, even though he/she is healthy.

Or when a sick baby is there---again must be staffed. This can be nice cause then we have a nurse in there and babies can come out with her there the whole time.

I agree, special situations call for special consideration. No argument there. And we will do our best to make accomodations for such people.

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