Question about car seat policy

[*Bethany*]

I was just reading the thread about patients not bringing their own camera, which then spun off about pts also not having a car seat.

What is your hospital's policy regarding the parents having a corificeat for the baby? Does the baby have to be in an infant corificeat while exiting the hospital? What if the parents have a convertible corificeat (the kind that does not have a handle or a base, but rather, it's a bigger seat that stays in the car). I had my last 2 babies at home, and only my first in the hospital and I remember having to have her in her infant seat on my lap as I was wheeled out of the hospital.

[JVanRN]

We tell the parents to leave the corificeat in the car and they are responsible for securing the child. I suppose due to liability. If I see the parents making obvious mistakes I help out though. It would be great if we had a person that was car seat certified to inspect, but I don't really think that should be the nurses responsibility. There are to many different corificeats and recalls to keep up with it all.

I mean the nurse is responsible to a point. Like I said I WILL help and say something if the parent is doing something obviously wrong and I will give general pointers, but I can't be expected to know how to properly install every and any kind of corificeat out there. We've had parents that have brought uninstalled corificeats and expected us to do it. At some point these parents have a responsibility to thier child to make sure this is done.

[JVanRN]

Oh and we say we can't release a child without a corificeat, but I don't see how this can be enforced either. I work NICU so when a baby is discharged we have to bring them down. I have never had a parent that did not have a car seat but as for the uninstalled ones, I just told them that per policy we were not allowed to do it and that I wasn't personally familiar with that brand of corificeat so I would not feel comfortable installing it and also there is a big fine for not having an infant properly secured. They would usually figure it out or go get someone (usually a family member) to do it for them, then come get the baby.

When I had my baby (same hospital, but she was in regular NBN) we just had a transporter bring us down, no nurse. And I just got out of the chair and he left. I was fine, I had a corificeat and knew how to use it, but I do know that on our discharge charting we have a space for charthing that the infant was secured in a corificeat by family. How are we charting this if we aren't actually witnessing it?

[daisybaby, LPN]

New York State mandates that the child not be released unless the seat is in the car and properly installed. Every facility that has an L&D dep't has someone certified to inspect.

Suesquatch, do you know where I can find this mandate? I work in NY state and, much to my chagrin,we do not follow such a policy. For "liability reasons", we are not to assist in putting the NBN into the car seat, nor are we allowed to verify proper installation.

I've thought for a long time that we were missing the boat on something like this- I just need to find something in print to take to TPTB.