Scheduled C/S = NICU???

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Specializes in NICU.

Yesterday, I made the "claim" that the vast majority of C/S (scheduled or otherwise) babies go to the well baby nursery. I have been going to C/S for 4+years now and that is my experience. How about you? The C/S babies that DO end up in NICU are the chorio, mec, preemies etc. Very rarely the term C/S. The person I was talking to brought up studies to prove me wrong.

Is my experience unusual and therefore "invalid"? It is shared with everyone I work with BTW. What have you found in your practice?

-Curly

(1 day into maternity leave!!!)

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Specializes in Peds - playing with the kids.

Hi There,

Well, I can only speak from personal experience. I am a 3 C-section mom and all were term and went to well baby. They were actually HUGE. 2nd was breech. 3rd was transverse. Thank God, they were all fine.

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Specializes in Too many to list.

When I worked in normal newborn nursery, in the early 80's, we routinely received C/S infants. If there was a problem, after we received them, they were worked on in our nursery, and if at all possible remained with us.

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

I'd love to read her studies. Would she provide us with a link?

Babies who are delivered by C-section (elective or otherwise) are more likely to end up in the NICU than infants who are delivered lady partslly. But I believe it is inaccurate to say that the majority of C-section babies go to the NICU, unless this is a facility with an unusually high number of pre-term and complicated deliveries.

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Specializes in NICU.

Our NICU team goes to every c-section, term or otherwise. If it's just a routine term section (repeat, failure to progress, breech) I'd say 90% of babies do perfectly. If we're dealing with a term meconium or a 35-36 weeker, I'd say about 50% come back to the NICU with us as these babies are more prone to TTN and we prefer to watch them in the NICU as opposed to the NBN.

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Ditto Gompers. I'd say about 10% of our >36 week c/s, for whatever reason they were sectioned, end up in the unit for being TTN.

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Specializes in Policy, Emergency OR, Peds OR, CVOR.

Just my personal experience but after emergency C/S (did not progress further than 5cm in 21 hours after water broke) my full term dd was sent to NICU for observation while recovering from the drugs they filled me with-- epidural failed and I had to go general anesthesia, demerol, etc..... They said that they routinely send them in for obs if it was a long or overly traumatic birth.

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