What do you mean you don’t HAVE a nursery?????
This was my dumbfounded response when I toured the maternity ward (the only one in Santa Fe) where I’ll be delivering next month. The hospital where I had my other three children had one, and since all my deliveries were c-section and I wasn’t quite up to round-the-clock baby care the moment I came out of surgery, all my babies spent at least some time in there. I just assumed all hospital maternity wards had nurseries.
Over the past several decades, rooming-in (where the baby stays in the mother’s room and sometimes never even goes near the nursery) has replaced the old nursery model, which a lot of women felt deprived them of crucial bonding with their newborns.
The hospital where I had my first three babies offered both options. When I asked the nurse at this hospital how I was supposed to take full charge of the baby recovering from major abdominal surgery, she said my husband could stay with me and sleep on a chair that pulled out for that purpose.
When I told the story to one friend (who had also delivered by c-section), she said that her hospital had had a nursery, then added, “But I couldn’t imagine who would want to send their baby there.” That’s the attitude most mothers giving birth today have, I’ve found. So I guess dinosaurs like me, who are selfish enough to want a few hours of uninterrupted sleep while recovering from surgery, will just have to adapt.
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You’re not alone, Brigette. Both my children spent time in the hospital nursery after delivery. Like you, my children were delivered by c-section, and I can’t imagine having to care for them immediately after such major surgery. I don’t perceive my actions as selfish. I was getting my strength up so that I could tackle the enormous responsibility of taking care of a baby once I got home. I don’t see how an exhausted, half-healed woman can be an attentive mother. Unfortunately, many women today have unrealistic ideas about motherhood and try to hold all women up to these same standards. Whatever happened to giving women the choice to do what’s best for themselves and their children?
What indeed about choice? Back in the sixties they were all complaining they couldn’t bond and had to use the nursery, but instead of just giving everyone the option, they made it a requirement, and took away the choice of using the nursery. Of course, it’s partly about money. Nurseries require nursery staffs, and if they can make all the mothers (even the ones who’ve just come out of surgery) take care of their own newborns, then they save a bundle.
None of my children were born by C-section and they all spent time in the nursery. Fortunately, I had nurses that encouraged the use of their nursery, since when I got home I wouldn’t be able to get that much-needed rest. Ask any of my children, we still bonded. 😉 What happens at this hospital if the baby needs a little more care, such as babies that go to a NICU? Ship them off to another hospital miles away? Here I live in a tiny city, and we have super-modern birthing facilities and nurseries. I would expect more from Santa Fe!
[…] off to the hospital (the one without the nursery) in the morning, so there won’t be any posts for at least two days. Hopefully day three will […]
[…] As I wrote before, my first three c-sections were performed at a hospital in California where a nursery was available. Most of the mothers who delivered vaginally there kept their babies in their hospital rooms with them, and after the first 24 hours after surgery, I kept my baby with me most of the time too, except when I wanted to sleep or shower. But for that first day after surgery, I really could not take care of a baby on my own, and because there was no nursery staff to help, what that really meant was that for c-section moms, the hospital policy was BYOBN: bring your own baby nurse. Pretty neat racket for the hospital, which doesn’t have to pay a nursery staff, and for the insurance companies, which have to pay out less for each hospital stay since c-section moms are eager to get the heck out of the hospital and go home. I stayed four nights after each surgery in California, but only three this time, because what was the point of staying in the hospital when I couldn’t rest? I had to have someone stay with me every night I was there, my aunt the first and third nights, and a good friend (and Portia’s godmother) the second night. The logistics of the BYOBN policy bring me to yet another way this hospital made me, as a c-section patient, feel like a second-class citizen. […]
Hi Brigette,
I’m writing on baby-friendly hospitals. I know you wrote this several years ago but would love to talk about rooming in vs. infant nurseries. Please email if you can.
Cheers,
Julie Deardorff
Chicago Tribune