AIBU re: sending your newborn to the hospital nursery?

[coraltoes]

A good friend of mine has given birth in a private london hospital. I popped in yesterday to visit her, on what is was day 2 of her stay there post CS. I have to say what an amazing place it was, but i was left feeling a bit cold about something and wondered if I was wrong to?

She looked well rested, and I asked how the days and nights were going, as god knows newborns can be all over the place with their sleep and feeds. Her reply surprised me. She had been sending him to the nursery to sleep at night, from about 8pm with them bottle feeding him (she has chosen not to BF) through the night when he needs it. She did this from day 1.

Now, it is the kind of place that would help you in the night by your bed if you needed it, so she wouldnt have to make up bottles whilst struggling to walk with a scar etc. So I was a bit "hmmmmm" about not even letting your newborn sleep near you on his first night in the world, so you can get some sleep. If you had laboured for 2 nights i can see the appeal but her Csection was scheduled, and took place at the start of the day.

What do you guys make of it? Would you use the same service? Maybe i'm being a bit precious!

I assume as it was a private hospital she had her DP with her after the birth even over night?

I think the way the NHS send the new dads home is so horrid, the UK must be one of the only countries in the world where a woman is expected to look after a newborn all alone the night she gives birth. Even in very poor countries the mother would have the help of a DP/sister/Grandma/friend.

I am due to give birth in Sweden where the dad satys with the new mum/baby, my DP can look after the baby whilst I get some sleep. If I was in the UK and was planning a NHS birth I would want the option of some sort of support.

I wouldn't have done it myself (but then I wasn't even in overnight: DS had the sense to arrive in the morning so that we could all go home by late afternoon) but if it works for her what's the problem?

Honeytea that sounds lovely! I thought it was mad how DH was sent home. Yes, the husbands at the private hosp are allowed to sleep over, they have their own bed beside the mother's bed. You can have a double bed but post-c section they prefer you in a hospital one where you can adjust your position etc for recovery.

Sounds great to me!!!

OP, how would your friend feel if you cut and pasted your post into an email and sent it to her? Especially the bit about her not labouring for 2 days and "hmmm." Not nice, is it?

I had my daughter in Kenya, which is far more child centred than the UK but they had a nursery in the hospital there. Being child centred doesn't have to mean that the mother is with the child constantly.

I agree with you Shagmundfreud

Mybe many parents don't have realistic expectations when it comes to having a newborn. Surely we all know that having a baby = goodby sleep, at least for a while? I am one of those breastfeeding nazis so I find it hard to understand why someone would actively choose not to breastfeed but even if people do choose formula I just can't get my head around the idea that you would have someone come into your home and take over all the night feeds force a newborn into an un-natural sleep pattern from day one.

I can see the appeal, but TBH I was too busy staring at DS and playing with his little toes and fingers and generally snuggling him. I was totally and utterly exhausted, but he slept reasonably well that first night and I think I was in that kind of hyper-tired state where you don't feel that tired iykwim. When we got home the next day I would feed him and DH would take him while I slept for a bit. We kind of tag teamed him for those first few weeks.

I did feel really scared when DH had to go home at 8 in the evening (DS was born at 2), and I was left on my own in a 4 bed postnatal ward with a tiny baby who I was solely responsible for. Another mum came in later with her baby who screamed nonstop and I felt a bit better then. The staff were lovely though, left you alone if you wanted but happy to help and answer questions if you needed. (I would recomend Bolton x 100000000000).

^ I think my point there was that you were kind of U, but it's one of those circumstances where you have to do what you feel comfortable fo she wasn't U either.

If you have your baby in a midwife-led unit on the NHS they often let your husband stay. I thought it was crackers when I had DS: women like me who have perfectly straightforward labours and deliver in the MLU can have their partners with them overnight if they need to stay the night after the baby arrives, but women who've had sections or complications and are on the normal post-natal ward have to cope alone with their babies: the only support comes from a couple of very over-stretched midwives and their partners get sent home. Honeytea, the Swedish system sounds much better!

No you're not being precious.

Newborns should be with their mother IMO, othe than in emergency situations.

A medical establishment which isn't encouraging or supporting that is working against the interests of both the mother and baby IMO.

But then I think that deciding not to BF because you simply don't fancy it is also terribly sad, and against the interests of the child.

Don't care if I get flamed on that one!

I think it depends on why you don't fancy it to be fair.

Honeytea,thanks for your post. I was about to ask whether or notUk hospitals allows visitors overnight. I gave birthto DS in Spain so was very lucky that my DM could stay with me all night (although in an armchair, no bed for her!) as this meant DS wasable to sleep in her arms all night and was handed over to me for feeds. I didn't have to change a nappy until we got home either, so no meconium mess for me either! . Thanks DM!

DS went to the Nursery the night he was born.

He was also given some formula (about 10 ml if I remember rightly)

We went on to develop a really strong bond at people who think it's going to ruin your long term relationship with your child and I successfully bf him for around 6 months.

DS was born at full term by crash emcs after an 18 hour labour with no pain relief (standard overnight practice in Holland I understand, none available) He was born weighing 2.5kg and there was some 'concern' about his weight - he wouldn't latch on the first day and the whole experience had left me pretty traumatised. It has never occurred to me to feel guilty about this, just as it never occurred to me to beat myself up about any other part of DS's birth.

We went home after 4 days and for a week we were visited for about 5 hours a day by a Kraamzorg (same thing as the OP's friend I guess) who came to the house, helped me learn to be confident with DS, did jobs like washing/ironing and stuff - this is standard procedure in Holland and everyone gets that help. Was amazing for me, as I had no experience with babies and my parents were in the UK.

Brilliant to hear that some people don't need this kind of help, I was glad it was there for me when I needed it though.

I have to say in advance that I understand I'm asking a question that might have some of you going but please believe me when I say I'm asking out of pure lack of knowledge: what 'emotional needs' could a baby have in the first 24 or 48 hours of life that couldn't be sorted out once they, you know, get more 'sentient'?

Don't they just feed and sleep and shite for the first while? I'm not a parent, clearly.

If I'd have given birth in a private hospital then I would have made full use of the nursery and took the opportunity to get as much sleep and rest as possible. Far better than being plonked on an NHS ward still numb from an epidural and told to 'get on with it' looking after a baby I couldn't even lift up...

LizaTarbuck, thats really interesting! Does the Kraamzorg get paid by the mother or the state? Sounds like a nice bridge between the midwife visits and private services of a maternity nurse.

Pink delight - I don't think her child will grow up to be a psychopath. TBH the fact that you even make that kind of comment shows how far apart we are in the way we see this issue. My children are the love of my life. I wanted their first night outside of me to be as emotionally and physically as happy an experience as possible. I think babies know who their mothers are and feel most comfortable and at ease when they are close to them, as up to this point their mother is all they know. No you can't measure how being separated from all they know when they are uniquely vulnerable makes them feel. I suppose in your book that makes their feelings and experience something we can happily disregard.

A few decades ago it was assumed that babies weren't fully sensate beings and couldn't feel pain in the same way as adults and older children. We've moved on from this thank goodness, but I see views like yours as a continuation of the tendency not to regard babies as human beings with emotional needs as well as physical ones.

The system in Sweden is very family centered which i guess ends up as child centered. They don't have nurseries for the babies but with 2 adults in a private room I think they think the parents should cope.

My mum had an emcs with my little sister (NHS), she was left alone the 1st night unable to get out of bed. They had given her some stong pain killers and she felt like she was dropping the baby when she held her. My mum called the midwife and asked her to take the baby but the midwife was so worried about my mum not BF she refused to take the baby (my mum had previously BF me 2 babies to 1 year and fully intended to BF Dsis.) In the night a porter came in and my mum gave her the baby and said take her away I can not look after her, the porter was paniking saying they were not allowed to hold the baby but my mum made her take the baby, so sad that it had to come down to that! The baby was looked after and was fine and my mum BF for 2 years.

I think it is a great idea for those who want it. I used it with DD1 one night (they brought her to me for feeds), and will use it again when DD2 is born later this year. Hasn't affected my bonding in the slightest. In fact, being unexpectedly separated from DD1 when she was a new born as I was hospitalised for two weeks and they wouldn't allow her in to ICU didn't affect my bonding either.

I understand those of you who wouldn't want to let their babies out of their sight, but for those of us who believe that being rested and making the most of help available in difficult early days is important too, having MWs available to look after the baby for a few hours is a god send.

I wouldn't in a million years, but lots of people would. My mum did and she was practically AP aside from the sleeping!

Did you know that in the US, formula companies sponsor designs of hospitals to be built in such a way that the nursery is far enough away from the maternity ward as to make breastfeeding very difficult? I read this in a book, or I'd think it was hysteria. The nursery wouldn't have to be far at all though - if there were any babies on the ward then other mothers would still be able to hear crying etc anyway.

TBH I think it's archaic that hospitals even still have large nurseries which are used routinely. If someone is really struggling then fair enough. To use them as a matter of course seems cruel considering what we know about attachment.

Don't worry cotes, if you don't know, you don't know :-)

They miss the womb, so they like cuddles, to hear your heartbeat, milk on demand, etc. they bob their little heads about looking for milk, it's very cute :-). (or in dd1s case, headbutt the side of the incubator to see if that has any milk...)

"I read this in a book or I'd think it was hysteria"

Don't know anything about whether it is true or not, but just because something is in a book doesn't make it true or non-hysterical - books can be biased too. Just saying.

I don't think it has anything to do with long term bonding to be honest, DS was in Neo natal for 10 days and I was discharged 3 days after the birth so had to come and visit him. I expressed every 3 hours for the whole ten days - even at night. A maternity nurse would have been no use to me.

What I find odd is that people go into pregnancy not realising that having a newborn is the most knackering thing ever and think that they should get a nurse to come and live with them to do everything for the baby while they sleep. Why would anyone think this is what having a baby is all about?