to get annoyed at hospital "policy"

[RedOnHerBeheadedHead]

OK, so a few weeks ago I had a Loop Biopsy to take abnormal cells from the cervix. Last wednesday it got infected so they put me on antibiotics. Then the day before yesterday I started bleeding BADLY with HUGE clots. The Hospital (Royal Gwent) wanted to keep me in overnight but I am exclusively breastfeeding my 5mth old baby.

I got very upset and was told first that he could stay with me, then when it was checked with the ward Sister, it turns out that their policy on Breastfed babies is that they are allowed to stay with a mother up to the age of 3mths. So they wouldn't let him stay with me.

My options were as follows:

1. Express while there and get DH to feed him with a bottle (he has never had a bottle)
2. DH could fetch him in when he needed feeding (We live 30mins away if traffic is good)
3. Discharge myself against their advice

1. - Like I said, DS has never had a bottle so for me to firstly be away from him and for him to be fed from a bottle (which I had no idea if he would take it or not), would be such a shock to him, and I just wasn't willing to do that.
2. - We have a 3.10yr old DS1 so for DH to get DS2 to the hospital for a feed would take nearly 2hours when you take into account getting both DC's ready, childcare for DS1 (if available) driving to the hospital, and finding a parking space. There's no way i could have done this to my baby.

So, I ended up discharging myself, against their advice, signing a disclaimer, purely because they would not make an allowance for my exclusively breastfed baby. I didn't wan't to sign myself out - I didn't wan't to go against their advice, but I had to make sure my baby would be fed.

What, logistically, is the difference between an exclusively breastfed 3mth old (which they were willing to accommodate) and an exclusively breastfed 5mth old????

ESPECIALLY WHEN THEIR POLICY IS TO GIVE INFORMATION TO MOTHER'S TO EXCLUSIVELY BREASTFEED FOR 6 MONTHS!!!!!!

I am seeking the advice of my Breastfeeding group HV. I am planning on making a complaint to the hospital, and even thinking of going to the press.
So AIBU to be more than slightly annoyed ?

Thanks peachy, you've been a great help!
I think I have been on a few threads with you on before. I'm from Pontypool, so maybe we have bumped into each other in RL! Have been to Caerleon a few times pre-babies - to the ship inn!

What idiots. I can't see the diff between 3 and 5 months to them, same cot, same provision for the hospital.

When my DD (pfb) was 11 weeks I went in for a D&C and a repair on my 2nd+ degree tear that had been unstitched under a GA. I was only allowed DD to stay the night with me if I provided someone else to stay the night with me and act as her carer, as I was deemed not capable to look after her - didn't come round until 3pmish.

I had to discharge myself as I had no-one to fulfil this role.

Hospital policy is frustrating.

YANBU, I am by this and am happy to see that you have decided to take action...
Hope you feel better soon.

If I were the nurse in charge (and I am a nurse) you would have had that baby with you. Screw the managers and their stupid policy. As long as you understood that baby needs to stay in your room and that staff cannot touch baby and that there are germs in hospital that aren't so good etc I would have let him stay.

Once you have been a nurse as long as I have you get your jollies by pissing off the managers, especially when what you are doing benefits the patients.

Am a paeds nurse and agree with Pramspotter.
I think the only problem would be care for the baby,as workload might not enable nurses to care for him/her,and of course there is the risk of cross infection.I would have you in a side room with cot borrowed from paeds ward.This happens in my hospital.
I doubt they would put you on maternity tbh,as infection control proceedures are very strict on there.
Most 'adult' wards would love the chance to coo over a baby!

Oh god, yanbu

I think sometimes people just don't understand how essential the co-boarding is

I know I cannot get my 6 monther to take a drink from anyone but me; we have tried so ahrd, to no ends. Cups, every type of bottle, yu name it! It doesn't help mnd that he is on soya milk and that tastes terrible (nt that we can get him to take apple juice either or water, but I feel sure the initial soya contributed to the block).

So if I were in this situation- an we all can be, at any time-- I'd be forced to discharge myself- fab.

You fight it girl, and good on you.

Yesterday I sent a letter by email to my MP, Paul Murphy. This evening I have a list of letters to print out and send tomorrow morning. I will be telephoning the press on monday morning, when i am likely to feel stronger again. I don't want to ever be put in the situation of choosing between me and my baby again, so if I can change this so called policy for other mothers, then I am going to work hard, until it is changed.

Just had a reply from Paul Murphy:

"Dear Hannah,

Thank you for your email. It raises a very interesting issue. Would you
mind if I forwarded your email to Lynne Neagle AM, our local Assembly
Member, for her thoughts also? Email me if that is OK, and we will get
back to you as soon as we can.

Yours sincerely,

Paul

The Office of The Rt. Hon. Paul Murphy, MP"

Obviously I gave my permission to forward my email.
Thought I would keep you updated on any progress I got!

fab- luckily you dont share our mp who (quote) 'chooses not to handle casework' (fume), we have fab AM's though

I think that is awful. I am a doc in general surgery and was expecting this to be something petty that was unreasonable.

It's not. It is going against everything that is recommended. It would be one thing if they had tried absolutely everything to have him stay and had simply not had the beds / resources etc (I think most people would think it wouldn't be reasonable for you to have your baby in a bay with otbher patients - either for you or for them). But this policy is crap.

Big letter to the chief exec copied to MP and your local paper should put the shitters up them and make sure this doesn't happen again Good on you for already contacting MP

FWIW on the couple of occasions I have needed to admit a patient in this situation I have basically been very stubborn that they ARE going to be admitted and we WILL find a way. But I haven't been in a hospital that was this unbending either...

There are only a certain amount of single rooms in any ward. Priority will go to infected patients (MRSA and C Diff) and patients with terminal illness who are dying.

In an ideal world, it would be lovely to have your 5 month old baby room in with you.

I would not be too happy, however, to have nurses who were dealing with infections etc looking after my baby.

Probably on the ward the nurses are under pressure because they had no single rooms available. I am not saying that is an excuse, but it is probably true.

YANBU to expect to have your 5 month old with you, but in order to have a health service that will accommodate this we need to put a lot more money into it to resource it.

As for complaining etc, yes do it. But put yourself in the nurses shoes. Who do you kick out of the single room. The dying mum who wants her relatives with her all the time? This is the reality of life on the wards today.

well done, Red! Sounds like your MP is on the ball.

Cheshire, that doesn't explain why it would be OK for Red's ds to stay if he was three months old, does it? Clearly they ARE able to have babies in with their mothers.

Up to 3 months they probably have them in the maternity unit.

I am just explaining there is not a never ending supply of single rooms in a hospital.

And yes we should have more single rooms, infact I firmly believe we should be building hospitals with all single rooms.

But watch your NI contributions rocket.

i agree that there is a need for more single rooms. My mother - in -law had terminal cancer and was asked to leave her single room to make way for a patient with dementia, who was keeping other patients awake at night.

Cheshire - it wasn't a case of rooms being available, it was a case of age. They would have allowed DS to stay with me on the ward, had he been 3mths old. The only problem was his age, not a matter of where he would sleep.

Also, it wasn't a case of nurses looking after him. I wouldn't have wanted them looking after him - I was able to look after him myself. They knew this also. Even if there were no single rooms available, they will allow a 3mth old baby to sleep on a ward with other patients on, but because he was 5mths, they would not allow it.

My arguement is that there is no difference between a 3mth exclusively breastfed baby and a 5mth exclusively breastfed baby, so why is their "policy" only for 3mths?

The ward that I was examined in had 3 empty beds and a computer in the space where another bed had been taken out - where the nurses were looking up on ebay how much a flat screen tv would be. (but thats another story!)

There were beds available, but my baby was 2mths too old for their policy!

My local hospital is a baby friendly hospital how I don't know but again another story....
I had an incident when ds was in hospital as a baby he was between 8 and 11 weeks somewhere and at one point was being sent for a kidney scan and the radiographer after keeping us waiting for an hour ahd a half longer than the appointment time was concerned that there was not enough in his stomach and asked if he was bf or ff told her bf and she said well he needs more in his stomach and tried to send a nurse to maternity for a bottle of formula which involved a trip out of the building and a hike to the other end of the hospital to get it and she seemed confused and a bit pissed off when I said no formula. Well for a start my boobs were actually in the room with us before we even get into the fact that he was fully bf and no formula at all.

Some of the things these professionals come up with is baffling and I really wonder where they get these ideas from.

Good on you Red for going with this it seems like a ridiculous policy and I hope your work stops this happening to someone else.

Ineedacleaner, that is dreadful! I would have said no formula too! The thing is, they just think that you can stick a bottle in their mouth and they will take it! We have tried every evening since the hospital incident and he won't take expressed milk from anything other than my booby. (Now obviously I understand that if he was starving he would take it, but that is something I am not willing to do when I have what he wants and needs right under my nose!)

Completely breastfed babies (that have only ever had milk directly from the breast) take a long time to get used to the feel of anything else in their mouths - something I'm sure a baby friendly hospital should know.

Ineedacleaner, i hope all is well with your ds now.

Bloody ridiculous. YANBU.

I would have just lied about the baby's age though.

I work on a gynae ward and we have breast fed babies in with our mums. I agree with the fact that a lot of juggling has to be done sometimes to get into one of our 3 single rooms but we usually manage it. Yes cdiff and MRSA patients do take priority but those in our ward with those problems are generally NOT Gynae patients but medical or surgical outlyers. So it would be the hospitals problem to get those patients moved to free up a room for a mum and exclusively bf baby.

themoon666 - he's quite a long 5mth baby - I don't think I would have gotten away with it!

well, tomorrow morning I shall be ringing the papers and see what they think of it.

Just read this after you linked to it. omg thats awful. well done you for going to papers

here is the newspaper article

guess you all know me now then

I agree with all you say. the problem is, you are too logical for them.You make sense, they do not, simple.
All your arguments are solid, full of logic. I exclusively breastfed too and would have been as upset as you. Yes I also would have discharged myself.
You baby is lovely btw.

I would just like to say a great big thankyou to everyone for your kind words and advice about who to write to etc...