Leaving hospital with your baby

[NannyTee]

My daughter has been told she needs a car seat for her 5 weeks old son in order for them to let him home - seems reasonable enough only neither my daughter, her partner, myself, our close family or friends own a car!!! My daughter has everything she needs for her baby except a car seat that she doesn't need!!! What is the reasoning behind this? You used to be able to just wrap up a baby and walk out with him on the day of discharge - he's not even newly born - he's been in hospital for 5 weeks!!

Just ask to see their court order.
That'll shut 'em up

NannyTee - you haven't actually clarified HOW she is planning on getting home - you have just said she wants to use her pram.

Does that mean she is planning on walking all the way home - in that case you don;t need a car seat.

They can not stop her leaving the hospital.
If she wants to walk home using her buggy , then she can do so.
She just has to politely say that she is actually walking home so does not need a car seat.

Nannytee -just a thought have you tried asking on freecycle or your local forum ?.

I had this with my first, the nurse said we couldn't leave without a car seat. I tried to tell her that we not only had a car, but we actually lived on the same street as the hospital, and did not need a car seat for the 5 minute walk home.
I know people are saying that they can't stop you walking out, but I can tell you that they can refuse to take off the security anklet on the baby, and if you try to leave with that on, alarms will go off and the doors wil shut automatically!!

I ended up in stand up row with 2 nurses and a security guard until the head nurse was called and told them all they were imbeciles and apologised to me.

not only DIDN't have a car, obviously!

We encountered this problem when we tried to leave hospital with DD - our carseat was one of the big ones, already fixed in the car, so we couldn't be arsed to bring it in. There was an extraordinary amount of fuss and they kept claiming that they needed to check that the seat was suitable, but wouldn't come to look at it. Eventually they admitted that it had nothing to do with the carseat but was to make sure that the baby was safe until it left hospital premises - protecting themselves from litigation, essentially. They eventually let us leave under escort to the front door! (but for some reason didn't take up my suggestion of simply wheeling her there in the cribs they use...surely the sensible thing if they're worried about you dropping the baby and suing them!)

So, it may be worth pressing them on the reason behind their request.

Just a thought, but have you tried your local Friday Ads ?? You can check online at www.friday-ad.co.uk. You may find one locally for a few quid.

HTH