When did newborn nurseries stop being a thing?

[Al991]

Just a question stemming from a conversation with my mum, who said she slept all night after birthing my sister while she was cared for in a newborn nursery in hospital. I’ve only seen this on American TV shows.

I was in labour for 48 hours then had a 1.5L postpartum haemorrhage, a 3rd degree tear and moderately serious surgery but I had the baby with me the whole time and thereafter.

just curious as to when we stopped having newborn nurseries and what the history of this is! Was it part of the push for breastfeeding? My sister was born in 2000.

1986 Simpsons Edinburgh nursery
1987 Ninewells Dundee no nursery

Sorry i have to disagree with you and i am sure many mums who had their children when ward nurseries were still common. I had all of my children in the 80's and early 90s, spent nearly a week in hospital with all of them, never had a issue establishing breastfeeding and certainly didn't have any problem bonding with my babies.
As for mixing up the babies it is nigh on impossible and mothers know their own baby by look and by smell.

What’s barbaric is to leave a woman who hasn’t slept for a day or two, has undergone major surgery, haemorrhaged and is off her face on morphine to care for herself and another human being unassisted.

this is the position I was put in after having both my babies. Luckily, the second baby screamed the entire place down for hours so a midwife whisked her away and let me get a few hours sleep. I would have literally cracked if she hadn’t. It should Be an option.

The change came about due to the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative.
Hospitals who have the Baby Friendly accreditation follow the research that keeping mums and babies together, "rooming in", is better for breastfeeding/milk supply and bonding and attachment.

I had my first in 1992 and had to fight to keep them with me. The staff advised removing the baby to the nursery at night, to allow me to sleep.
I had had a normal delivery without complications.
I was advised to stay in hospital for 5 days after the birth, this was normal procedure.
By the time I had my next baby in 1994 the system had changed, and all babies stayed with their mothers. I was out after 24 hours.

The single rooms is interesting. I had my first in 1971, big Nightingale ward with I think 24 mums with their babies. It was actually great, very limited visiting so it was women sitting round, experienced mums helping us newbies. Battles scars discussed, feeding options and any other baby led topic. Supporting each other if you had a fit of the weepies or your stitches were driving you mad. We had a ward cleaner who was on the 2 wards from 8 am to 5 pm and she'd go to the hospital shop for us if we needed anything. It was very positive although noisy.

@ChopsyDoesntDoFungus did you see the documentary they did at the Portland? One nursery nurse to look after rather a lot of babies.

My two were '70s babies and were born in Military hospitals, in both they were in nurseries at night and I was in hospital for a week, As for getting them mixed up, No 1 wasn't an issue, she was the only one at the time, No 2 I had to collect her from the nursery early morning and had to read the labels as babies all look alike to me! In neither case did I have problems feeding and I don't think there were 'bonding' problems either though in those days 'bonding' wasn't a word I'd heard used, other than James. I honestly think that many aspects of modern childbirth etc are part of the cause of problems, babies never being put down for example, I know it makes today's mothers feel superior but I'm really not sure.

I had my first at an NHS hospital, was really unwell afterwards and in HDU, so spent the first couple of nights apart from DS1.

Ds2 and DD were born in the Portland, they went in the nursery for the first night, so that I could get some sleep. The midwives just brought them when they wanted to be fed.
No issues bonding..

Babies were given an ankle tag at birth, no possibility of a mix-up.
Does this not happen now in UK or USA ?

Where's that bollocks button MNHQ?? I doubt that any baby was damaged and the mothers were able to recover more quickly with a decent sleep.

I was bown in 1970s, in a rural UK hospital. Straightforward birth, healthy baby. My mum had to beg to go home after a week - a two week stay was standard - and we only lived a few 100 m from the hospital! She said they took the babies away at night and brought them out for feeding.

Maybe because it was rural and families were large where we were, they thought the new mums would be straight back to working around the house, on the farms etc?

She was shocked at my birth experience, left in a corridor, still had a catheter, bleeding profusely, full view of everyone coming and going, trying to get out of bed to pick up my baby.
As I didn’t have a bed number, I didn’t even get fed!
I also begged to go home but for very different reasons.

Mine were taken away at night. This was some years ago.
With the first I fretted all night that there was something wrong with her and they weren't telling me. She was fine, btw but I spent the night quietly sobbing.
Then I worried that I might get the wrong baby back.

With the others there was no mistaking they were the right babies because they looked just like DC1.

However, I don't think it made for a restful night at all.

I would also have appreciated this as an option!

I was in very slow, excruciating back-to-back labour for three days and by the time I was admitted to the midwife-led unit, had not slept or eaten for two of those. Took another 12 hours (third night of no sleep), a 40 minute blue-light transfer to hospital and an epidural before DC1 decided it wasn't happening naturally (heart-rate dropped) and ended in a crash section.

I was literally delirious by this point and then you're expected to care for a newborn 24/7?!

DC1 had infection markers and had to have IV antibiotics for five days so we were fortunately kept in for those days so at least I didn't have to worry about meals or doing much else. Also we were in a hospital that had private ensuite rooms and partners were allowed to stay (they made up a camp bed for DH next to mine) so I guess it could have been worse.

I realised that afterwards 😁

I think this breastfeeding argument from
the WHO is total BS.

Im from a country which still has nurseries, women stay for a week after birth
, babies are given combi feeding as standard (to top up breastfeeding - they weigh babies several times a day after a feed so if they haven’t eaten a lot they are given a bottle).
All of which is super bad for breastfeeding according to UK midwives 🙄

and this country has much higher rate of breastfeeding than the UK (and family relationships are very warm so there certainly isn’t lasting damage to the bond).

mainly because it has standard paid maternity leave for a year and further 2 years unpaid leave, and majority of women stay with their kids at home for at least a year, but actually lots stay for full 3 years. Which is much better for breastfeeding than no nursery after birth 🙄

I had dd in 1999 and was in hospital for the day of delivery and the following day. There was a nursery she was taken to when I went for a shower (had a catheter so no need to go to the loo).

I was then sent to lovely local cottage hospital for 3 daysand we were encouraged to leave baby in the nursery while we ate meals in a separate dining room/had a shower or a sleep - but there were only 4 or 5 of us. It was a fab experience and the midwives spent a lot of 1-2-1 time with each of us supporting getting bfeeding established and making sure we had enough to eat ( cups of hot chocolate and toast in the middle of the night). I cant imagine how I would have coped as a new mum with no family support other than dh - those 3 days really boosted my confidence and helped me recover.

That sounds amazing!

My oldest was born in 2009 and I was accused of having postpartum for refusing to let them take him to the nursery. They where a god awful hospital and I didn't want him out of my sight for a second.

I have had 3 kids from 2009-2021 and it was an option each time.

Well to be honest in 2021 a 'nursery' wasn't an option as we used a birth center but what we had was way better. We had our own midwife who sat in our private room and did everything while we slept and recovered. Was quite amazing.

I don't want my kid going off and being dumped in a holding room with other kids, I'll be honest from what I have seen their ability to keep track of babies isn't always great (especially in the first hospital which was utterly shite).

I think a wider problem here is that society has almost completely institutionalised basic care which should totally be an intuitive thing. Even the apes in the trees regularly help out the most sick and vulnerable of their tribe. They will care for each other's infants to give each other a break etc. In fact lots of animals will be surrogate carers for infants if needed. Why have our lives become so hectic that we are outsourcing something that should be human nature? Why do we expect the state to care for vulnerable mums and babies and elderly people? Why are we in more and more of a rush to send tiny babys to nursery as well? It's nobody's fault as such it's just a bit of a sad state of affairs.

One of my babies was taken to neonatal so I didn't see them until the next day as I couldn't physically get there in time, now I know I should have knocked. I breast fed for 10 days and a lovely Canadian nurse knew I wanted to breastfeed so did not give my baby a bottle but used a cup instead, and probably other women's breast milk (I donated some too later). Those 10 days meant the baby slept longer as they are quite good at not feeding the baby every 2 hours !

Another baby I had a c section, was in a private room, so no issue having a shower etc with baby in the room, the first night the kindly nurse took my baby to the nurses station so I could sleep, very difficult to lift up the baby to breast feed. It was heaven to be able to sleep. If I were doing it all again I would hire a night nurse for two weeks at home to get baby into a feeding rhythm and to give me time to sleep.

I had my first in 1999 and the others in 2006 and 2007. Never hear if a nursery in a hospital. No way woukd I let my baby out of my sight anyway. I used the toilet with my first whilst my son was with the midwife on the ward and came back to her just about to give him a vitamin k injection without asking my permission. I’d already decided on the drops so was really angry.

Yes they had it in 2009 when I had my oldest, the damn thing constantly fell off. They acted like it was some kind of magic fail safe so no actual attention or care needed to be paid. The system was ridiculous and did not work.

They didn't have it in 2018 or 2021 at the better hospital.

Oh that seems like a nice idea, I was thinking a private room so you can get lots of rest and your DH can be with you as well. But what you describe sounds lovely too, I can see that a private room could be quite isolating for some