First baby - how long in hospital afterwards?

[notcitrus]

For those of you who gave birth in a hospital, how long did you stay there afterwards? What tests/checks do they want you to wait for, and which ones or medical conditions should you actually stay for?

Basically I want to avoid having to spend overnight in hospital as they'll want to kick MrNC out. Ideally I'll produce Squirmy at a sensible time of day and we can then just go home, but I don't want to be in a situation of being told "ooh, you're doing this against medical advice, do you really want to do that with your precious newborn baby?" (separately, we're working to ensure MrNC can stay with me, which would be easier if the midwives' phone wasn't permanently busy...)

Re the private room - but you are not just anyone, you are someone with a need too albeit a slightly different one.

It sounds like you will have a good response once you have talked to someone more senior. Just don't let yourself fobbed off about the 36 weeks thing - it's a bit different to someone wanting to discuss what brand of lavender oil they want to use

Hopefully you won't need to be in the hospital for long anyway. Bets of luck.

NC - sorry you are having such difficulties. I had an em CS with DD1 and stayed 3 nights, and a planned CS with DD2 and stayed for 2. With DD2, the woman in the next bed had had a terrible birth and her baby was undergoing phototherapy as he was jaundiced, so her DH stayed in the chair all night. I can't say that his presence bothered me at all as he was in their cubicle and I was in mine.

Under the DDA they have to take steps to accommodate you and I can't imagine that this is the first time they have come across this situation. I'd write to PALS and get something sorted asap.

Good luck with the baby!

Agree too with TPL that this is totally different from the usual birth plan. I got really stressed with DD2 about having the go ahead for an el CS and, even though the "usual" time for these things to be sorted is 36 weeks, I had mine booked by 30.

Also agree that you are in a different position from other people who might want a private room. Whilst of course you woulnd't want to chuck someone onto a ward who'd had a stillbirth, I can't imagine there would be that many of them and your need is a recognised one. Also the fact that you need a person with you all of the time may impact on the others in the ward (as those cubicles aren't big) and I suspect some patients may not feel comfortable with a man on the ward. I think it would be good to get it sorted now rather than take pot luck on the day.

All the best.

DS was born on a Tuesday night (forceps delivery)and I was discharged Friday evening. I wanted to breastfeed, and was kept in due to DS not latching successfully, and possibly also cos I lost quite a bit of blood.
Midwives were excellent in helping me establish feeding. However I was so fed up of being in hospital that I was almost delirious when DS finally managed to latch on and feed, as it finally meant that I could go home.

Let us know how you get on, go to someone with sufficient authority to get you what you need.
Good luck!

With ds they wanted to kick me out the next day even though I wasn't ready and he wasn't feeding properly. So if everything goes ok I'm sure they would let you out fairly quickly, obviously depending on the time of day.

DS born Monday evening, I went home Wednesday.

I had to stay in for a week as DS was prem.

But my NCT teacher had c sections for each of her children, and had someone with her 24 hrs a day for the 3 days she was in each time as she developed a kind of postnatal psychosis where she was convinced that someone would harm her baby, unless there was someone she knew with her to calm her down - it passed once she was back at home (prob more to this, but this is what she shared). So it can be done.

The PALs people are very good, and will be able to help you sort out a plans

7 days, DD was low birthweight, for no known reason, and had very slight jaundice, although she was actually perfectly healthy.

I was very pleased actually as it meant I had hands on expertise to help me learn how to breastfeed properly, got fed well without stress and a chance to learn how to be a mum, some basics anyway.

By the time I got home I was confident to handle it with DH on our own. Not sure i would have been so confident if I had been kicked out the next day.

Just to update people - after MrNC failed to get through on various phone numbers for ages, I sent an email to PALS yesterday, and of course he managed to talk to a midwive around the same time.

Midwife says that it should be fine to keep someone with me and they usually try to give you a private room in this situation. But I should talk to the midwife at my 36-week appt to get it in writing.

PALS then got back today, also to say they should be able to sort it out, but are trying to figure out who MrNC spoke to. They also want to make sure the message gets across to the world and its dog, given I might end up in the main del suite/postnatal ward/MLU/post-caesarian ward and no-one's exactly sure which community midwives I should be seeing (the hospital ones, the PCT ones who cover my address, or the GP's PCT ones...)

Still, all looks promising and I'm most relieved!

How things have changed.....
My first child was born in 1984, in those days we had to stay in for 10 days!!!!

I've had serois bleeding after both my births (forceps first and c-section second) and was in 5 days for both.......second they didn't actually move me from the delivery room until late on the 2nd day after the birth and that seemed to be because there was no ICU bed available so my experience hopefully not "normal"

Having had to spend five days there I would say IMO a few days wouldn't be a bad thing, especially if you are Bfeeding for the first time as that can be difficult. Even if you manage to feed straight after the birth and thing everything is okay like my first did, he then decided he couldn't remember how to latch on and that lasted just over 24hrs - very frantic and don't know how I would have coped at home with no support other than a very keed but clueless partner (bless). I did have private room both times which was a real plus.

5 days is too long for anyone - I was stir crazy both times but because of my complication it wouldn't have been wise to leave sooner.

My mum says she was only in for 3 days in 1974 - but she was fine and I was in ICU 50 miles away.

The bf support in hospital seems variable - if there's useful support available I'll make use of it but suspect being more relaxed at home with some diagrams and family/friends who have done it would be just as good.

Hospital have now confirmed all should be fine for MrNC to stay, but did warn can't guarantee private room, he won't have a bed, and won't get meals (as expected). Have name and number of head postnatal person in case of any problem.

So I'm now as happy as anyone about to give birth...

notcitrus FWIW your GP can do the baby checks the next day. Some midwives can also check babies were certainly being trained to do so in Lambeth a couple of years ago.(although not sure that is helpful if they can't decide which midwives you should be seeing)

Had ds1 emcs early Sat morning, came out of hospital Sunday tea time.
Had elective cs with ds2, born thursday morning and they were practically kicking me out Friday morning
Good job i wanted to leave!!