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One doctor not impressed with hospitals removing nurseries
By adamg on Mon, 02/08/2016 - 10:13am
Dr. Shirie Leng was more than a bit upset on reading the Globe story about how local hospitals are removing nurseries to force mothers to bond with their babies and make them breast feed their newborns. Leng, who has three children herself, writes:
Since we’ve already decided that women shouldn’t make choices about breast vs. bottle, abortion or childbirth, drinking or not drinking, let’s also take away their choice to not drown in the wonderful, horrible, crazy sea of new motherhood. Because we really can’t be trusted to choose the best way for ourselves and our children. ...
You know what promotes breastfeeding? Paid maternity leave. You know what promotes bonding? Paid maternity leave. You know what promotes good parenting skills? Paid maternity leave.
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Comments
hear hear
The Globe article treats the lower rate of breastfeeding in the US as some kind of mysterious puzzle, and suggests it's because... they give out free formula samples at the hospital??
Please. Maybe it's because the US is the only country in the developed world that doesn't mandate paid maternity leave.
Psst. How about paid a
Psst. How about paid a smidgen of paid paternity leave as well?
Hell yes!
And not just a smidge, neither.
I suspect
that the reason the hospitals are getting rid of nurseries is not breastfeeding or bonding, or even cost savings, but liability.
If the baby's in your room, the hospital can't give it to the wrong mother to nurse. If the baby's in your room, the hospital can't accidentally switch it with another baby. If the baby's in your room and aspirates its spitup in its sleep and dies, well it's Mom's fault for not waking up, not the hospital's.
It's rather silly, because once the baby gets home, let's face it, Dad or Grandma is going to be the primary caregiver (minus nursing, if Mom so chooses) until Mom is feeling better from her medical trauma.
There are liabilities to all
There are liabilities to all the options.
http://www.firstcandle.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Thatch-Deaths-...
Yes, hospitals can be sued for bedsharing-related deaths when they negligently advise exhausted, depleted, drugged post-partum women to share beds with their babies. I can assure you from personal experience that nurses often advise just that.
Also? Once my kids were home, I was the primary caregiver. Much love to Dad and Grandma, but they were back at work themselves.
Ummm...No
You clearly haven't been in a maternity ward lately.
Babies have TWO bracelets (wrist and ankle), and nurses MUST make sure the bracelets match the parents' when they bring them into a mother's room. Every time.
The ankle bracelet also makes a noise letting you know you have the right mother when mom and baby are reunited after a stay in the nursery, baby being removed for routine checks, etc. (Oh, and it sounds an alarm throughout the ward if it falls off or the baby is illegally removed from the ward.)
This is probably about nursing staff shortages (prevalent in the US, Europe, and I'm sure elsewhere around the world) more than liability.
As someone who had a C-section
My feeling is that if they're going to get rid of nurseries (which I agree is a bad idea), they damn well better set things up so post-op mothers don't have to stand up and lift a heavy baby and bring it back to their bed while they're recovering from the surgery. I couldn't do it for the first couple of days.
Surprised to read that MGH is
Surprised to read that MGH is going in this direction. Having a nursery is invaluable for mom to get a little break every now and then. Despite what this article says, I have a hard time believing that a request to put your newborn in a nursery for a few hours would be flat-out turned down.
Either way, nice job Dr. Shirie Leng for making a non-political issue into political issue. The American Board of Pediatrics must be joining in on the "war on women"
A non-political issue?
Honey, healthcare for women, and the treatment of parents in the workplace and how that ends up affecting ability to care for children IS A POLITICAL ISSUE.
Sorry if you prefer to silo these things but, hey, in reality they are linked up all over the place!
"war on women"
idk, maybe wait until that gender has had the right to vote for more than 100 years before it goes in quotes. or, in perhaps an even darker area in the war you don't believe in- and far closer than 1919, I give you this paragraph:
" The criminalization of marital rape in the United States started in the mid-1970s and by 1993 marital rape became a crime in all 50 states, under at least one section of the sexual offense codes. During the 1990s, most states differentiated between the way marital rape and non-marital rape were treated. The laws have continued to change and evolve, with most states reforming their legislation in the 21st century, but differences remain in some states, in particular in South Carolina."
i guess maybe it isn't a war, in the same way we arent technically at "war" in Afganistan or against ISIS or what have you. but there are aggressors and casualties all the same.