Why you may not want to have your baby on the weekend (in these here parts anyway)
I had a weekend baby. In the hospital on Friday, out precisely 48 hours later. While in the hospital I felt like I had a pretty good experience. However, upon reflection I have come to the conclusion that having a baby on the weekend, at the hospital I did, may not be the best course of action.
It seems that at the hospital weekends are approached in much the same way as they are everywhere else: everything's a little more lax and thus, come Sunday, not quite everything gets checked off that to-do list. I found this tidbit truly remarkable: the days over which your hospital stay falls (I like that, sounds like we're talking about a spa retreat or some other such illustrious pursuit) really does impact the level of service you will receive. I realize we're all - hospital staff included - human. I was just naiive enough to think hospitals operated with a work ethic above that of retail.
Good eats: We'd love to help you, it's just that...
My husband and I enrolled in and paid for prenatal classes put on by our local public health unit. We both do not recommend these classes if you are above the age of eighteen and/or have access to any books and/or the internet. Anyway, in these classes the gentle nurse strongly urges you to breastfeed your baby, because as that oft-repeated maxim states, breast is best for babies. So, the nurse mentions a few points about breastfeeding and suggests you reach out for, and accept, as much help as you need for it. Don't be a hero. Got it, I thought. This is one area of life too important to go it alone.
Breastfeeding can be a tough nut to crack at first. Natural though it may be as a process, it doesn't necessarily come naturally to either mother or baby. More on this intriguing topic in another post (if there are any men reading this, I just know you await that post with bated breath). So, from what I have discovered and as the public health nurse implied, most new nursing moms need help getting started, and even for a month or two after.
I must say the nurses at the hospital were lovely. Very kind and sweet, which is extremely important after delivering a baby because, though it is such a rewarding experience in the end, giving birth and recovering from said endeavour is, to be perfectly honest, rather demoralizing. I won't go into details - those who have been there, know. Those who haven't, don't need to know. Yet.
As lovely as the nurses were, their knowledge regarding breastfeeding could use some bolstering considering establishing feeding is one of the most important things done in the time a new family spends in the hospital. One nurse out of the four I had caring for me was great, having taken it upon herself to do research on the topic. The other nurses had little to offer me beyond what I'd read about breastfeeding in my pregnant days. At one particularly tough moment, around about three in the morning when I was struggling to feed my hungry baby, the nurse working that shift offered what help she could, and then apologized and wondered if I could wait until the more knowledgeable nurse came in for her shift in three hours. She also offered that I may want to meet with the lactation consultant the hospital has on staff. What a great idea! I thought. Yes, that is some help I was very willing to accept. Oh, except that she doesn't work weekends. All I could muster at that time for that well-meaning nurse was a blank stare.
Oh, did you think we were going to do that?
Another somewhat lacklustre area in our weekend hospital experience: follow-up. All babies undergo hearing tests in the hospital. Our daughter required additional testing because they could not get a good read on her hearing levels. When this is the case, the hospital is to send documentation to the local hearing testing facility to set up additional testing. This did not happen. When I called to inquire, the facility had no record of my daughter at all.
In those prenatal classes I mentioned above, as well as during the tour of the hospital, you are told a public health nurse will call you after your baby is born and offer to pay a house call to see how things are going. I himmed and hahed during my pregnancy about whether I would accept this offer. I'd heard mixed reviews of the visits from other new moms. Some said the visits were a great service, very helpful. Some said they were nothing more than a government agency check up on your performance as a new mother. Turns out I had no reason to worry, I never received a call from a nurse.
One very difficult and emotional day about a week after coming home, I needed breastfeeding support. I tried calling the lactation consultant at the hospital, and was told that she really doesn't do post-discharge help, and that she would only agree to see me if I tried all other support routes and wasn't able to get help. I did this, and tried calling her back when I'd exhausted all other support routes. She had gone home for the day. It was 3:15 p.m.
When I finally was able to see a public health lactation consultant two days later she asked if I got a call from a nurse. When I answered no, she asked if I had my baby on a weekend. Apparently the hospital has been getting progressively worse at completing the kind of documentation that would have seen my daughter and I put through the system on the weekends. The lactation consultant apologized very sincerely on behalf of public health. The help I received that day, and every other time I have dropped in with a question or two since, has kept me successfully breastfeeding my daughter. It has been a mental health-saver for me. I just wish I could have had the same kind of help when I needed it in the hospital. A great deal of worry and a few tears could have been spared.
My daughter is two and a half months old and we still have yet to receive a health card for her. The hospital issues a temporary one and is to send in the paperwork for a permanent card. Apparently we were to receive the new card a month ago. For some reason I suspect the hospital has slipped up.
Walking the tightrope known as Visitors
Last but not least. This topic has nothing to do with hospital staff, but is still a touchy issue that comes with having a weekend baby: visitors. The fact of the matter is, if you have a baby on the weekend, you are more likely to have people visit you in the hospital than if you have your baby through the week. It is much easier for people to slip out of the office on a Friday afternoon than it is on a Tuesday afternoon. Thus, our new family had its first visitors just two and a half hours after I gave birth to my daughter. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I definitely appreciate the well-wishes, support, kindness and gifts offered by those who visited us. Even at the time I was so flush with the post-delivery and new baby high that I just went with the flow, not fully registering the tiredness or stress I was feeling.
This is where I must come back to the demoralizing aspect of delivering a baby. There are things going on with your body after giving birth that you (well, I for sure) just don't want to experience in front of others, no matter who they are. I am a much more private person than my husband. So where he was happy to have so many visitors, I was not so sure. Plus, let us remember that, though he was a fantastic support during my labour and delivery, he of course had a very different experience of it than did I. I had much more at stake seeing people so soon after delivering. My epidural had barely worn off before our first visitors arrived, and without saying a word more, that was the least of my physical worries at the time.
I suppose, also, that the number of visitors we had in the hospital was not completely overwhelming at the time because I did not know how much visiting lay ahead. Well, I knew there would be many people who would want to meet our daughter over the next month or so, but I didn't know at the time how all of that social pressure would make me feel. How - coupled with sleep deprivation and the demands of being a mother to a nursing newborn - overwhelming, exhausting and stressful it would be. So, looking back on it now, I wish I would have guarded our privacy a little more. I wish I would have been able to section off more of our time in the hospital as our time to get to know each other as a family. I barely held my daughter on the day she was born except to feed her. That is not an exaggeration, and it makes me a little sad. This is not a pity party. I'm just saying how I would do things differently, given the chance.
So there you are. All the reasons why I recommend avoiding a weekend baby. Ladies, read up on all your old wives' tales about how to induce labour (more to come on why old wives' tales can be the bane of any pregnant woman or new mother's existence in another post). Go for gold and aim for a Tuesday-ish baby.
It seems that at the hospital weekends are approached in much the same way as they are everywhere else: everything's a little more lax and thus, come Sunday, not quite everything gets checked off that to-do list. I found this tidbit truly remarkable: the days over which your hospital stay falls (I like that, sounds like we're talking about a spa retreat or some other such illustrious pursuit) really does impact the level of service you will receive. I realize we're all - hospital staff included - human. I was just naiive enough to think hospitals operated with a work ethic above that of retail.
Good eats: We'd love to help you, it's just that...
My husband and I enrolled in and paid for prenatal classes put on by our local public health unit. We both do not recommend these classes if you are above the age of eighteen and/or have access to any books and/or the internet. Anyway, in these classes the gentle nurse strongly urges you to breastfeed your baby, because as that oft-repeated maxim states, breast is best for babies. So, the nurse mentions a few points about breastfeeding and suggests you reach out for, and accept, as much help as you need for it. Don't be a hero. Got it, I thought. This is one area of life too important to go it alone.
Breastfeeding can be a tough nut to crack at first. Natural though it may be as a process, it doesn't necessarily come naturally to either mother or baby. More on this intriguing topic in another post (if there are any men reading this, I just know you await that post with bated breath). So, from what I have discovered and as the public health nurse implied, most new nursing moms need help getting started, and even for a month or two after.
I must say the nurses at the hospital were lovely. Very kind and sweet, which is extremely important after delivering a baby because, though it is such a rewarding experience in the end, giving birth and recovering from said endeavour is, to be perfectly honest, rather demoralizing. I won't go into details - those who have been there, know. Those who haven't, don't need to know. Yet.
As lovely as the nurses were, their knowledge regarding breastfeeding could use some bolstering considering establishing feeding is one of the most important things done in the time a new family spends in the hospital. One nurse out of the four I had caring for me was great, having taken it upon herself to do research on the topic. The other nurses had little to offer me beyond what I'd read about breastfeeding in my pregnant days. At one particularly tough moment, around about three in the morning when I was struggling to feed my hungry baby, the nurse working that shift offered what help she could, and then apologized and wondered if I could wait until the more knowledgeable nurse came in for her shift in three hours. She also offered that I may want to meet with the lactation consultant the hospital has on staff. What a great idea! I thought. Yes, that is some help I was very willing to accept. Oh, except that she doesn't work weekends. All I could muster at that time for that well-meaning nurse was a blank stare.
Oh, did you think we were going to do that?
Another somewhat lacklustre area in our weekend hospital experience: follow-up. All babies undergo hearing tests in the hospital. Our daughter required additional testing because they could not get a good read on her hearing levels. When this is the case, the hospital is to send documentation to the local hearing testing facility to set up additional testing. This did not happen. When I called to inquire, the facility had no record of my daughter at all.
In those prenatal classes I mentioned above, as well as during the tour of the hospital, you are told a public health nurse will call you after your baby is born and offer to pay a house call to see how things are going. I himmed and hahed during my pregnancy about whether I would accept this offer. I'd heard mixed reviews of the visits from other new moms. Some said the visits were a great service, very helpful. Some said they were nothing more than a government agency check up on your performance as a new mother. Turns out I had no reason to worry, I never received a call from a nurse.
One very difficult and emotional day about a week after coming home, I needed breastfeeding support. I tried calling the lactation consultant at the hospital, and was told that she really doesn't do post-discharge help, and that she would only agree to see me if I tried all other support routes and wasn't able to get help. I did this, and tried calling her back when I'd exhausted all other support routes. She had gone home for the day. It was 3:15 p.m.
When I finally was able to see a public health lactation consultant two days later she asked if I got a call from a nurse. When I answered no, she asked if I had my baby on a weekend. Apparently the hospital has been getting progressively worse at completing the kind of documentation that would have seen my daughter and I put through the system on the weekends. The lactation consultant apologized very sincerely on behalf of public health. The help I received that day, and every other time I have dropped in with a question or two since, has kept me successfully breastfeeding my daughter. It has been a mental health-saver for me. I just wish I could have had the same kind of help when I needed it in the hospital. A great deal of worry and a few tears could have been spared.
My daughter is two and a half months old and we still have yet to receive a health card for her. The hospital issues a temporary one and is to send in the paperwork for a permanent card. Apparently we were to receive the new card a month ago. For some reason I suspect the hospital has slipped up.
Walking the tightrope known as Visitors
Last but not least. This topic has nothing to do with hospital staff, but is still a touchy issue that comes with having a weekend baby: visitors. The fact of the matter is, if you have a baby on the weekend, you are more likely to have people visit you in the hospital than if you have your baby through the week. It is much easier for people to slip out of the office on a Friday afternoon than it is on a Tuesday afternoon. Thus, our new family had its first visitors just two and a half hours after I gave birth to my daughter. Now, please don't misunderstand me. I definitely appreciate the well-wishes, support, kindness and gifts offered by those who visited us. Even at the time I was so flush with the post-delivery and new baby high that I just went with the flow, not fully registering the tiredness or stress I was feeling.
This is where I must come back to the demoralizing aspect of delivering a baby. There are things going on with your body after giving birth that you (well, I for sure) just don't want to experience in front of others, no matter who they are. I am a much more private person than my husband. So where he was happy to have so many visitors, I was not so sure. Plus, let us remember that, though he was a fantastic support during my labour and delivery, he of course had a very different experience of it than did I. I had much more at stake seeing people so soon after delivering. My epidural had barely worn off before our first visitors arrived, and without saying a word more, that was the least of my physical worries at the time.
I suppose, also, that the number of visitors we had in the hospital was not completely overwhelming at the time because I did not know how much visiting lay ahead. Well, I knew there would be many people who would want to meet our daughter over the next month or so, but I didn't know at the time how all of that social pressure would make me feel. How - coupled with sleep deprivation and the demands of being a mother to a nursing newborn - overwhelming, exhausting and stressful it would be. So, looking back on it now, I wish I would have guarded our privacy a little more. I wish I would have been able to section off more of our time in the hospital as our time to get to know each other as a family. I barely held my daughter on the day she was born except to feed her. That is not an exaggeration, and it makes me a little sad. This is not a pity party. I'm just saying how I would do things differently, given the chance.
So there you are. All the reasons why I recommend avoiding a weekend baby. Ladies, read up on all your old wives' tales about how to induce labour (more to come on why old wives' tales can be the bane of any pregnant woman or new mother's existence in another post). Go for gold and aim for a Tuesday-ish baby.
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