Pat: How interesting! The number of interruptions a mother experiences during the average hospital day! One of my partners and I have been doing an informal count of the number of interruptions that occur just while we are in the room helping a mom with breastfeeding. My high so far is 6 interruptions in 15 minutes, not including phone calls the mom received while I was there. Mothers average 2-3 phone interruptions during a 15-20 minute lactation visit and many elect to continue the call rather than continue with the visit. At our hospital, interruptions include the manicurist/pedicurist, the picture lady, the Eucharistic minister (that one is my fault! I complained at a meeting with our CEO that if our hospital is faith-based, why weren't patients offered daily Holy Communion - most of our patients are Catholic, the hospital is not. She jumped right on that - there is now a Eucharistic minister making daily rounds offering Communion to the patients), the volunteers offering the daily newspapers or flowers, the kitchen staff with meal trays, etc. I'm also not counting visitor interruptions which can really get out of hand. The list goes on. I have suggested to our director that we start looking at how we can reduce the interruptions but was told that the families want all this. I don't think so! Babies are being left in the nursery all night when mom realizes she has had exactly 2 hours of sleep in 48 hours and then going home sleep- deprived. Then I get the frantic phones calls a day or two after discharge or the office walk-ins. When I was in nursing school, about 90 years ago!, a lot of emphasis was placed on co-ordinating and consolidating nursing care to reduce the number of interruptions and to allow for more healing rest for the patient. When I mention this to the staff, I get blank looks, so I guess this isn't taught any more in school. Too bad! Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,CLC Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html