Hi, my name is Madeline and I am a Registered Nurse-Midwife working at
Logan Hospital (just south of Brisbane),Queensland, Australia. I must say I
am quite astonished to hear about these newborn nurseries as I have been
working in midwifery for 9 years now at a number of hospitals and have
never encountered one. At the hospital I am currently at we have about 2500
deliveries a year, with 6 birthing rooms, a 30 bed ward for antenatal and
postnatal patients and a 8 cot level 2 special care nursery. We also have
an extended midwifery program home visiting service for our mums who go
home early.All of our mums and babies room in 24 hours a day - if mum is
too sick to look after baby then the midwife cares for the baby at the
mum's bedside. Our babies are bathed and weighed in the presence of mum and
dad in the birthing room and we also have resus cots in each room so they
don't have to leave unless they are really sick.Apart from the bonding
aspects of 24 hour rooming in I really feel it helps with security issues
and also the accidental "mixups" of mums being given the wrong babies.We do
have a nursery in the ward, but it is where the mothers bath their babies,
we weigh them and also our educational videos are shown in there. Even if
baby is under phototherapy, we still leave the baby in mums room and
educate her on how to care for her baby. Seems to work well - very few
complaints.
Have only been subscribing to this mailing list for a few weeks and I'm
really enjoying it . For those of you who are interested in what's going on
in Australian Midwifery, we have an Australian Midwifery Mailing List
([log in to unmask]).

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> From: Heather <[log in to unmask]>
> To:
> Subject: newborn nurseries
> Date: Sunday, 8 November 1998 2:34
>
> Just a question : is there any advantage at all in having a newborn
nursery
> for healthy term babies? Any teensiest, slightest benefit whatsoever to
> mother, baby or breastfeeding?
>
> I think this is the old territorial issue - and my impression is (from
the
> posts)  that the more the newborn nursery is used, the more weighings,
> glucose checks, observations, heel pricks for goodness-knows-what,
> pacifiers, supplementary bottles.....
>
> I said before the UK system of bedside care does *not* prevent unncessary
> and harmful interventions, but on reading the posts over the last day or
> so, I think we have far fewer routine interruptions to the mother-baby
> relationship and bf.
>
> What happens in places outside UK and US?
>
> Heather Welford Neil
> NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK
>