From last week's thread, based on the circumstances in my hospital, here is my suggestion for a notice over the beds: 'Unfortunately, the bean counters in this hospital trust have not seen fit to equip your maternity ward with beds that are safe enough for a mother to sleep deeply with her baby beside her, though we expect you to assume full care for your baby around the clock. Therefore, until you are at home in your wider, lower bed, please use your call bell to summon staff if you fear you are too tired to sleep while using at least half your brain and your body to prevent your baby from slipping out through our useless side rails and landing on the hard floor, and we will do our best to look after the baby long enough for you to get half an hour of uninterrupted sleep.' We have had a very few awful incidents over several years, in which babies fell to the floor on the postnatal ward, miraculously not resulting in serious injury to any of the babies. In every case, it was the father who was bedsharing at the time, with one of a set of twins. The parents were exhausted to begin with but of course blamed themselves for what happened and I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy. Nobody blamed our hideous beds or our skeletal staffing, to my knowledge there have been no repercussions to anyone (thinking of the bean counters here!) after the incident reports were filed, and we have no hope of getting better beds or more staff. Rachel Myr Norway *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html To reach list owners: [log in to unmask] Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask] COMMANDS: 1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail 2. To start it again: set lactnet mail 3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet 4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome