As usual, going to ILCA has gotten me inspired to once again start hacking away
at making changes at the hospital where I work.  Hearing Marshall Klaus was such
an inspiration (and he even sat next to me at lunch one day--what a wonderful
hour!).  Between hearing him and being reminded of the newborn's incredible
capabilities, and Michael Woolridge's reminders that the infant should be
controlling the feeding, I decided to look at exactly what we were doing at
delivery.  I started asking more questions and hung around at a delivery
yesterday, and I was not impressed.

A couple of years ago when I wrote our hospital's BF policies, babies were
staying in the LDRP rooms for between 1-2 hours, then being brought back to the
admission nursery for all the "stuff."  Usually the only things done in the room
were footprints, ID bands, and vitals.  Somewhat recently we went to admitting
the baby in the room, which I thought would be wonderful.  *NOT!*  At the
delivery I saw (no problems, prime), mom held the baby for a few moments, then
baby was moved to the warmer to get dry blankets while mom was stitched up. :-(
So for a full 15 minutes baby lay on her back, looking at nothing, while the
nurse did vitals, bands, footprints, weighed, measured, charted, checked for
patent nares, gagged her to look at her palate, etc., etc.  I'm told that the
really "efficient" nurses can also get the blood pressures, Ballard, eyes and
vitamin K done while mom is getting stitched up!!!!!!!  I'm also beginning to
sense that knowing that the baby should "nurse within the first hour" has lead
to the nurses (with all good intentions) interfering more than they should--they
proudly tell me all too often that "I got that baby on the breast."  I don't
think we're allowing much self-attachment here.

So anyway, what I'd like to know from those of you out there who are a bit more
baby-friendly than we are:  What are your routines to allow babies time with
their parents and to attach when they're ready, and still get in all the stuff
that needs to be done?  What do you do with C-section babies?  Currently ours
are carried to the admission nursery by dad, and then barraged with everything
before mom gets back to her room and baby gets a chance to try to BF.  Seems to
me we should be interefering with them as little as possible, too.

I was also very interested with the idea that was mentioned at ILCA (someplace
in St. Paul, MN used to do this) of having mom and baby get in the tub together
after delivery and mom bathing the baby instead of the nurse doing the scrubdown
in the warmer.  Anybody doing this?  I guess what I'm looking for are ideas I
can take to the nurses on how we can welcome this baby kindly and gently, not
interfere with feeding behavior, and not have the nurses feel like I'm
interfering with their efficiency.  Any ideas for me?

Thanks!

Becky Krumwiede
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