Hello to all lactnetters! My name is Janelle Gridley and I'm a Midwife
working in the "Special Care Baby Unit"
at our local hospital in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. I subscribed to
LACTNET about 2 weeks and have been
enjoying all the postings.I tend to be a little shy and have finally
summoned the courage to write my intro.
I am the mother of two boys, Matthew 5 1/2 and Michael, 3 1/2 who I
breastfed for 13 months and 15 months
respectively.My husband Ross, also enjoys reading some of the mail.
I love some of the American terminology you use especially "Pump and Dump"
I think I've worked out what most of the abbrieviations mean as they are
different to ones we use.

Our hospital has approximately 900-1000 births annually and we have 8 LDR's
(Labour, Delivery Recovery)
rooms. 4 of these are double rooms where partners and families are
encouraged to stay at least 24 hours
postpartum and the other 4 are single rooms. We have a 17 bed postnatal area
and a domicilliary midwife
service that provides follow up care at home. We have 4 lactation
consultants on staff and many others who
studied the course but for different reasons didn't complete the exam.

The Special care Unit  is a level 2 nursery (ie Not a NICU ) but we have all
the facilities to deal with a NICU
baby for a short period of time until transfer to a major hospital in
Melboune with such facilities.


That about covers it briefly and Thankyou all for all the good work. There
is certainly a wealth of knowledge out there.I do hope you all enjoy your
conference.

Regards,

Janelle

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Please feel free to email me about anything- I love receiving mail!!