Becky Krumwiede asks for the names of other hospitals that forbid
co-sleeping.  Here in Ithaca, New York, the Cayuga Medical Center
disallows co-sleeping of mother and newborns.  This policy is
actively enforced.  And if a mother should doze off while holding her
baby, a nurse will come in and put the baby in the bassinet.  The no
co-sleeping policy is written in the notebooks that all pregnant
women receive when they choose to deliver here; the stated rationale
is that hospital beds are too narrow to safely allow it. I was
surprised to learn this, as there was no such policy at Beth Israel
Hospital in Boston where I delivered my daughter in 1998 and which is
far more high-tech and interventionist in every other way. I'm sure
the beds there are just as high and narrow.

Primarily because of this no co-sleeping policy, and with about four
weeks to go in my current pregnancy, I just switched my prenatal care
and chosen place of delivery to the September Hill Birth Center,
which is an hour west of me near Watkins Glen.  (Here are provided
queen sized beds big enough for a whole family.) The idea of being
separated physically from my new baby after nine months of symbiotic
living is too painful for me.  I would probably lie awake for two
nights just so I could hold him in my arms.  Also, I'm terribly
near-sighted and, without my glasses on, I know I couldn't keep an
eye on him through the night even if the plastic bassinet were parked
right next to my bed.  And, it just seems obvious to me that the best
place for a newborn is next to his mother's breast.

I wonder if any groggy new mother has ever dropped her baby while
trying to get him out of the hospital bassinet to breastfeed in the
middle of the night?  Seems an equally perilous scenario to dropping
a cosleeper while trying to get up to pee!

warmly, Sandra
--
--

Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors
110 Rice Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853
[log in to unmask]
www.steingraber.com

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