We do not have nearly as many births as you do. Our average monthly rate is about 120. Each nurse usually has no more than 4 couplets and we have corpsman on the unit since it is a military hospital. As long as mom and baby are both stable, they come together from L&D to the postpartum unit. The baby is transitioned in the same room where mom will be staying and the baby remains in that room for rooming in until they both go home. All tests (unless a venipuncture is involved) are done in the room. We still have a few staff that want to take the babies to the nursery for tests, but they are reminded by others that by doing all tests in the room in front of mom provides for great teaching opportunities. We still have a few staff that tell the moms they will take the babies at night and let them rest. Again these nurses are told this does more harm than good. The nurses are not going home with the mom and baby. We have only a short time to help them learn to provide basic care and separating the couplet interferes with that learning as well as breastfeeding. FOr the most part, our babies are in the nursery for circumcision or because they require level 2 care or are unstable and we are transferring to a level 3 NICU. Mary Buskohl MSN, RN, IBCLC Florida *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html Mail all commands to [log in to unmask] To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask]) To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]