Linda, I used to work as an IBCLC in a hospital; however I am not an RN.
Hopefully, my wish list for breastfeeding in a hospital will help.

>My colleagues and I have the privilege of having a forward-thinking
Director
who has asked for our input (imagine that!) on our upcoming expansion of our
maternity services....possibly eliminating the "well baby" nursery<

You are lucky to have such a Director.  Eliminating the nursery is the best
idea.  A few years ago, a neonatologist commented:  "The BEST nursery is an
EMPTY nursery."  Every healthy baby needs to stay with its mother; even the
bottle-fed babies.  Think of what could be done with all that room; divide
it into a place to hold classes, consults, breastfeeding supplies and
rentals, etc.

>have formally proposed charging for our services and implementing a
rental/sales program<

Whatever you can do to help the hospital financially is great.  Insurance
companies will partially cover your services; even Medicaid will.

>There is really no privacy in the nursery for breastfeeding.  We do very
little skin-to-skin care in the nursery<

When you eliminate the well-baby nursery, you will have room for recliners
for skin-to-skin care.  That's a dream for my wish list.

>Our Director wants to streamline our care and put everything at the
bedside<

Do you mean at the mother's bedside or the baby's?

Lee Galasso, MS, LLLL, IBCLC, RLC

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET email list is powered by LISTSERV (R).
There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html