From last week's thread, based on the circumstances in my hospital,
here is my suggestion for a notice over the beds:
'Unfortunately, the bean counters in this hospital trust have not seen
fit to equip your maternity ward with beds that are safe enough for a
mother to sleep deeply with her baby beside her, though we expect you
to assume full care for your baby around the clock. Therefore, until
you are at home in your wider, lower bed, please use your call bell to
summon staff if you fear you are too tired to sleep while using at
least half your brain and your body to prevent your baby from slipping
out through our useless side rails and landing on the hard floor, and
we will do our best to look after the baby long enough for you to get
half an hour of uninterrupted sleep.'

We have had a very few awful incidents over several years, in which
babies fell to the floor on the postnatal ward, miraculously not
resulting in serious injury to any of the babies.  In every case, it
was the father who was bedsharing at the time, with one of a set of
twins. The parents were exhausted to begin with but of course blamed
themselves for what happened and I wouldn't wish that experience on my
worst enemy. Nobody blamed our hideous beds or our skeletal staffing,
to my knowledge there have been no repercussions to anyone (thinking
of the bean counters here!) after the incident reports were filed, and
we have no hope of getting better beds or more staff.

Rachel Myr
Norway

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