In Western Quebec, we have a newborn nursery that we now call
"garderie", word which would be equivalent to what you usually call
"day-care baby-sitting" but over the clock; so baby goes there only if
there is a problem with mom. Babies born vaginally without problems
don't go to the nursery since they stay with their mothers. But this is
theory since 75% of the mothers unfortunately don't want to keep their
babies in their room for the night; they bring their baby back to the
garderie at their bed-time and want the nurses to wake them up when baby
cries for breastfeeding or bottle since they are the ones to feed their
babies. We are working hard to change this but wow, is it ever hard!
However, if a baby has a problem at birth or anytime afterwards, he/she
will be transferred to the first-level neonatalogy nursery for
observation and, as soon as his/her condition is believed to be o.k.,
he/she is going with mother.
For C-section babies, dad (or grandmother or girlfriend or sister or any
significant other if dad is not present) usually brings baby to the
nursery where he/she observes "treatments" (vitamin K, eye antibiotics,
weight, etc...) and then rocks baby until mom is back in her room. Then
the 3 of them are together, unless mom or baby is not well.
I am aware that this is unusual for Quebec, where most of the hospitals
still have nurseries but where most of them are also working towards
closing them definitively.
Hope this answers the question of what is going on "nursery-wise"
outside UK/US.
***
On another string, the regional bf promotion committee finally launched
our bf month in Western Quebec with bf posters and pamphlets being
everywhere, offices, drugstores, busses, teaching institutions, clinics,
etc...; we had a very good tv and press coverage (thank Heather for the
press hints!), and the journalists just loved the mini T-shirts we had
made with the "I love mom's milk" on them, which we will give to all
November newborns breastfed when leaving the hospital. We hope this will
reach more people than less....
Louise Dumas, R.N., M.S.N., PhD
Professor-researcher in Nursing Sciences
University of Quebec in Hull
(Western Quebec)
mailto:[log in to unmask]
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