Pardee, I am glad to see this discussion posted. I am also curious to see what the standard of lactation care is at other hospitals. I work at a large metropolitan hospital w/approximately 650 births per month. We staff 2.5 FTEs per day, 8 hours/day, 7 days a week. I am estimating, based on 2.5 years of experience at this hospital, that we have an initiation rate of @95%. We probably have a any-breastfeeding- at-discharge rate of @ 85-95%. Usually closer to the original initiation rate. Every patient receives one visit from lactation as part of their delivery package, almost always on day 1, not delivery day. However, when the census is high, we struggle to see everyone w/only 2.5 FTEs. This has become a source of tension. The 2.5 FTEs are also required to see patients who request a lactation consult in what we call our fee-for-service (FFS) program. I can't say that I was in favor of this program. I have very mixed feelings. When the program was first introduced, it grew very rapidly and overwhelmed us. We were missing seeing all postpartum mothers for their one lactation visit. They then added the .5 FTE. It eased the tension somewhat and the program settled into a more manageable number. We may do anywhere from 1-6 FFSs/day. These are shared by the LCs on duty. We also see all mother's whose babies are admitted to NICU. We do a maternal assessment and pump set-up. If babies are discharged from NICU during mother's stay at hospital, we then go back to do a breastfeeding visit. We have a warm-line which generates a number of phone calls per day, which we are generally required to do between patients. Obviously on high census days, this does not happen. We occasionally get a walk-in to our Lactation Center (store) and one of us will be called in to do a brief consult. This is rare. We are required to see mother's in recovery if requested. This does not happen every day, although this last week I was called into L&D for a <1 hour newborn who "would not latch and suck". And that same day I was called in to see 5 hour old newborn (35 weeker)who "would not wake up to breastfeed". Sorry for the detail but I just wanted to give you a clear picture of the job responsibilities of our LCs while they are seeing patients in postpartum and to give you some idea of what our lactation program entails. I look forward to others sharing what kind of lactation care is provided in their hospitals. Linda D. Kingsley, IBCLC *********************************************** 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 mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html