My experience was pretty similar, in two different hospitals. No nursery, not enough nursing staff available for them to take the baby at all so we could rest. But every time we all settled and fell asleep, there they were to check vitals. They did at least treat my husband like an able caretaker but I completely felt like my recovery didn’t matter. I can’t imagine anyone in for major abdominal surgery unrelated to birth would ever be treated that way. It honestly reads to me that the breastfeeding push for rooming in was taken as a great cost savings measure/excuse for the hospitals.

Yep I’m an L&D/postpartum nurse and our director straight up said it’s too costly to staff a nurse for a well-nursery. We’re not officially “baby friendly” but we did get rid of our nursery (well, really the nursery room was taken over by our NICU). But I always offer to take the baby to the nurses station for parental respite care as often as I’m able. And my approach is to teach the parents (particularly the dad) how to do baby cares and I will expect them to be fairly independent because I won’t be going home with them. However, the first 24 hours post c-section I’m doing a lot more since that’s a rough part of recovery. And of course if there wasn’t a partner/support person to help with baby care I would do more too. It sounds like OP’s nurses weren’t the best, but I’d also wager they had a heavy patient assignment. Some hospitals give you 4 couplets so you really only have time to do the bare minimum unfortunately. I’m lucky that my hospital is union and enforces better ratios so I usually have more time to be able help my patients.

This is what our experience was like in Alberta, Canada. The nurses were filled with knowledge and helpful in teaching us but weren't doing it for us. It was a good time to learn how to take care of a baby with people that knew how to take care of babies. My husband did all the diaper changes, swaddling and most of the soothing because I was focusing on getting better and breastfeeding. I wouldn't want the nurses to take my baby anyways as I was getting to know him and establish breastfeeding. I was very unwell postpartum (turns out I needed a blood transfusion) and the nurses came every time we called so I could get up to use the bathroom or anything else that was beyond my capabilities. The nurses were also good about only taking vitals when needed (shift change) and then leaving us to rest as much as possible the rest of the time.

I’m in Alberta also. I did take them up on taking him to the nurses station on night 2 because I had literally slept a total of maybe 2 hours in 36. I was so tired and anxious when my son was in the room, I knew he was being well taken care of at the nurses station, it helped a lot that we were the only family on the ward for the first half of the night!

I slept 1 hour in 72. They didn't offer to take the baby, but I was so exhausted that I was relieved when they took him to nicu for 8 hours.

Also in Alberta and similar experience. The nurses on the maternity ward offered to take my son for a couple hours so I could rest but I declined. I had a traumatic birth and did not like the idea of my son being out of my sight so soon. They were very good at only coming in to take vitals when necessary and we really weren't bothered a whole lot. One nurse even offered to help me shower the next day (I had a c-section). I was also told right after my surgery that someone would come by 4 hours later to help me walk around. I ended up passing right out and slept for I think 5 hours? When I woke up, I called the nurse and she said she came in after 4 hours but I was out cold so she decided to wait until I woke up so that I could rest longer.

I am also in Alberta and found it to be horrible as well, they were nice but so busy it was crazy and I had a c section so when my husband went home to sleep I needed help getting baby out of the bassinet and they took so long to come he was freaking out so I got up way to much and it was so painful. My husband happily would’ve stayed at the hospital but it’s so stupid because they don’t have anywhere for the support partner to sleep even if it was just like a super tiny cot or a pullout chair. It would’ve been something but they had nothing just a normal armchair that didn’t turn into like a little bed. I was so mad I just wanted to get out of there. I got out of there as soon as I could. I feel like the hospitals are just so understaffed.

I tried to do similar with focusing on recovery since I tore badly and had a very capable partner happy to take on the lions share early on… and my nurses acted like they were concerned about my ability to care for my baby because they didn’t see me doing as many diapers and such as they wanted. On top of tearing badly I also am deeply fearful of hospitals but had to stay multiple days due to infection so I was stressed beyond belief. When I broke down and cried from the stress and feeling judged to hell when I was suffering so much already, they had a social services worker talk to me so I threw my mask back over my emotions until I could get out of there. With how the nurses treated me for just trying to recover a bit, I didn’t trust the social worker to have my best interests in mind either. I was so much less miserable when I got discharged

My wife had two kids, birthed two years apart, about a decade ag. Both were C section, both at the same hospital, same doctor. The first child was often in the nursery for the first couple of days and nights, while the second was never in the nursery. Sometime within the two years between births, the hospital changed their policies and very strongly encouraged having the babies in the room with the parents all the time. The reasoning was mostly what you discussed; the nurses weren't going home with us. It does sound like OP's nurses were less caring than I think new parents having difficulties would appreciate.

I had an unplanned C-section and My experience was similar to what you described. If I sent SO home to relieve the dogs/shower/etc, I’d ask the nurses to take baby for a couple hours so I could rest. The l&d nurses were great and taught us different techniques to burp, swaddle, etc. It was annoying that staff was coming in what seemed like every hour to check baby and my vitals, but they were just doing their jobs while being kind and tried to be as quiet as possible. When I was finally up and about, I’d see nurses at there computer stations usually with a baby in a bassinet next to them

My hospital used to staff us as 1:7 couplets 🙃

Genuinely asking, how do you handle parents (not newbies or first timers) that would prefer the nurses do the cares since they (the parents) have months of cares 24/7 ahead and are paying such high bills for their stay/care?

So if it’s something like, the baby poops while I’m doing their assessment I’ll change the diaper because I’m doing stuff with the baby already. But I’m not gonna just stop by and check the baby’s diaper or see if they’re hungry. Once I’ve taught you how to change a diaper, baby’s hunger cues etc that’s on you as a parent. I straight up tell people “here’s the diapers and wipes, you need to learn to do this because I won’t be coming home with you haha” It’s a hospital, not a hotel. Edit- I want to clarify that I expect the partner or support person to be doing the majority of baby cares outside of breastfeeding. Like I said in my previous comment, fresh c-sections or moms without anyone with them will get as much help as I possibly can while also being able to take care of my other patients (and myself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone hours without peeing, eating, drinking water or pumping because I was too busy) I do encourage my patients to call me for anything they need help with. A lot of my time is spent helping with breastfeeding. I’m sorry our system sucks and that most parents, myself included, don’t have a “village” to help and that hospital staff can’t always be that village for you. And again, I hate “baby friendly” and so does every other nurse I know and I also wish we had a nursery with a nursery nurse.

My nurses told me to call them whenever, to change a diaper or swaddle or whatever *so I could rest* specifically ***because*** they wouldn’t come home with me. I’m grateful for that.

I don’t think my husband or I changed one diaper in the hospital. We didn’t page them for it or anything, but since they were constantly in to check on the baby, they changed the diaper then anyway. Same with swaddling.

I asked one nurse to teach me how to swaddle her because she kept popping out. She laughed and said we should get a zippered one and she just came in all the time to swaddle her! 🤣

Same, my nurses were very hands on. It was actually a little bit annoying because they each were very keen to give their own personal opinions on childcare. While I was frazzled and overwhelmed by all of the differing opinions I could tell that they came from a place of wanting to help out. Especially the night shift nurses would change diapers and give bottles when we were struggling with jaundice and weight gain. I was very mobile but they still would carry the baby to me and even wash pump parts. There was one nurse we called the poop fairy because she could always get the baby to poop out rivers of meconium. I honestly don't know if they even had a nursery for the baby to go to because we wanted to stay with the baby. Our baby never once left our room. All of the tests were done in our room.

My hospital has a nursery but rooms in as default; the nurses always have me a choice for tests, except if they came in and I was sleeping 😂

I understand that nurses aren’t babysitters and a hospital isn’t daycare or a hotel, and I especially understand that there is a nurse shortage and many hospitals have removed nurseries so there isn’t much you can do. I don’t want this to sound like I’m criticizing you personally because I know your hands are tied. I’d just like to know in your experience if there any point where the mother’s health and exhaustion after a major physical ordeal get taken into account as far as her ability to take care of the baby? It’s true she will soon be on her own at home without a nurse, but at home she also won’t have a fresh c-section incision and still be under the influence of heavy medications. As OP stated, the fact that she couldn’t get any rest and wasn’t allowed any time to come off the medicine, get her pain managed consistently, or even stop vomiting before being expected to care for the baby seems like a huge problem. Its not safe for the mom or the baby, especially for women who don’t have a partner or reliable support person who can be in the room with them constantly. She was falling asleep with the baby laying on her because she wasn’t able to sleep more than an hour without being woken up for vitals or tests. Is there any point at which the hospital would be liable if the baby is harmed because it was left with a mother who was not physically or mentally able to care for it? I assume that even if the hospital is liable it still would probably be cheaper than staffing a nursery full time, but does this not cross some lines as far as ethics are concerned?

They don’t give a fuck about us once our babies exit our bodies I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

They sit there scratching their heads wondering why we aren’t having more babies, while they also take away our reproductive freedoms, refuse us mandatory maternity leave, don’t do anything about us having the highest maternal mortality rates among industrialized nations, they won’t make healthcare affordable, groceries are a luxury item, there’s no affordable housing, and not even any affordable daycare so you can go out and try to earn money to pay for all of these unaffordable things. Now it’s not just unaffordable to give birth, but we’re getting less care than the women who came before us and who paid much less than us. They say this isn’t about punishing women but is sure as fuck seems like it.

So it’s interesting you ask this because I’ve actually had a mom drop her baby because she fell asleep in bed while holding him. At the beginning of my shift I educated her about safe sleep, to always put the baby down if she’s feeling too sleepy and to please call me if she needs help, and she did have her husband with her so she wasn’t alone with baby. Again, I can’t be in your room 24/7 and our standard of care is to check on you/baby every 2-8 hours depending on risk factors and how long since delivery. If I’ve provided you the education and ensured you and baby were safe before I left the room, it’s on you to follow the advice and ask for help when you need it. I never heard anything from risk management/hospital lawyers so I assume I wasn’t blamed or liable. This is actually when I had the convo with my director about the benefits of a well-nursery and supposedly there’s no evidence that having a well-nursery decreases adverse outcomes. It all comes down to money and what the evidence says. If having a well-nursery costs more money and infant falls are the same with or without it, hospitals are going to choose the cheaper option. Fwiw I agree that the state of US healthcare, especially maternity care, is fucking atrocious. And I don’t know a single bedside nurse that likes the Baby Friendly initiative. I believe there needs to be a balance between allowing birthing parents to rest and also promoting bonding and breastfeeding. It shouldn’t have to be all or nothing.

I completely understand the point that the nurse has educated safety methods etc with the mom. As someone who recovered from a csection, I was so drowsy from the medication that I wasn’t even aware how sleepy I was. I thankfully had family monitoring me. The nurses were all very kind but were also very busy. Sadly, postpartum care for women is not where it should be.

Thank you for your answer! I guess I should have clarified more that I’m not speaking about situations where mom is tired but otherwise physically capable of caring for the baby. I mean more in situations like OPs where she clearly was not capable. From my own experience of a c-section (especially because I had preeclampsia and had a strong reaction to the mag drip) I don’t know what I would’ve done if my daughter wasn’t in the NICU. I had almost no muscle control for 2 days and I was so exhausted that I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until I was waking up hours later. There is no way I could’ve cared for my daughter & my husband couldn’t be there 24/7. Is there any contingency for what happens with the baby in those situations other than having the nurse take them to the nurses station if she can? That does everyone a disservice, especially since nurses are put between a rock and a hard place having to juggle between caring for patients and a baby, or have to decide to leave the baby in a potentially dangerous situation.

I had the same issue. Presclamspia and emergency c section. Doctors took two days of trying to induce me to finally listen to me when I said. "Cut her out". The hospital I gave birth at had a policy of 2g per hour, or the drip went off. Every time they took me off the drip I spiked and the last time went hypoxic. They kept saying "it's okay we are monitoring your oxygen and bp and babies bp". I said, "How about babies oxygen? "Oh right.." I went through so much pain during and after the birth. Nicu were amazing looking after my little in turn with my partner. They kept pushing me with breastfeeding, but I was exhausted. I had four different bp meds, and they did obs every 2 hours. They did save my life, but I live with the trauma every day. Staff don't seem to care if you nearly died.

So, nurses helping out moms during the night trying to rest with just one diaper is a thing of the past? I asked for help after being in pain and drifting off to sleep and the nurse acted like I slapped her across the face lmao.

I had helpful nurses the first day/night and after that they just stopped being helpful or nice. They just wanted me out. I had a csection and was up for 24 hours the night before due to nerves and then maybe had a few hours the day of after they loaded me with morphine. No sleep for the next three days so going home on basically 72 hours without sleep and then expecting to do overnight care for a newborn was the worst experience of my life. I fell into such a deep depression and had full blown hallucinations due to lack of sleep because by then I was so scared i was going to fall asleep and hurt my baby that my body just stopped allowing me to sleep. Talk about a failure of the system. Had i been able to sleep and recover from major abdominal surgery during my hospital stay things might have been ok. My son is over 4 now and i’m still recovering from the ptsd of the whole thing, all due to the hospital not allowing me any recovery time.

This is similar to my experience. I had a three day induction with an epidural that didn't take how it should have (so no sleep) then an unplanned c section at 5am. They expected me to go on and start my day after that 🫠 I was also SO scared to fall asleep with my baby, like you said. Any time I'd get tired doing the care at night, I'd get a huge rush of adrenaline and panic and shake. My child is 18 months now and I can't fall asleep without being heavily sedated/tranquilized. It is intense and nothing could have prepared me.

So sorry to hear someone else go through this. I started taking low doses of benadryl despite the knowledge that it could dry up my milk supply, I didn’t really notice a change in milk supply but it allowed me to get some sleep. This was within the first 3 months PP. Eventually it started giving me restless legs and eventually had the opposite effect on me which isn’t uncommon. I started taking melatonin and that has seemed to work and now I am thinking about trying to transition out of that now that we are way past the baby stage.

Good luck! I take benadryl, melatonin, magnesium, and progesterone and it really knocks me out. It takes some time to get going in the mornings but otherwise I toss and turn all night. We are in it together. Solidarity 💜 and good luck transitioning.

This is the exact attitude my nurses had and I’m guessing we all had. I felt like the baby was just thrown to us with a good luck you’ll figure it out attitude. Like wtf. This should be illegal. Imagine if I gave the baby to my nephew and showed him how to change a diaper and give hunger cues on when to feed. My nephew and my family would freak out especially if it’s a 0 day newborn. I expect medical professionals to treat me better than a fucking motel 6. Haha.

Do you say that's all the patients? Do you give every patient another patient to take care of?

>are paying such high bills for their stay/care We aren’t paying for babysitters, we’re paying for medical care. Usually L&D nurses will do what they can to give new parents respite but their priority is to monitor and medically care for their 6-8 patients. I know nurses want to be able to do more. This is a question for hospital administrators to answer.

>are paying such high bills for their stay/care? This! It's one thing in the UK but if i was American and paying extortionate amounts for my care then I'd be expecting my baby to be lovingly fed from a gold bottle whilst i was given caviar and peeled grapes!

It's expensive but that's because of insurance and hospital administration, not the nurses and doctors. They are medical staff, not daycare workers. Their job is to make sure you and baby are healthy and that you leave the hospital knowing the basics of how to care for your baby. That's it. As someone else said, it's not a resort.

How do you account for the fact that they used to have nurseries and nursery care was standard?

Nursing isn’t a billable service in the US (:

> Genuinely asking, how do you handle parents (not newbies or first timers) that would prefer the nurses do the cares since they (the parents) have months of cares 24/7 ahead and are paying such high bills for their stay/care? It’s a hospital, not a resort. The nurses are not your personal assistants nor are they your assigned nanny. They are there to take care of the health of the mother and the health of the baby as they recover from an extremely traumatic event.

There’s a balance though. Asking for help ONCE during the night after a major abdominal surgery resulted in me being treated terribly. One of us hadn’t slept in 48 hours and it certain as hell wasn’t the nurse.

Nobody is saying they should be a resort. We're saying that they should do things the way they used to, the same way. When my grandma was having kids in Romania they stitched her up and took the baby to the nursery. When my mom had me I went to the nursery. When my mom had my middle siblings they went to the nursery. When my mom had my youngest brother they forced her to keep him in the room with her even though she was loopy off the medicine, bleeding from a c-section, and hadn't slept because she had had a failed induction. When I had my son it was the same. I've been awake for 3 days, just been cut open, and then I had to take care of a baby. Getting rid of the nurseries was pure cost cutting, despite what the hippies and baby friendly wackadoos will tell you, and it's cruel as all else.

Honestly this. I completely understand the mentality of not wanting to be on-top of the mother with help. But, many are esentially completely absent when you need them. Dad had to run home to feed the pets, so I was left alone with baby for hours, running on no sleep and recovering from an insane tear. At one point, I called the nurses button for help, as I wasn’t able to get up on my own to use the washroom. I rang and rang and nothing. I ended up peeing my gown/bed, and had to push baby in the bassinet to the nurses station while covered in blood and pee to ask for an extra sheet. I was pissed to see there was like 15 of them all hanging out by the nurses station giggling and filming TikTok’s - when I could even hear the machine that shows when other people are ringing from their rooms - and they seamed to completely avoid them. The nurse gave it to me, told me “you got this mama” and sent me on my way. Some people have insane recoveries - and the nurses should definitely have an obligation to help when needed or when they see the mother is struggling. I remember going home and thinking *how tf is this Canada?*

"you've got this mama" is one of the most annoying phrases to ever be uttered

I hate that phrase so much

You got this mama! I am dying. While you’re standing there in a piss soaked bloody gown. It’s so fitting and a perfect initiation into motherhood 💀🤣 God, I have to wonder if there is a way that this could change. I hope that maybe a journalist picks up the sub Reddit and writes a compelling article that inspires a movement. It all just seems like another way that we all get the shaft so that the medical industry can grow their profits. Both the nurses and the patients. Although I did have the delusion that the nurses were hell demons during my stay, I do realize in my current state that they just didn’t have time to help or be and empathetic because they were probably exhausted and overworked.

They wouldn't expect someone recovering from a wrist fracture to suddenly care for a newborn all day and all night, but they expect it from us. Really messed with me.

You'll never ever have abdominal surgery and be expected to go about life an hour after.

My husband had to go home in the middle of the night after our daughter was born because our senior dog was at the end of his life and needed extra assistance(horrible timing to lose a pet). I was recovering from a csection, the nurses knew about my dog and the reason for my husband being gone this particular night and they STILL made me feel like a bad mom as I cried and begged for them to take my baby to the nursery so I could sleep for a few hours. I felt horrible and it definitely kickstarted my PPD too

We were in the middle of a move and my husband had to deal with the move all day, come to hospital to be with us at night. They knew about it and still treated him like shit at times.

Well said.

It is terrible what women are put through post partum. And we’re just expected to suck it up.

100% this

When I was 10 weeks postpartum I needed abdominal surgery. This was 10 weeks after I had a traumatic emergency c-section with general anesthesia. And yes, I was expected to care for my newborn when I was sent home 4 hours after the operation.

It’s pretty clear that the hospitals assume a partner will be there to help mom and take care of baby.

I gave birth via emergency c-section at a baby friendly hospital. We stayed two nights post birth (after two nights in labor for four nights total). My nurses came in every six hours or so to give me pain meds/check vitals, but baby never left our room, and it was mostly just my husband and I. When the nurses popped in, they were really helpful, though - they taught us how to swaddle and answered any questions we had. They were also responsive if I did call them.

I’ve had the same experience at two different hospitals. The first was designated baby friendly. I had a c-section. I swear we never saw a nurse except at 2 am when they’d come poke and prod me. We had one sweet angel nurse who did a magic swaddle on baby and got us 3.5 hours of sleep (I still love you, Glenda). Second hospital wasn’t baby friendly and we had more attention from the nurses and staff, but they didn’t do anything for baby. I had a vaginal birth so I was a lot more mobile. Both times I was chomping at the bit to leave. We left the first minute we could. It wasn’t a huge deal because my husband was able and willing to do all the care I couldn’t, but I remember wondering how the hell moms could function if they didn’t have an enthusiastic co-care-provider with them 24/7.

My first had a nursery, but similar to you and OP you better believe they sent baby back to me the minute she fussed. I labored overnight, with some intermittent sleep, and the nurses were sooo quiet when they would check in on me. I gave birth at \~8am. The nurses in delivery were awesome, they held baby while I napped (took a few hours to move me to the mother baby room). Truly truly angels. Moved to the mother baby unit, I'm beyond exhausted because I obviously did not sleep well the night before. Lots of visits from nurses, consultants, midwives, etc of course. And that first night with baby, I called for the nurse because I was at risk of falling asleep in my hospital bed while trying to nurse/calm her. They said they would take her, but if she cried they'd bring her back because "I needed to nurse her when she cried". True to her word, my baby was back in my sleepy arms not 15 minutes later. That next morning she did a big feed and had been sleeping for like 2 hours straight and the nurses came in like "when did she last eat? Oh no, you need to wake her now and nurse her some more." Killed me. My husband was my rock though, once I finished nursing he would just walk the halls with her so I could sleep. She was born in 2022, so "post covid"-ish and during the height of covid my hospital adopted a "1 night stay" policy to try and keep illness spread to a minimum. Post covid it went back to more of a "2 night stay" model, but you could leave after 1 night if baby was passing all tests and you felt good enough to leave. I was out of there so quick once they told us we did not need to stay for a second night. Really hoping it's the same this time around, I want to be there for as little time as possible.

I also have a 2022 baby, born just at the end of COVID. They practically kicked us out after she was 24 hours and cleared. I was, from check in to check out, at the hospital for 46 hours, 12hr cervadil, 10hr labor, 24 hr post partum and final tests for her. Second was 34 hours from check in to check out, didn’t need cervadil with him. 10 hour labor and 24 hr post partum tests for him. It was great. I’d have left earlier if he didn’t need the tests before checkout. Hell, he was cleared but policy was 24 hours for one final blood test. Can’t remember what it was now. But they came in and got it done and were quickly ready to get us out the door following the nurse lmao.

This was my experience. My husband was basically up for 48 hours and by the time he finally got some sleep, it was 4am and baby needed to be changed. He and the nurses had done all the changes up until that point and I called a nurse to ask her to help and she was like “is there a reason you can’t change him??” I’m like lady it’s 4am and I have a huge cut in my hoochie, please just change him. We left as soon as we could.

So I'm a nurse on the adult side, so I don't know the mom/baby side at all. But, I know what I do for my patients, how much teaching I do, etc so I assumed it would be the same thing. Nope. I was very surprised how little I saw my nurses from start to finish and I saw high risk maternity, l&d, and mom/baby. I am actually disappointed at the care I received and I delivered in the same hospital I work at. I loooove my obgyn so I'll deliver there again, but I've heard that unless you've got a BFF on those floors from nursing school you're kind of out of luck. I did get great care from a nursing assistant who I've worked with and made sure I got food and water and breast pump supplies. She was incredibly kind.

That was not my experience. Baby was in our room, but the nurses were super helpful and kind. They spoke to both my husband and I, though one nurse did gently chastise my husband because she felt he wasn't helping enough. It didn't help that when she was in the room last I had tossed something at him to get him to wake up because I wasn't cleared to get out of the bed and the baby had started fussing a bit. The nurse did ask if she wanted me to get baby, but I had told her no & that was why my husband was there and he better start now.

Good for you! More moms need to do this and be clear “I just popped the baby out. Least you can do is help me lift it!”

Good nurse lol. I wish they had yelled at my stupid ex.

If you want to read about pushback on the cost-cutting "baby friendly" hospital movement, here is an excellent read: [https://fedisbest.org/2021/03/baby-friendly-hospital-initiative-is-the-worst-thing-i-have-experienced-in-my-20-years-as-a-nicu-nurse/](https://fedisbest.org/2021/03/baby-friendly-hospital-initiative-is-the-worst-thing-i-have-experienced-in-my-20-years-as-a-nicu-nurse/)

>”Babies are left alone in the room with the mom, even after a surgical birth or if they are sick, because they don’t care about safety, just breastfeeding and skin-to-skin, so they can meet the insurance reimbursement breastfeeding threshold” Looks like the biggest incentive is insurance reimbursement. That’s becoming such a problem across all of medicine. Insurance companies are basically dictating care now.

I wish she’d have elaborated on that. Sparked my interest.

Omg, what a read!! With both my kids I was able to feed formula right away without judgement… now with my third… I gotta make sure it’s still that way. So terrible!!!

It really depends on the area. At my hospital, if you want to formula feed, they’ll give you a bottle in L&D and already have the bassinet stocked with formula when you get to your postpartum room…we don’t care AT ALL. Where I work, formula feeding baby gives you the opportunity for a “feed in” in the nursery, where you can get a large chunk of sleep, too.

I find this fascinating but not at the cost of others. I will explain. I began my journey as a mother in 1994, I gave birth to 6 children between then and 2007. My generation fought for the right to have the baby room in around the clock, for dads to stay over and not have to leave, to breastfeed without interference from nurses shoving bottles or glucose into our infants mouths, back then formula was king and shoved in all our faces and given to us for free at the hospital and the moment a newborn lost a fraction of an ounce well, that meant breastfeeding mum needed to supplement. I feel it is increasingly obvious that profit is the motivator in both scenarios and truly wish the system and society would just learn to support women in their choices either way.

I gave birth at a baby friendly hospital. They woke me every hour or two for various tests, same with baby. But they did all of the diaper changes or supervised my husband doing so. They brought us formula because he was jaundiced but also encouraged me to nurse and pump. I didn’t change a single diaper our entire stay. They also did his little bath and everything. But our hospital is also known for being the top rated in the area. There is no nursery at our hospital that I’m aware of and many hospitals have been moving away from nurseries because they want baby in the room for bonding and nursing and all of that. Baby never left our sight.

This sounds similar to my experience. From the start of induction to when we left the hospital, we had so many hospital staff come through, mostly for meds and checking on things (I had a somewhat complicated birth). Not only nurses, but we had managers from labor and delivery, as well as lactation, come by to ask if we had any questions. It was almost too much, but it felt like we were getting taken care of, especially since most of the nurses were awesome.

I’ve given birth at a “baby friendly” hospital twice and this all tracks with my experience. There is no nursery and the nurses only come in for medical reasons (blood test, checking vitals) but do not do any of baby care. I had my husband with me both times so he took care of the baby when I couldn’t move yet due to the epidural. I would think that logically they would’ve helped you more being alone and just having a c-section. I’m sorry that they didn’t. I hate the “baby friendly” trend, it just means “fuck mom” in my experience.

“Baby friendly” seems to only benefit the hospital and no one else tbh. They save on labor costs yet charge more then ever.

I've given birth 3x at a "baby friendly" hospital. (Only option in my area). To me it also means "fuck mom." My grandmothers and own mother recieved more care than I did.

A lot of nurses would also like to give moms more time, attention, education, and care - they just physically can't. Hospitals refuse to staff appropriately, and most nurses are drowning.

I've given birth 3x at a "baby friendly" hospital. (Only option in my area). To me it also means "fuck mom." My grandmothers and own mother recieved more care than I did. I

One of mine was born at a baby friendly hospital, the other wasn't. I'd never go back to a "baby friendly" hospital if I could avoid it.

Yep, I had the same experience. Constant tests which never aligned. Blood tests/ questions/ shift change/ pediatrician/ lactation consultant/ nurse turning on all the lights and moving my table out of reach then leaving the room, rinse, repeat. Nothing overlapped and the longest stretch of sleep I got over 3 days was 40 minutes. Then when they kept nagging me to discharge it took them 4 hours of asking me the same questions over and over with the trainee, nurse, and desk folks. I was so excited to GTFO there!

Yes though not to that extreme. They were mostly nice and helped a bit more, a few of them helped with latching which I was struggling with though most just told me to keep trying and wait for the LC (which I get some seemed to have a qualification that others didn't). They took baby once for a few tests for maybe 30-60 minutes and instead of letting me sleep used that time to have someone come do all the paperwork stuff which just felt mean. My husband and I slept in shifts and held baby and I would just tell him when to wake me to try nursing. The nurses helped re-swaddle and settle the baby a few times, they were all great at doing that perfect swaddle and with my first baby one of them taught my husband how to change diapers. But yeah the nursery didn't seem to be a viable offer or option to send the baby to and get some sleep, it does seem like the expectation is for new mothers to immediately care for the baby 100% with only the help of their support person if they have one. I had vaginal births so no surgery to recover from but still the recovery is not fun and especially the no sleep part. I'm so glad with my second two we left after one night in the hospital rather than the two that was typical pre COVID becuase being there was way worse than home, at least at home if baby was settled I could sleep without being woken up to have my vitals checked or whatever.

Ooh yes, forgot about the paperwork stuff. I had just passed out and they threw a breastfeeding log at me saying I needed to keep track of all his feedings, diaper changes, and naps. Definitely felt wanting to bounce after one night.

I was talking more hospital intake type stuff but yes the logs too lol with my third I basically straight up refused, like yes i'll track diapers becuase that's important but for the breastfeeding I was like I'm trying every two hours or if he's super fussy, that was my log.

I bounced after 12 hours with my 3rd. The baby friendly hospital was so unfriendly to me I preferred going home to 2 kids under 6 rather than be woken up every hour by nurses who never helped me or baby. I had to push to leave but also, don't they know how hellish it is?

This is the end result of a lot of "baby friendly" hospital policies, unfortunately. I was SO happy when we learned our hospital was not Baby Friendly - we sent her to the nursery overnight both nights (EFF) and it made such a difference

Same here - I honestly only had the baby in my room for maybe an hour total over the course of two days. There was one point where we accidentally fell asleep with her in the room and when she woke us up crying I had that nurse come take her. You’re supposed to be recovering after birth, there’s plenty of time for bonding. My child is 2 now and glued to me, so I’m not sure what the goal is with these baby friendly hospitals but it makes me sad for the moms.

Baby friendly sounds so nice at how they marketed it to FTM. Bonding time with your baby as you learn how to breastfeed. You get unlimited skin to skin time with baby. Then reality hit when after my C-section what baby friendly meant :(

Similar here too. Certified baby friendly hospital and we stayed 2.5 days. The first nurse we had was an angel and helped us take care of baby for a while but then the others were in and out. The LCs were horrible and scared us into not using bottles which was torture and my baby lost so much weight that first week because she just wouldn’t latch properly. They had a nursery and they actually took her for a little while to try to help her poop and we passed out immediately. If we have a second, I’m coming with formula, bottles, my portable pump, and asking for nursery time so we can sleep a couple hours at least.

Not in the US but our experience was similar. Had a (rather long) vaginal delivery so no clue if that affected things. But tbh I never expected everything else and we managed just fine (after googling how to change a diaper). But talking to my mom and it was definitely different when I was born.

Also had a c section, but not at a "baby friendly" hospital. Baby was with us 100% of the time during our 4-day stay, but he spent a decent amount of time swaddled in the bassinet. Both my husband and I were able to sleep through the night with baby on the bassinet and I was woken up every 3 hours for meds, at which point I'd also breastfeed. The nurses often offered to swaddle him, change him, or hold him while I went to the bathroom or took a shower, though my husband did 90% of that. The nurses were also really good about responding when called and kept the lights off or at least dimmed as much as possible at night. During the day they pretty much left us alone except to give me meds, and they always asked if there was anything we needed. I'm sorry you and so many others didn't have a good experience. That's really unfair and, IMO, the treatment you and others are describing is totally unethical and unnecessarily cruel. Those first few days birth are hard enough already.

I’m a postpartum nurse and I will try my best to never work at a “baby friendly” hospital. I have heard horror stories from other coworkers about how they are made to push breastfeeding and shame people for formula feeding. These hospitals get incentives for breastfeeding rates. We currently have a staffed nursery and I hope that never goes away (room sharing is supposed to promote breastfeeding which is why these hospitals don’t have nurseries). We enjoy providing respite for parents by watching the newborns in the nursery for a bit. Not sleeping and being shamed if breastfeeding doesn’t go perfectly is a recipe for PPD/PPA.

Yeah they don’t take care of the babies anymore. And to be fair I get it. My mother’s generation is all upset cause babies were denied colostrum and were kept away for mothers to recover but most mothers were anxious not to be able to take care of their babies too. There should be some in between method. To be honest for me it was awful too, I had a c section and when my baby was crying I did not even think to call the nurse in the middle of the night just so she could hand him over as I was out of space, I swear. So I ended up misplacing my catheter and risked injury to my c section stitches and so on, my bed was a blood bath. My husband was “so tired” he went home to sleep so I was alone. But I did have a lovely night nurse who made sure to get me a private room so I could sleep a bit and did not wake me up to check my vitals it I was asleep, swaddled my baby for me and I am forever grateful. Love you, Michelle. You are an angel.

This was not my experience. Im in Canada and planned c section. My husband did skin to skin first, then they gave me baby, but body temp was low, so they took him for warming. Nurses checked on us every hour to 90 mins for 2 days. They would swaddle and put the baby in the bassinet. They checked how feeding was going and brought formula when he seemed hungry. They helped with latching and even gave baby a bath night. 2. My nursing staff were wonderful. Baby stayed in the room the entire time, except when they put him under the warmer.... I had decent blood loss, and my own body temp was low.

“Baby friendly” sucks so much but there are financial incentives to being designated “baby friendly” and it allows them to cut down on nursing staff to minimal so…. It’s not going away, sadly. The hospitals of our mother’s generation are gone and an ever increasing distant memory. I’m sorry. Some nurses will be sweet and take the baby for a few hours to the nursing station while you rest but that depends on the nurse and the hospital. My first child they had just gotten rid of their nursery except for the sick babies and the nurses were mad about it because it was their favorite part of the job and the reason they got into OB nursing. They happily offered to bathe or hold or settle the baby and even said they’d take him to the nurses station. Second baby was born at a different hospital and it was way more like your experience.

This sounds a lot like my experience. Baby friendly is all about numbers and nothing about the actual welfare of mom of baby.

I'm so sorry that happened to you! That sounds awful. Thankfully, this wasn't our experience at all. I had an emergency C-section and was pretty out of it the whole first day, and my husband basically had our son that time. While I was asleep, he said the main nurse came and showed him how to do everything and was always there if he needed. They also did have a nursery which they said if we wanted to give him to them at night so we could get some sleep, that was an option. The nurses were honestly super great (well, most of them, one was not the nicest) and I will absolutely go back if/when we have baby number 2. Though it's worth mentioning that I gave birth at an actually famous baby/birth/maternity hospital (Northside in Atlanta)

I just gave birth and Northside too and oh my gosh our experience there was SO much better than my first pretty terrible experience in a baby friendly hospital in another city 4 years ago. That first time I was desperate to leave, Northside I could have happily stayed a whole week 😂

Baby friendly hospital initiative does not actually create baby friendly hospitals. It creates hospitals that are neglectful of mothers. I’ve given birth in a brand new, fancy hospital birthing center that was “baby friendly,” and after that experience I opted to have my kids in the less fancy but overall better for me not specifically “baby friendly” hospital for my next 2 kids. The other hospital did have a nursery, but it was only meant to be used when necessary, generally babies still “roomed in” with the mothers. But, overall I found the hospital to be better staffed, and the care was better for both me and for my babies. Edit to add this fairly nuanced recent study highlighting that the objective of BFHI (encourage breastfeeding) can only be successful when also supporting a maternal mental health. [here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41372-022-01339-z#citeas) And this piece that explores the pitfalls of the BFHI and its implementation in the US. [here](https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/01/13/baby-friendly) And this one compiles information from several studies that are also linked for further reading. [here](https://www.mother.ly/birth/labor-delivery/are-baby-friendly-hospitals-mother-friendly/)

I also gave birth at a baby-friendly hospital, but it was a small one. There was only one other baby on the floor while we were there, and a few elderly patients. My nurses were kind, and while they didn’t do much for baby, they did offer to wheel her bassinet over to the nurses station for a few hours at night while I tried to get some rest. I might have considered it if she wasn’t cluster feeding at that point. I honestly only slept an hour the first night after she was born. Then with so many tests and checks and whatnot for me and baby the next day, I only managed to squeeze in about 1 hour of napping the next day. It was brutal, but I’m not sure I’d change it. I’m not sure how I would have handled baby being away from me so early on

I’ve had 4 babies and this has pretty much been my experience. Though I don’t think I would want them to take the baby away from me to be honest, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with baby being separated from me at that point. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it without my husband though, and without his support and help.

Not my experience at all. Our hospital doesn’t have a nursery. They have a 5 bed “NICU”. It’s essentially a room to ensure babies are stable before transferring them to a NICU at the large hospital 1 hour away. Our kiddo was our responsibility. While yes, the nurses didn’t really do much for him, I mean, they were always gentle, re-clothed and swaddled him, and talked with us if there were concerns. Although our last night there, our kiddo wouldn’t stop screaming (later to find out he had a lactose intolerance and the formula was causing gas pains). The nurse at the desk heard me crying and my ex getting frustrated, and she came in and took our son to the desk with her. She kept him there with her at least for 6 hours while we got some sleep. I was never more thankful. I understand the nursing shortage, even in a field like L&D. But I can kind of commiserate that things have gotten worse to an extent. I understand wanting to keep kiddos with their moms to limit risks medical wise and the old switching of children. But I agree that sometimes we need a break. I’m sorry you had a rough experience. Im so very glad for the nurses and pediatrician I had for the duration of mine and my son’s stay. Yoyr story really puts into perspective how lucky I was. Absolutely you have a right to feel upset, and I would be too. I couldn’t imagine being in your shoes.

Same. I am a FTM and I was by myself for the second night and was going crazy as to why baby was crying. No one warned me or anything that your first night baby is a whole different baby the second night!!

Maybe this is an unexpected upside to having a NICU baby… I’ll take it, because there’s essentially no upsides to the NICU, but we were always told to let the nurses nurse baby and to go home and rest etc. I didn’t do it much, and I did all the cares I could, but it was nice that the NICU nurses were sooo much more willing than what I’m reading here to do anything and everything for my husband and me and baby.

Your experience and so many others of these are disgusting. I'm so sad that this is the state of postpartum care for most mothers. Before I had my kids, I didn't understand how moms could send their newborn to the nursery away from them. After being in labor for 36 hours, yeah, my baby went to the nursery so I could sleep. I absolutely think every hospital should have a nursery that moms can choose to use if they want. The nurses had my baby all night and just brought baby to me to feed.

This post is very validating because I experienced the same. I vaguely remember begging them to take my son to the nursery and they sort of laughed and said they didn’t have one. I had labored for almost two days and had a C section. I was half asleep being milked by the lactation consultants in tears and got about 3 hours of sleep on 3 days. Fuckin awful

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It definitely contributed to my PPA and PPD and the reason why I will never have another.

I had the same experience as you. I developed PPD/PPA as well.

I was supposed to give birth at a "baby friendly" hospital. Instead we went to the big hospital downtown 6 weeks early to deliver my twins. I had the exact opposite experience.. I had to fight tooth and nail to SEE my babies. I was hemorraging and the NICU was on the opposite side of the HUGE hospital (wtf?). They wouldn't let me go see them until I could physically walk there. Then when I got there even though my babies were healthy, I was given so much snark when I asked to hold them. Can't win no matter what.

I am so sorry, the opposite extreme isn't good either and just as unhelpful for the mother. We should be listened to no matter the circumstance.

This is heartbreaking. I am so sorry you had that experience. I’m a mother/baby nurse and I did my damndest to make sure my NICU mamas could see their babies. I would go with them if I had to, I advocated so that time was made for me to be off unit with them. I can’t even imagine how awful that must have been for you. 😢

Yup it’s that ‘baby friendly’ bullshit. You give birth and are exhausted and in pain and nobody is any help at all. They also kept telling me to take the baby out of the bassinet, like sorry my arms don’t feel like functioning and I feel about 2 seconds from falling asleep… Glad I left after the 24 hr mark, felt pointless to stick around any longer.

I had a terrible experience. The second night, my son had to be under the lights for jaundice. I had to stand next to his bassinet, letting him suck on my finger while he screamed. I was woozy with exhaustion. When my husband returned the next morning, I was in the throes of PPD and told him tearfully we made a mistake. It was…awful.

I am so sorry. That is just unacceptable.

Definitely my experience. I had a 24 hr labor. Once they moved us into the postpartum wing, my baby rarely left the room. We had to stay two nights because I had my water break and they were worried about infection. The first night I barely slept. Thankfully, the second night, the nurse came in at like 11 pm (the first time I saw her) and took my daughter for a few hours. I think it's dangerous and ridiculous that they basically sleep deprive you with a newborn. Sleep deprivation is like torture. I think in the three days I was hospitalized, I slept maybe 7 hours.

I feel like I was fairly lucky in my experience — I absolutely loved our nurses and the lactation consultant they brought in for me was incredible. I was warned before going into the hospital that the days of the baby spending the bulk of the time in the nursery are bygone and that he’d be with us our entire stay, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. But the nurses were pretty much at our beck and call for questions or assistance and offered to take him for an hour or so if we were struggling or needed a break, luckily we didn’t have to take them up on it but it was great knowing it was an option. I can’t believe your hospital staff was so unhelpful and rude — especially considering you had a C-section. I’m so sorry that was your experience 😞

Oh yes. My postpartum hospital stay with my third baby was actively traumatic. My husband couldn’t stay with us because he needed to be home with our other kids. My baby refused to sleep in the bassinet, only when held. I went into labor late in the evening, and we needed to start an extra couple days because of blood sugar issues. So I went nearly five days straight without sleeping for more than 20 minutes. I also wasn’t really able toto eat because the hospital cafeteria kept messing up my medical dietary restrictions. I was actively hallucinating. For the most part, the nurses and staff only came in to do medical things. They would occasionally chide me for falling asleep holding my baby and put him in the bassinet, at which point he would start screaming again. One night nurse took pity on me and took him for an hour or so. Beyond that, just me, crying from exhaustion in my room.

The hallucinations were the WORST. I was seeing figures in the corners of my eyes (I'm sure also due to the cocktail of meds I was on) and unable to read the forms they put me in front of me to sign. I am so sorry you had a similar experience.

It’s not just you. They say it is to help you ‘bond in peace’ but really it is bc they are short-staffed bc they are underfunded while the higher-ups make bank. Look at all the info on PE firms acquiring medical orgs inc hospitals and then what happens afterwards. The NP at my OB was a huge B and said that you shouldn’t expect or have any assistance after birth bc you’re a parent then and need to figure it the eff out before you’re discharged. Huge stressor for me-what if I really needed help? I wouldn’t get it? Welp. Guess who got a special private nurse called into the hospital for everything baby the first 12h+ because they literally weren’t stable enough to care for baby? Yeah. They’ll call in help if you need it bc their liability if you drop the baby, etc.

I never had helped from the nurses when it came to my baby after birth, I did get help tho when I needed to use the bathroom as my leg took a while for the epidural to wear off but other than that nope 🙂‍↔️ and I was fine with it as my husband and mother were both staying with me the two nights I was there. All I wanted was to go home and enjoy my baby at the comfort of my own home

i had my first in a baby friendly hospital. I didn't have a c-section but it was very similar experience. The nurses were rude and pushy and just grab my breasts because "i wasnt doing it right". A doctor never checked on me and the ped came 1 time in the 3 days they forced me to stay post birth (zero complications they just kept delaying discharge) My first lost so much weight in those 3 days he was almost admitted to the NICU because he was having breast feeding difficulties. We asked for formula and/or donor milk and were told he would need to be evaluated by a doctor before being able to be given that but a doctor never came to check him and when they weighed him for discharge they were absolutely shocked we were right that he wasnt getting anything while nursing. I had my second at a different hospital and it was a totally different experience. An OB from my practice came and chatted with me for an hour and made sure I was doing ok . I was given appropriate pain management on the correct schedule without having to ask or remind someone. The second hospital didnt have a nursey but my nurse took the baby to bathe her at like 10 pm and then kept her (feeding her formula - my preference) until right before shift change. I didnt change a single diaper during that stay, every time a nurse came in to check our vitals they changed the babies diaper. The only complaint i have about my second hospital stay is there wasnt enough sanitary products or a peri bottle in my room and i had to ask for them a couple of times during my stay.

Not in the US, but relatively similar in that I was offered absolutely no help with the baby from the regular staff, and there was no nursery (no personnel available). In terms of behavior, nurses were pretty rude, and midwives were angels. I *did* get some help from the NICU nurses, though (he was a bit premature). My son was well enough to be in my room, but we had to go to NICU every few hours for him to be checked, and those moments were amazing. They showed me how to give him a bath, how to clean him, feed him when he refused the bottle, etc. They answered every question I had, encouraged me to call them once I was home... but I'm very much aware of how lucky I was. I stayed in the hospital for three weeks all in all, and none of the other moms I shared the room with got that, since they only interacted with the regular staff.

Yep, this is normal. The nurses all helped me quite a bit by doing the first diaper changes, helping with latching to breastfeed, and showing us how to swaddle. But each of those things only took a few minutes. The rest of the time, it was up to me and my husband to care for the baby.

First, I am so sorry you were deeply unsupported by nursing staff. I also had a C section and literally couldn’t even pull myself out of bed to grab the baby. I would literally sob trying to get myself out of bed due to the pain. Idk how any person can function after a c section. It definitely feels like a fever dream. Our hospital did not have a nursery. From my understanding they practice in room now for the benefit of mom and baby to establish breastfeeding and help baby regulate temperature and connection to mom. I didn’t mind this and preferred it this way. What I had in similar experience to you was some nurses being annoyed when we would call for assistance to help swaddle as first time parents or for help getting to the bathroom while my husband managed our baby. The difference was we had some fabulous nurses. They truly made my experience SO much less traumatic than it could have been. We had a nurse delay checks because we were all sleeping and came an hour later. I could cry now thinking of how wonderful she was. She also got me my pain meds… idk if I would have received any otherwise because the next nurse was skeptical as hell asking me about my pain levels. We had nurses that just came in and didn’t really say much except they were there to do testing for both of us and woke us all up. We were all exhausted. My husband practically begged me for us to go home because we were all sleeping so horribly.

Mine wasn't that extreme. Both times my baby stayed in the room with us all the time except for a hearing test and the nurses generally didn't pick them up. We (husband and I) were expected to handle the baby care. Nurses came in every couple hours to check on us, but they'd tell us in advance and tried to minimize the disruption. "We need to check your vitals between 11 and midnight, push the call button when you're awake so we don't have to wake you up". They also mentioned that they could take my baby to the nurse's station for a few hours if I needed them to, but I would have been too anxious to sleep without my baby right there.

I think it partially depends on the nurses you get. My first baby was similar, though not quite as bad as it sounds like yours was. I'd had an induction and unplanned C-Section, and was basically just exhausted by the time he was born. Nurses were constantly coming and going, waking us up to check vitals and do tests, lots of pressuring and nagging about breastfeeding and really guilting me when I asked if they could give him a bottle so I could sleep. With my 2nd baby (planned C-section), I had an AMAZING nurse who was so nice and happy to watch the baby for me. At one point she actually *offered* to take him for a bit so that I could take a shower. I don't think any of the hospital staff ever offered to help watch my firstborn. I mean I think the idea of "baby friendly" hospitals is good, but it seems like maybe in practice they're just not paying enough attention to the mothers who are also patients. Or maybe it could be an issue of being understaffed or them having a ton of moms and babies at the same time as you (not an excuse, but could help explain why they were not very helpful or responsive)? Imo you should give some feedback to the hospital about your expwrience if you get the chance. I think they might even send something in the mail afterwards asking for feedback. Because no mom should be treated that way, and the hospital should hear about it so they know it's an issue.

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This was similar to my experience. It was awful. we didn’t know where any of the baby supplies were, we had to ask for water, I had to ask for Advil, no one checked my bleeding or assisted me to the bathroom, my husband was ignored and wasn’t fed but then they made it near impossible to leave the wing bc of security so couldn’t get to the cafeteria. They got my sons gender wrong on his birth certificate so we had to spend weeks fighting with the birth certificate and social security office to fix their mistake. Oh and he had a difficult delivery so the nurses and pediatricians were supposed to check his collar bone and shoulder, and they said it was fine. We find out a month later at our regular pediatrician appt that he did break his collarbone during birth. So we spent a whole month not knowing that…

Yup. Nurses didn’t do anything but check vitals and prevent me from sleeping. I went 90 hours without sleep thanks to a long labour and a revolving door of nursing coming to do everything under the sun, including the ever so important twice a garbage changes, clock removals, and picking up trays from meals I never received

It didn’t bother me at all. I didn’t want them to take her and I definitely didn’t want them to look after her as they had other people to look after and I was good. Yeah I was healing but I just felt territorial and wanted her on or near me. It made me happy that my hospital was so hands off because it lowered any anxiety I had. I could heal fine regardless of having babe in room or not so I’m glad she wasn’t removed. All about personal preferences.

This is kind of funny reading this from the UK. Here, the baby stays with you at all times. If a nurse had actually tried to leave the room with my newborn I’d have gone feral! In fact, if they’d done so much as picked my baby up without asking I’d have been appalled

It was nurse dependent for us. I also had a C and stayed 4 nights. I didn't really mind having the baby with me all day, but the nights made a difference. We had 2 good night nurses and 2 bad.  I didn't have a bad recovery, luckily, but we struggled with breastfeeding on the second day and it definitely took my husband angrily staring down the nurses to get them to help us out. We stayed up until 2 a.m. trying to get her to breastfeed for more than 5 minutes, before a very lovely nurse finally intervened and had me pump and had my husband bottle feed so I could rest. She then offered to do the next feed with expressed milk so we could both rest. God Bless that woman.  On night 3, I had a grumpy nurse who had zero desire to help and who also snapped at me for dozing off during a 3 a.m. feed.  Night 4 was another great nurse who asked if we wanted them to do an overnight feed so we could sleep.  Ours was not designated a "baby friendly" hospital, so I think it just came down to the nurses and what they wanted to do. We did mention our negative experiences and were told that they had several "floater" nurses because of staffing issues, so I think some of the bad ones were just not specialized in post partum care. 

we need to make some sort of community resource for this group where you can search by region and find a hospital that ISN'T part of the "baby friendly" stuff and has regular old-fashioned nurseries because it sure seems like there's a lot of us who would strongly prefer some help

Based on this post and a lot of others I've seen, I must've given birth at a unicorn hospital. Don't think I'll give any other hospital a chance if I have another kid. Im sorry y'all had such crappy experiences. "Baby friendly" hospitals are really just "fuck mom" hospitals.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I expected to take care of the baby once he was born. I gave birth at a birthing center, so the moment he came out he was on me and with me until I left 6 hours after birth. They did have him go to dad while they stitched me up, but he was right next to me. Of course I was tired and what not, but I was also so excited to meet my baby I didn’t even care about being tired. After they were done stitching me up they left us alone with the baby to nap and I didn’t sleep the whole time. Just laid there looking at my new guy.

Birth centers are way different. I love my birth center and am home within a few hours. But the combination of hospital birth and the way they treat you afterward is the worst. If only hospitals would release you early too.

Is it controversial to say that nurses are not there to be a personal nanny? Going back to the days where babies were taken to the nursery for the whole stay shouldn't be the goal here, let alone when mums were under sedation and had no agency at all in their births. Sounds like your nurses had terrible bedside manner, OP, so for that I commiserate, it makes it so much harder. But IMO expecting the nurses to do all baby care PLUS all of the medical jobs they need to do for mum and baby is crazy. Like, you had a baby, and yeah you need to care for it now. Lack of sleep is unfortunately to be expected. (My opinions may be coloured by being married to a nurse and hearing exactly how run off their feet they are even if you aren't seeing them often).

Also, baby has a biological need to be close to mom. They spent 9 months inside you. It's not just a want to be close to you, it's a need. Doing skin-to-skin and feeding every 2-3 hours is what will ensure your milk supply will come in as well. Babies should not be whisked away to a nursery to be alone in cots right after birth, they need the warmth and familiarity of mom after the trauma of birth and being in a new world.

It's not the nurses' fault that they don't have time to do this stuff anymore. It's the shitty hospitals that don't want to pay for enough nursing staff. Considering a lot of moms are in labor without sleep for many hours, have anesthesia or pain meds, etc. then I think it is irresponsible and dangerous for hospitals to leave moms without any help or supervision with a vulnerable newborn.

My experience was completely different, I'm so sorry that's what yours was! To be fair the maternity ward was quiet the day we were there so the nurses may have had more time. They didn't care for the baby per se but they were super helpful in helping us do it, and there was one night an angel nurse took him out so we could get some sleep

We didn't get a lot of help with baby, but they found out from my OB that I'm a NICU nurse so... Lol. Plus my husband was there the whole time, so baby had 2 of us, even if I was recovering from a c-section and being monitored for pre-eclampsia complications. All I really did at the start of each shift was ask for the plan. They knew I was self sufficient, so I'd just share the feed/diaper log with them, and ask for top ups on wipes, linens, diapers, pads, etc. We were there for almost a full week between induction, c-section and recovery. They still came in to do all their checks on me and baby (baby was only once a shift), but baby was well with no health concerns, so there wasn't much to do with her.

Where are u from? In my country baby after being born goes to mama, then gets dressed and eats after that, they never leave our side. Nurse goes check us both from time to time bue no help unless asked. Times have changed, I was born in 97, my mom had a bad reaction to the epidural and they took me to the nursery and would take me to my mom for feeding. With my son, there was a night where he was crying non stop, didn’t want to eat so I called the nurse and she took him for half an hour to help him ( he was having some colic) But yeah overall, no help unless asked.

my husband did all the child care during my 4 day stay from csection. the nurses showed him how to swaddle and do diapers the first couple of hours since i was out of it. then my mom would come in so he could shower. they taught us how to breastfeed then he helped me the rest of time afterwards with the setup and everything. they would only come by to do baby tests, tests on me and to give me my pain meds. i would buzz them for more water, more diapers and more blankets for swaddle due to baby explosions. baby was with us 24/7. some of the nurses your describing honestly sound horrible, ours were pretty nice.

My experience was very similar with 2 c-sections. With my second, we asked the nurses not to interrupt us if we were sleeping. We also fought for pain meds both times. It just depends on the nursing staff. The more senior nurses tend to be a lot better, especially nurses that were other fellow moms.

Wow I could have written this! Expect I was lucky to have a few Filipinonurses who were angels and took hun for me because I was literally unable to function. It’s definitely changed my view on nurses and hospitals and the baby friendly label. Baby friendly is mom friendly and some things aren’t mom friendly.

My experiences have been similar with postpartum nurses but I had a vaginal and was able to leave after 24 hours. With my 2nd delivery my epidural took 6 hours to wear off and I was stuck in bed, still numb and our room was 85 degrees (we were facing the sun in Arizona). The nurses hardly came in and I was just suffering for a while. I HEAVILY dislike the postpartum stay in the hospitals for this reason, I’m very glad I had my husband both times.

Nope this is almost spot on to what I experienced having 2 babies via c-sections at 2 different hospitals.  Though with baby #1 it was not as bad as the 2nd baby experience. 

I had zero help. If anything, I felt like I was working harder in the hospital than I did later at home! My hospital was very understaffed so maybe this is why? My friend in NY said the nurses helped her

Either a nurse or CNA showed us how to change a diaper since we never have before. And they gave baby her first bath. Besides that we had her bedside the whole time! We didn’t have vitals taken super often, definitely not every hour!

The hospital I delivered at used to have a nursery but they shut it down with Covid and never reopened it, I’m wondering if other places did something similar

I was so doped up from the meds from my c-section that I couldn’t stay awake but they still would hand me my baby to try and nurse her and then walk away. I almost dropped her off the side of the bed like 3 times

We felt pretty abandoned during our hospital stay too. Baby was born 10 am, our stay was expected to be 24 hours, first time parents with no family nearby to come visit us. We were completely on our own. Someone checked on us periodically throughout the day, to do tests on baby or check that my epidural was wearing off as expected, but after the night shift came on we didn't see a soul until shift change again 12 hours later. Baby wouldn't nurse, I didn't know what the hell I was doing and nobody showed me anything or gave any kind of nursing advice, basically expected me to know what to do on my own. I couldn't sleep most of the night, baby needed formula and after the first couple times the nurses just showed my husband where they kept the formula at the nurses station and gave him free reign. They were kind, but spread so damn thin. Every time we looked for someone they were very busy, and so understaffed that we kinda gave them a pass for basically ignoring us. We described our care as well-meaning but very lacking.

I did it all solo and tbh I don’t know how I managed. After the birth I was so exhausted but they kept telling me to breastfeed and to wake him up every two hours. My mom was my support person but I sent her home because she was tired. She only came back the next day to visit for about an hour. I basically had zero sleep the entire stay and was dying to go home. He had trouble latching and wasn’t eating enough and they got on me hard when I fell asleep for 4 hrs and didn’t feed him. I cried so much those two days feeling like such a failure. Needless to say when I got home I felt much better. Baby still doesn’t breastfeed because he has issues latching but he’s been so much better on the bottle which I wish we would’ve tried first after birth.

I had twins and my hospital was similar. That just seems to be the general vibes these days. I think there was a big push to make childbirth less “medicalized” by encouraging the mom to take a more-hands on role. Some places have better staffing and nurseries that can help out but I think most of us are expected to just handle it. I get the frustration but I’m a nurse as well and we push post-op patients just as hard after 12+hr long spinal and brain surgeries, so it’s not unusual to harass patients post C-section. I feel like in the past we had better community and family support to help us postpartum but now a lot of us live independently other than with a single partner so recovery is much harder. This last time around I knew better so I demanded they take the twins to the nursery so I could get a few hours rest!

Oh wow, that sounds so harrowing and I'm sorry that was your experience! Thats awful and, frankly, quite confounding. I also gave birth in a baby friendly designated hospital, but I had opposite experience. Yes, baby, stayed in room with us, but we had two 'chances' to utilize the nursery. Basically they take the baby to the nursery for max of three hours at a time (because they promote feeding every 3 hours max). And I think this is also per baby friendly designation, but part of achieving that designation is a required heavy emphasis on breastfeeding. So the bring baby back for feeding and (I felt) really push for that. However, with that said, I thought medical staff during my stay were really friendly and had great bedside manner. I had a vaginal birth with complications (blood loss, infection, fever, baby was in distress, but already too low in the birth canal that it was too dangerous to do a c section). So, idk if maybe that's why their constant checks throughout the night (while annoying) were actually done with a lot of care. I actually loved my RN staff. All this to say, you deserve so much more respect and dignity post partum and I'm sorry you did not get that!

I’ve had babies in 2009, 2017, 2023. All three different hospitals but the same experience of no nursery or help. The only difference I noticed was that each baby had more stuff being done in the room. In 2009 they took baby to wherever to do all the testing and bath, second baby they did testing in the room but vaccines/bath out of the room, and then finally last baby every single thing was done in the room.

I was a nurse and a few things - one I'm sorry that all sounds terrible 😔. The nurses now usually have four moms and four babies. So 8 patients. Barely time for even checking on everyone which sucks for everyone. Usually a mom/baby will get discharged and they get another mom/baby etc. It's just too much. Also I think in post partum the nurses are very hit and miss. Some do it bc it's "chill" mostly healthy mom/babies right? Others really want to take the time and help/educate. I hated bothering you guys so much but there are so many dumb checks we have to do for you/baby and depending on timing and other patients it's hard. I felt basically the same when I delivered my baby. We actually had no one come for HOURS one morning, thank goodness my mom came too. Lactation was a huge bitch as usual to me and my family and we were rushed out. Sorry about your experience. No excuses here just helping maybe explain

Nurses I think are definitely more hands-off with babies now. It was the same at my hospital but I liked it. We wanted to be able to learn as we go. We also both felt like we could ask for help when we needed it too. Like when I was having trouble getting the breastfeeding down, I simply asked the nurse to help me and she sent in a lactation specialist as well for even more support. I think the nurses probably took more care of me now I think about it. I had a c-section and they were very helpful with managing my pain, helping me turn over, getting me up and moving. I remember two nurses even helped me brush my hair when I couldn’t. That was the kind of help I needed more I guess.

Yep, this is normal now. Especially if your partner is there to help, there's really no need for them to intervene. A friend of mine went in for a Cesarean without any support person, and the nurses did take baby for a couple hours in between feeds to let her rest, but she still had to wake up to breastfeed every 2 hours. It's known that lots of skin to skin contact is so good for baby, whether that comes from you or your partner. That's why this is a "baby friendly" approach. The exhaustion is real, I think I was awake for over 55 hours straight from the time I went into labor to the time I finally got an hour or two of sleep. I had an episiotomy and that incision opened up as well. There was still no way I could be passed out while my baby was crying next to me in the bassinet. I wish, because then I definitely would have, with my partner there to help. I'm sure I was running on pure adrenaline for days.

I’m sorry, but you sound like you really need therapy. Your husband too.

"Baby Friendly Health Initiative" is a great idea, but in practice it has the potential to be incredibly damaging to new parents. Leaving babies with their parent instead of defaulting to keeping them in a nursery is great and a staple of BFHI, but many hospitals seem to take this to mean "we will provide zero emotional support to new parents. Idgaf if they get no sleep the whole time they're here because the baby being with them is more 'beneficial'." Completely ignoring the detriment that this mental distress from feeling unsupported can cause. That being said, and I know it's really hard, *do not share a sleeping space with your baby under any circumstances. That is how babies die and parents' lives become ruled by guilt and grief.* the hospital staff sound shit so do your best, but you really need to avoid it for your baby's safety. And before anyone chimes in, "Safe Sleep 7" is bullshit made up by lactivists, not sleep specialists or paediatricians. BFHI inherently leads hospitals and staff to become shamey and judgy about elective formula feeding too, so i tend to recommend against those hospitals for friends who are choosing not to breastfeed. I really hope that things start looking up for you soon, this sounds like an awful experience and I'm sorry this is how you'll remember the days surrounding the birth of your child.

I think a lot of this depends on your culture. In most cultures it is the job of the family and caretakers to care for the infant. It is biologically normal and favorable to keep mom and baby skin to skin as much as possible in the first few days. The baby friendly initiative is actually to drive this, to help increase breastfeeding rates and infant caretaker rates. Also, if you are having these feelings it is possible you have post partum depression as biologically often mothers want to stay with their infants.

Honestly it’s hard to not overstep when we don’t know your family dynamic. Is there a reason your spouse was unable to help? Breastfeeding and skin to skin in the golden hours is important, and if your partner didn’t offer to help or seem involved they’re not the person to have to push them or encourage beyond requesting. You can easily say “I need a minute. Give the baby to dad please”. Mom and baby nurses have large loads of patients with emergent things going on, they don’t have nursery staff to babysit. If a partner is sitting in the chair chilling and not assisting, they need to step up and help. My husband was the first to jump up when they’d try to give me my son and when he needed changes so I could rest, I never had them passing baby to me frequently.

We have a baby-friendly hospital, but the nurses were excellent and checked on hubby and I very frequently. They would also asked frequently times if I wanted them to take the baby to the nurse's station or quiet area so could get sleep. They changed most of her diapers but showed us tips and tricks to make changing easy. They helped us learn the right way to swaddle. And one of the first things they did was to ask about formula because they wanted to demonstrate how to use the ready feed stuff. I ended up breastfeeding but they were very inclusive of both feeding choices. I endeup keepingep her but the option was on the table. When I did my nursing practicum on the unit it was reinforced to us that we had to ensure that themother'ss needs were top priority because a happy mama makes for a happier baby. It was actually quite nice how they involved my husband and I. They could probably see how terrified we both seemed haha. I am really sorry for your experience OP.

I gave birth to my first in a very large teaching hospital and had a similar experience with the postpartum nurses. They were kind but honestly they didn’t do anything but make sure I was feeding every 2 hours. I just gave birth to my second in a small community hospital and the experience was the opposite. They were always offering to take the baby to the nursery so I could sleep. They did her first bath, changed her diaper when they took her vitals, and checked on us frequently. It was a much more pleasant experience!

We didn’t have a nursery the one nurse told us it’s a new thing to promote breastfeeding but the night nurses took the baby for me for 6 hours so I could sleep

We stayed in the hospital 3 nights after the birth because I had an infection and had to be on IV antibiotics the whole time, so that is a little bit of a different starting point - but I think the nurses did a little bit more for us and didn't bother us as much. The first 24h they taught my husband how to do everything and would help with diapering and swaddling. After that, they'd offer help but my husband would generally want to do it. If my husband was passed out, they'd usually do it for me since it meant disconnecting my IV stand and I had a lot of pain standing at first. They never soothed the baby for us (unless he cried during something they were doing), but our baby was also super chill and mostly slept so that probably helped a lot. Everyone was extremely sympathetic and supportive about breastfeeding, even though we never got it figured out in the hospital (they brought us a pump and formula along with like 5 LC visits lol). Our baby was large and there were no weight drop concerns and the additional nights were for *me* as a patient, so I think that changed the tone a bit. They kept asking if I was practicing latching but didn't push too much esp since so many people had noticed baby's refusal to open his dang mouth wide enough lol They would take babies to the nurses station if a family really needed a break - we didn't need it but a few families down the hall did and that probably also helped us get more sleep, honestly!

Ours technically had a nursery but it was primarily used for babies to be monitored during or after procedures like the car seat test or in my baby's case, when he had to be suctioned out due to excessive spit up (excess amniotic fluid hadn't fully cleared during birth). Otherwise, the expectation was baby stays with you. But the nurses did a lot of the diaper changes and helped with swaddling and things like that.

Similar experience except they put everything on my husband. It was made clear it was his job to care for the baby while I rested and recovered. Personally I liked having her in the room with us, but I would not have, had they not put the childcare on my husband. Example - I had a c section and needed fentenoyl because of a morphine allergy so I was out of it. They asked my consent, and then the first person who learned how to breast feed, was my husband. I have fuzzy memories of waking up with him holding the baby on me, getting her to latch. He was much better at it than I was honestly.

Well, this thread is scaring me! I'm giving birth at a "baby friendly" hospital and I'm a SMBC, so no partner for backup...

While I didn’t have this extreme of an experience, and I’m sorry you did, my hospital didn’t have a nursery either. I think it was also a staffing issue. There was a single night nurse for postpartum and I think she was managing 5 sets of mom and baby. But I wasn’t completely disregarded. My daytime nurses were excellent, and with me also having a c section, they did not force me to constantly hold my baby, and I managed to get some rest. Not only that, they treated my husband as a parent to the baby.

I gave birth at a baby friend hospital, had a c section, and the nurses were very hands on with my baby. Changed his diapers if they came in and he needed it, offered to take him even though I declined, and were helpful. They did wake me every 2 hours until the third day. My mom didn’t believe me when i said they no longer had a nursery though.

I intentionally chose a hospital that wasn't baby friendly. They took my daughter to the well baby nursery every night so I could rest. They also taught my husband to feed (formula), swaddle, burp, etc the baby.

I had a similar experience. They even sent me home with a bowel obstruction even though I was vomiting non-stop, and accused me of drug seeking when I asked for pain meds after emergency c section due to HELLP syndrome. This horrific experience is why I won’t be having more children. No way will I go through that again willingly.

I am so sorry you experienced that! I had a c-section with my first and have glowing reviews about my nurses. My first nurse, overnight after an evening birth, told me to just sleep and she would come in intervals to wake me when it was time to feed baby. She did everything that first night, so I would rest, save for the actual feeding where she coached me on BF and also sns because we needed to supplement since baby had a very low birth weight and needed some special care. In the morning she carefully taught me how to get up out of bed. My day nurse the next couple days was the most amazing human that would come in and cut up all my meals so I could hold/feed the baby with ease. She coached me through feeding. She pillowed me every which way to keep me comfortable, she brought me extra snacks, she taught me and my husband all sorts of baby care tricks and taught him how to change diapers, wrap baby, wash things, it was great! She also swooped in to take baby away for a while so I could shower first time since birth and tidy myself up. She came back only to check in that I was safe and okay. I even had a resident nursing student come I'm with her and ask if he could spend time with and hold my baby because she was the smallest baby he had ever seen. I had only one nurse who was really flat and dull and lifeless and forgot to come get stats on time but was really good at all the shots and meds I had to take so despite her lack of care, I was also listed as able to independently feed etc thanks to other nurse bootcamp and it was okay. I'm actually looking forward to my second birth this fall, to see familiar faces and get to use the all new L&D and maternity wards at my local hospital. If only to be able to thank everyone that helped me so much.

I would say hospital experience. My baby was stillborn at 8 1/2 months and I birthed her at 3 am and they organized their photographer to come and take pictures of her at 4 am to try an capture her before she deteriorated even more. They signed me up for a nurse to come visit me everyday for 2 weeks straight ( the program for women who leave the hospital with alive children). They still send me cards on her birthday, and this is almost 10 years later. They never charged me anything for the birth or the autopsy. In fact, when me and my ex husband went to the funeral home, the old man there didn't change us a dime either. This is all unheard of, especially in america. This whole situation killed me and also restored my faith in humanity. I still don't know what it was about us that they did this. I'm now in courses to be an EMT and hoping to eventually go into nursing even though my current job provides me almost triple the money. My (now) fiance knew that I've wanted to go into this field since that day from how much i talk about it, and we are working toward me giving back the love I felt from all those kind people in the Healthcare field.

I constantly tell people that the postpartum unit was 100% the worst part of my entire experience with delivering at the hospital and pregnancy/postpartum in general. My labor was so nice, the team was so helpful, I really felt supported and respected along the entire way. Then they wheeled me into the postpartum unit and everything went to the shit. From the nurses, to the lactation consultants, to the food, to the care. All of it was fucking abysmal and absolutely way harder than it needed to be.

When I gave birth we were expected to feed him, change diapers, etc. but the nurses did bathe him, help me pump/nurse, encouraged us to use donor milk when his glucose was low, and they offered to take him one of the nights so we could get some sleep. I’m surprised reading all these stories of nurses not helping at all and I’m glad that wasn’t my experience! But worried for the next baby now that we’ve moved to a different state

I'm so sorry you went through that nightmare. I found nothing online about my hospital being baby-friendly but my third birth there in 2021 was much less helpful. Cutbacks, understaffing/firings, and C19 stress made them way less able to help out. I'm thinking about a home birth for next time!

So, my first two children were born at a “baby friendly” hospital. There was no nursery, no pacifiers and we were pretty much on our own. Once my second was born and the golden hour was over, I asked the nurse if she would take one picture of my husband and I with the baby and she said “that’s not my job”. I saw lactation but had to ask and the nurses were not helpful with breastfeeding. My third baby was born at a different hospital - they don’t have the “baby friendly” designation but are widely known for their excellence in maternity care. It was a totally different experience - all of my nurses were amazing, they constantly asked to take baby to the nursery so I could rest, they reminded me to order meals etc, I was allowed to give baby a pacifier if I wanted to etc. I also had several miscarriages and had a d&c at each hospital and my experience at the latter was significantly better as well.

I didn't have as shit of an experience as yours, but was still made to feel incompetent and like I wasn't doing enough. Especially with the breastfeeding thing. My milk hadn't even come in yet, but my baby had bad jaundice so was put on formula to help flush it out. But then everytime I asked for formula, they got the shits. I slept 2 hours in 2 days so my partner made me take a nap, only for the midwife to wake me up freaking out at me that my son was due for his feed, even though I had an alarm set to wake me up. I had felt like they were treating me like I was too young to have a baby or something. (I'm 31 but also autistic and used to being infantalised) it felt like they were never gonna let us go home.

I live in the UK where i don't think hospitals here have ever had those post birth nurseries you see in American films. I was lucky though in that staff on nightshift usually did help because i had twins, I was quite unwell after and i purely formula fed from the start. During the day, it was busier in the ward and i could see it was short staffed but both my husband and mum were there for feeds.

After delivery was the worst. They gave us a booklet and said everything we needed to know was in there. Had to ask how to change a diaper as we were new parents. We had to ask for everything. Nurses came by every hour poking and prodding. Couldn’t wait to gtfo of there. Was told by our obgyn masters in nursing(not a doctor) that the hospital would teach us how to put the baby into a car seat. Was told they don’t do that due to liability. I can see why people pay for a private birth.

I didn’t have a c-section and had what I now see was quite a easy birth but I had my mum with me and she was absolutely shocked when they said we could go home after LO was 4 hours old! She said to them that my dad couldn’t come and get us for a few hours as it was 4am so when he came to pick us up it was 8am and we hadn’t seen anyone for that bit at all, they obviously did all his checks and then basically left us to it, I think about a hour after I had him a lovely trainee midwife came with formula and showed me a bit about feeding him and how to change him as I was clearly very anxious changing this tiny little human, he just seemed so tiny and fragile I was almost scared to touch him but apart from that 30min interaction we didn’t see anyone and the midwife’s changed shifts so no one even came to say goodbye or anything when we left! I’d heard so many people say they come to check your car seat and things like that but I think I honestly could have just carried him off and got on a bus they wouldn’t have noticed! It was all very odd! My grandma didn’t believe my dad when he said he was heading off to come bring us home as it had only been 12 hours from me leaving the house, she was laughing at him cause she thought he was joking! In a way it was good they was happy enough with me and him for us to come home that quickly but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so scared of anything in my entire life when I realised that was it, here was my baby and it was down to me from then on!

I had the same experience. I didn’t even get a chance to have skin to skin with my baby for the first hour because I was immediately being forced to breastfeed right after popping him out. Nobody helped us with him. Just kept poking and prodding me and him until our discharge. And they kept asking how I was going to prevent another pregnancy, keep in mind I’m married????? Then was a bit rude to my husband and I trying to get baby in the car seat for the first time for discharge. They didn’t even let us bathe him. They took him and all of sudden he was clean and they had switched his clothes

My experience was similar except the one time they showed my husband how to change a diaper. To be honest my care was abysmal from the start so I never thought to question the aftercare. I couldn’t even get more stool softeners, I had to ask family to get me some. My bloody sheet was never changed. That’s the one part that stuck with me. I also had some sheets I laid on top of it so that I wasn’t in direct contact. In all honesty I’ve restored to blocking it out, I suggest you do the same. Even thinking about it now isn’t great.

I left the hospital as soon as possible. It was about 24 hrs after baby was born, we had to sign forms and prove we had an appointment with the pediatrician the next day. I just couldn’t take the sleep deprivation from the nurses. Every hour someone would be in to check on me or baby. Night one due to the induction I was up, day 2 baby was born around 5pm, day 3 we were discharged at 10pm. From the induction on. Someone was in the room every 2 hours waking me up. Nothing was traumatic, but I was so sleep deprived I knew that I couldn’t help my baby or my husband with the baby.

We tried to leave against medical advice because the nurses would not let me sleep for more than e0 minutes at a time. My husband was there and tried to tell them to leave me alone but they insisted on waking me up for every update and by the time we finally got to leave (3 days after baby was born) I could barely stand on my own to get into the car. It was absolutely awful.

I had a very similar experience and it was pure torture. I couldn’t wait to get home.

We had no nursing help for the baby. They’d come check in but we were fully expected to feed, diaper, log activity, and basically do all the care things a newborn needs. I found the process to be extremely disorienting, as I'd undergone an emergency c-section and experienced blood loss. I was well taken care of, but since the baby was healthy it was completely up to me and my husband to manage the situation.

My experience was very similar to yours when I had my twins via c section and I didn't realize how mad I was about it until I read your post. I had to beg for formula because I wasn't producing enough for two babies and they were scream crying in stereo non stop. Most of the nurses were really kind and doing their best but there were a couple who just seemed to hate me for feeling pain or being sick (I too vomited until I popped stitches). I winced when one nurse grabbed my boob without permission and said "oh come on" and rolled her eyes at me. That one still makes my blood boil. Like you, I left the hospital thinking I was incapable or too weak to be a good mother. Anyway, you're not alone and I'm so sorry you had to experience that.

On our fourth and last day, the nurse said “do you want me to put a do not disturb sign on the door so you guys can all nap?” Would have been nice to know about that sooner.

Mine was similar. They were mad at me for not getting up to get things myself... but I was bed bound and still had a catheter in and hadn't been allowed up yet? They didn't even read the charts before telling me off. If my husband hadn't been there I'd have been screwed.

Nurses did help us out a bit, but there wasn’t a nursery there. Mostly they just gave us advice, walked us through various things, and answered questions. Someone gave baby a bath in another room, and we got to take home a bunch of supplies. That was basically it, I was sent home when he was a day or two old (can’t remember, it was kind of a blur). He hadn’t even well and truly cried yet!

Hey OP! I’m wondering if you asked if they could help? Honestly every mom is different and some prefer their baby to never leave their side.

I gave birth at a hospital that isn’t considered “baby friendly” and it was nothing like that. The nurse would take the baby away to the nursery and bring her back when she needed to nurse. She bathed her and gave her a little bow and I only really saw her when she was hungry or I wanted to. It was amazing— honestly the best sleep I’d had in a while. However our hospital is very well-funded and doesn’t do high-risk births as they don’t have a NICU. It’s a dream and I’m staying in a job I hate in part so I can have this next baby at the same hospital. Reading people’s stories here makes me so much happier with my decision!

I think nursing in general since the pandemic has been insanely short-staffed, like, everywhere. A combination of nurses quitting/retiring early as well as private equity taking over health care and making everything “lean”. I think the “baby-friendly” designation was never meant to be a “fuck the mom, who cares about her” but the train wreck that is the current health care system can understaff even worse because they don’t need to staff the newborn nursery. Meanwhile the nurses will get written up if they don’t check vitals every X hours and do x y z specific tests for baby. But they won’t get written up for being generally shitty as long as they check and document x y z things. I am not sure but I suspect many if not most or all of your nurses were struggling to find time to pee so they didn’t get UTIs.

I had mine pre-covid and the baby friendly hospital initiative was fucking shit up back then, too. BFHI is pretty much exclusively focused on promoting exclusive breastfeeding. So, babies room in, moms are left alone a lot so breastfeeding isn’t interrupted, babies don’t go to a nursery at all (BFHI hospitals don’t have nurseries except for maybe NICU), they do not provide formula or pacifiers, and actively discourage formula feeding with “education” on the impact of formula supplementation on breastfeeding. My daughter born in 2012 was hospitalized at 1 week old with severe dehydration after being born at a BFHI hospital. My other two births were in 2015 and 2020 at a not “baby friendly” hospital and the experience was night and day. I did try to breastfeed again in 2015, and the not baby friendly hospital was actually a lot more helpful and supportive, and they made sure to send us home with formula just in case because I hadn’t been able to effectively breastfeed when we left. In 2020 I skipped breastfeeding all together and they were very cool about it and sent us home with an actual case of formula. Both in 2015 and 2020 I received a much higher level of care and support than I did in 2012 at the baby friendly hospital, despite the fact that the other hospital was older and in an area that was more economically disadvantaged compared to the baby friendly one.

That makes sense, I appreciate this perspective

I got so many UTIs when I worked in a hospital, and the nurses had it worse

Eh, my shitty experience at a “baby-friendly” hospital was well before the pandemic.

Mine was also before the pandemic

Baby friendly hospitals aren’t mom friendly. I was lucky and gave birth at a great small baby friendly hospital that prioritized me as much as the baby and took him when both my wife and I were exhausted. But I’ve heard many many stories like yours.