Hospital policy stupidity

TheQueenMother · Jun 25, 2009

Dh's cousin had a baby yesterday. She is being discharged today. The nurse told her today that she can not go home without an infant seat with a base and she has to uninstall the base, bring it all in and let her look at it before the baby can be released. None of the nurses are techs. There are no questions about how or where the seat was obtained, crash history, etc. She has an infant seat but no base so the baby will be coming home in my 3pt snugride because it has a base

I called the health dept as my tech friend works there. She was shocked and said that they don't even give the infant seats so all of their clients who depend on them for seats have to scrounge up an infant seat to bring baby home.

ketchupqueen · Jun 25, 2009

I would leave anyway, if it was me. If they tried to hold me or the baby I'd threaten to call the police for unlawful imprisonment.

But then, I refused to ride in the wheelchair when I was discharged last time.

But seriously, I brought my kid home in a convertible. It fit her, she had shoulders above the bottom slots, it adjusted tightly, and she met the minimum weight limit. If they had tried to stop me I would have raised h-e-double hockey sticks.

bobandjess99 · Jun 25, 2009

Yep, I'd totally call "bs" and tell them where to stuff their insane policy.

Maedze · Jun 25, 2009

bobandjess99 said:
Yep, I'd totally call "bs" and tell them where to stuff their insane policy.

:yeahthat:

Policies are not laws. They cannot force them on a discharged patient.

LISmama810 · Jun 25, 2009

Maedze said:
:yeahthat:

Policies are not laws. They cannot force them on a discharged patient.

I was just going to write the exact same thing. So now I won't bother.

MamaLinzie · Jun 25, 2009

Thats complete horse crap. My MIL is a car seat tech and works in the OB department. She offers her services to the patients, but if they decline it, she just has them sign a waiver so she isn't held responsible if something were to happen to them on the way home.

If it was me, I would ask for their car seat certification, and when they fail to produce it, I would refuse to listen to anything they have to say.

FrogJuice · Jun 25, 2009

my oldest was born in 2001 when we left the hospital I had a stupid doral cheapy infant seat that was bought with no base, when the nurse helped put the carseat with my daughter in it in the car she said I had to get a base, and that the seat couldn't be used with out one. She did let us leave, but even at 18 I feel like I knew more than she did.

An Aurora · Jun 25, 2009

Sounds like a good policy being enforced by uneducated people

We have a policy at work that we check the expiration date of every seat, make sure it's in working order (we have had several that have no straps or buckles), and check it against the recall list. We do request the base to make sure the model number is the same, but it's not a requirement and often we have dad run out and get the model # off the base if it's already installed. If parents have a convertible, they can bring it in where we check everything and fit the baby, OR we walk them out and check it when they leave.If baby baby is under 7 pounds, they have to have the seat in the hospital because we do a 1 hr car seat test.

ketchupqueen · Jun 25, 2009

You do a car seat test for every baby under 7 lbs.? Wow! You must work in a much bigger hospital than I have my babies at.

An Aurora · Jun 25, 2009

ketchupqueen said:
You do a car seat test for every baby under 7 lbs.? Wow! You must work in a much bigger hospital than I have my babies at.

Yep, we do lots and lots of car seat tests!

Babywearing Meghan · Jun 25, 2009

An Aurora said:
Yep, we do lots and lots of car seat tests!

What is a car seat test, only one of my babies was under 7 lbs and she was born in a hospital but noone cared to check my seat that was full of am products and had no base lol (I didn't know a lot back then) but we lived in nyc so ya.. I am sure it would have been hard to have the base installed in the taxi ready to go lol

rochelle · Jun 25, 2009

My hospital nurse left the minute my hubby's car pull up on the hospital pick-up area. she did not even look into hubby's car to see if there were any carseats. maybe a RF scenara and a FF scenara both outboard was obvious. It was a big hospital with lot of babies delivered :thumbsdown:

An Aurora · Jun 25, 2009

Babywearing Meghan said:
What is a car seat test,

It's an angle tolerance test. Basically we strap baby into the carseat at a 45* angle with a oxygen saturation monitor on it's foot, and let them sit there for an hour to make sure the baby's sats are good.

ketchupqueen · Jun 25, 2009

Out of curiosity, what is it about babies under 7 lbs. that makes them more likely to desat? I can understand low birth weight babies, but I've known a lot of full-term, strong, and healthy 6 1/2 lbers, and conversely, I've known 8 lbers with some respitory difficulties while in many positions. Wouldn't APGAR or something be a more accurate indicator of whether they're likely to desat in the seat? Or is there some research out there on babies under 7 lbs. not tolerating the angle as well?

rochelle · Jun 25, 2009

I also like to know why the 7lb being use as the cut off for testing. Other than preemies and "overweight" babies with GD mums, I did not see any correlation between weight and respiratory problems.

my nephews and niieces were all more than 8lbs at birth and had high agpar scores so this is the first time I heard about the "car seat test"

An Aurora · Jun 25, 2009

The hospital policy is to test all babies born before 37 weeks gestation (per the AAP recommendations), and the under-7-pounds thing comes from research showing that term babies can and do suffer a drop in 02 sats in the car seats. I'm not sure who chose 7 pounds as the cutoff, though.

Here is an interesting article--let me know if you can't view it and I will try to find another source that doesn't require a login.

Here's another one from Marilyn Bull.

bobandjess99 · Jun 25, 2009

ketchupqueen said:
Out of curiosity, what is it about babies under 7 lbs. that makes them more likely to desat? I can understand low birth weight babies, but I've known a lot of full-term, strong, and healthy 6 1/2 lbers, and conversely, I've known 8 lbers with some respitory difficulties while in many positions. Wouldn't APGAR or something be a more accurate indicator of whether they're likely to desat in the seat? Or is there some research out there on babies under 7 lbs. not tolerating the angle as well?

yes, this??
They do a carseat challenge on preemies released from the NICU, and I think any baby under FIVE(5) pounds, but seriously..seven? We live in a community with a large percentage of minority and teen births, plus the most intensive NICU of the surrounding small towns, so all the higher-risk births happen at our one big local hospital.....we have a LOT of basically full-term healthy babies born under 7 pounds....there would be no way to test all of them..they'd need a whole staff and facility just to run desat tests, seriously. Heck..come to think of it...ds was only 5.5 pounds at 39 weeks.
why seven?

An Aurora · Jun 25, 2009

bobandjess99 said:
there would be no way to test all of them..they'd need a whole staff and facility just to run desat tests, seriously.

Yes, well, thankfully they do it here, so I have a job

ketchupqueen · Jun 25, 2009

I know that all full-term newborns have some risk of it, I was wondering specifically about 7 lbs. as the cutoff. I get preemies, low birth weight, or babies with other risk factors-- I just think that a lot of times, smaller babies (as in like 6-7 lbs, not literal low birth weight but on the smaller side of "normal") has more to do with genetics than anything else. My second and 3rd were born at 38 and 39 wks. and weighed 7.13 and 7.6, respectively; they were 21.5 and 20.5 inches long. My husband was born at 37 weeks and weighed 9.2; he was the second-smallest of his sibs. I was the heaviest among mine, born at 38 weeks, and weighed 7.15. My husband's sister's first was born at 39 weeks and weighed 9.15; her second was born at 37 weeks and weighed 8.10. My friends who are tiny petite go 2 weeks past their due dates and have 6 lb. babies. :shrug-shoulders: I know that risk factors can cause lower birth weight-- but to me it would make more sense to evaluate for the risk factors and decide based on that, rather than birth weight.

An Aurora · Jun 25, 2009

Yeah, but nurses don't have the time or energy to study each under-7-pound baby and decide whether it was gestational age, genetics, or what-have-you that caused it to be that particular weight. It's easier to have a blanket policy.

Hospital policy stupidity

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