Hospitals no longer allowing partners or support people

[Anonymous]

I’m delivering at Holy Cross next week. They just updated their policy today. Can still have a spouse for delivery but these restrictions are much tighter than what was posted earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m delivering at Holy Cross next week. They just updated their policy today. Can still have a spouse for delivery but these restrictions are much tighter than what was posted earlier.

Forgot the link: https://www.holycrosshealth.org/for-patients/for-visitors/visiting-guidelines

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:F this, I will have my baby at home

All statistics point to home birth being incredibly dangerous for the mother and child, but you do you. Good luck transferring to a hospital in the middle of a pandemic.

If a woman has got proper prenatal care during pregnancy from actual doctors and/or CNM’s, AND a CNM attends their home birth, there are relatively few risks. Both of those factor are extremely uncommon across US home births. They may be doable in big cities like DC or NYC, but most women with a planned home birth are getting prenatal care from a CPM at best, an unlicensed “midwife” or doula or no one at all at worst.

Besides, who wants to deal with all that pain and mess at home? No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men would never put up with this. You know that plenty of the women delivering alone in NYC are of means. I know one. Don’t let someone (in this case a hospital) make you give birth without a support partner.

Find another hospital outside of DC if this happens. Rent a hotel room. Yes this will cost money. Kids are expensive so just consider it an add on to nanny/daycare cost.

My vaginal birth was 29k. No way am I risking getting stuck with that cost and my insurance not paying. My insurance had only a few hosptials I could deliver at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m scheduled for an induction in 5 weeks and had a virtual visit with my WHC midwife this morning. We talked a little about the new NY hospital policy. She was of course horrified by it and gave me the impression that the practice would push back hard against something like that. She could make no promises but reiterated “we’re not even close to there yet” and talking to her about it made me feel a little better.

She did say that nitrous oxide was now off the table, which is unfortunate as that was a major draw for me to WHC and really helped me get through my 2018 labor there. But if we can keep our labor support, oh well, giving up the nitrous seems like a small thing.

Why is nitrous off the table?

I just googled, must be because it's a potential COVID-19 treatment.

My understanding from medical friends is that it's actually because it's an aerosol generating treatment. So, a positive mom using it could increase the amount of virus in the air as an aerosol (vs if she was not using it) and her medical providers would be at greater risk. Definitely sucks if it is a thing that you wanted to try, especially if you already know you react well to it.

Yes, I’m the OP for this post and this is the reason—and you’ve laid it out better than my midwife did! (Though to be fair she was in the middle of the first day of telemedicine and taking calls left and right.) She just said that it was not known whether using the treatment when infected could be a greater risk, and I wasn’t sure whether that was for the woman, providers, or both. She was not thrilled with the decision since it’s based on an unknown but I get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, you dang well better have a C-section. Cause you know, just in case.

I had my baby in a birthing tub in a birth center, no "belts or straps" and a beautiful back yard in which to walk while laboring. It was not a home birth, but at least it was not a hospital.

Not all of us are high-risk.

I went from lower risk to higher risk in the matter of minutes. Shit can go bad really fast

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men would never put up with this. You know that plenty of the women delivering alone in NYC are of means. I know one. Don’t let someone (in this case a hospital) make you give birth without a support partner.

Find another hospital outside of DC if this happens. Rent a hotel room. Yes this will cost money. Kids are expensive so just consider it an add on to nanny/daycare cost.

My vaginal birth was 29k. No way am I risking getting stuck with that cost and my insurance not paying. My insurance had only a few hosptials I could deliver at.

Then you must be a fool. I am an ESOL counselor and work closely with my student's families. No way does a single one of these thousands of immigrant women pay that -- or anything-- when they walk into the hospital to deliver. They just say they have no money. And that's that. They get great care, just like you do. It's not like they leave and go deliver on the sidewalk. They never receive a bill. It would be pointless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:F this, I will have my baby at home

All statistics point to home birth being incredibly dangerous for the mother and child, but you do you. Good luck transferring to a hospital in the middle of a pandemic.

What statistics exactly are you referring to? In many European countries, homebirth is the norm, and they have much better maternal outcomes than we do. Holland for one.

Now, if you're referring to a woman with poor or no prenatal care, who watched a youtube on birth at home and broke out the tarps-then yeah, probably not good stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men would never put up with this. You know that plenty of the women delivering alone in NYC are of means. I know one. Don’t let someone (in this case a hospital) make you give birth without a support partner.

Find another hospital outside of DC if this happens. Rent a hotel room. Yes this will cost money. Kids are expensive so just consider it an add on to nanny/daycare cost.

And how do you feel about birth tourists from NYC coming to your town to give birth with partners and spreading the virus to your town's doctors and nurses? Because that is happening!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men would never put up with this. You know that plenty of the women delivering alone in NYC are of means. I know one. Don’t let someone (in this case a hospital) make you give birth without a support partner.

Find another hospital outside of DC if this happens. Rent a hotel room. Yes this will cost money. Kids are expensive so just consider it an add on to nanny/daycare cost.

My vaginal birth was 29k. No way am I risking getting stuck with that cost and my insurance not paying. My insurance had only a few hosptials I could deliver at.

Then you must be a fool. I am an ESOL counselor and work closely with my student's families. No way does a single one of these thousands of immigrant women pay that -- or anything-- when they walk into the hospital to deliver. They just say they have no money. And that's that. They get great care, just like you do. It's not like they leave and go deliver on the sidewalk. They never receive a bill. It would be pointless.

Because they know the moms are broke and on Medicaid. Trust me, middle class women would get stuck paying that 29k. How do I know? It happened to my best friend and several moms in my moms group. One was a twin birth that was and she had to pay 18k out of pocket even after insurance. Middle class women are the ones who always get screwed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Men would never put up with this. You know that plenty of the women delivering alone in NYC are of means. I know one. Don’t let someone (in this case a hospital) make you give birth without a support partner.

Find another hospital outside of DC if this happens. Rent a hotel room. Yes this will cost money. Kids are expensive so just consider it an add on to nanny/daycare cost.

My vaginal birth was 29k. No way am I risking getting stuck with that cost and my insurance not paying. My insurance had only a few hosptials I could deliver at.

Then you must be a fool. I am an ESOL counselor and work closely with my student's families. No way does a single one of these thousands of immigrant women pay that -- or anything-- when they walk into the hospital to deliver. They just say they have no money. And that's that. They get great care, just like you do. It's not like they leave and go deliver on the sidewalk. They never receive a bill. It would be pointless.

Because they know the moms are broke and on Medicaid. Trust me, middle class women would get stuck paying that 29k. How do I know? It happened to my best friend and several moms in my moms group. One was a twin birth that was and she had to pay 18k out of pocket even after insurance. Middle class women are the ones who always get screwed

Now I'm actually curious. As a middle-class woman, if I walked in, in labor, and said I don't have insurance or any money - do I somehow escape getting billed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:F this, I will have my baby at home

All statistics point to home birth being incredibly dangerous for the mother and child, but you do you. Good luck transferring to a hospital in the middle of a pandemic.

What statistics exactly are you referring to? In many European countries, homebirth is the norm, and they have much better maternal outcomes than we do. Holland for one.

Now, if you're referring to a woman with poor or no prenatal care, who watched a youtube on birth at home and broke out the tarps-then yeah, probably not good stats.

she's making up the fact about "statistics". "Statistics" don't point to home birth being more dangerous than hospital delivery at all. it's not appropriate for every women of course but it's completely safe for many if not most.

[Anonymous]

i will day that when i labored i found that i didn't want my husband anywhere near me, "helping" me (poor man-he is great and did nothing wrong) i had 3 natural births and found that i needed my space and completely was in my own zone. from talking with friends i've found quite a few like this as well, especially those who had natural labors.
now i would i be very bummed to have had him miss the births? -absolutely, 100%. but from the "support" aspect of be fine without him in the room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i will day that when i labored i found that i didn't want my husband anywhere near me, "helping" me (poor man-he is great and did nothing wrong) i had 3 natural births and found that i needed my space and completely was in my own zone. from talking with friends i've found quite a few like this as well, especially those who had natural labors.
now i would i be very bummed to have had him miss the births? -absolutely, 100%. but from the "support" aspect of be fine without him in the room.

Well, I was left alone by the nurses most of the time that I labored, because L&D was very busy that night. My blood pressure dropped significantly after I got the epidural, and my husband is the one who noticed and alerted the nurses when I nearly passed out and required oxygen. Another friend of mine experienced a massive post partum hemorrhage...her partner was with her at the time; nurses weren't.
Having a partner in the room does more than provide support to the laboring woman; if the nurses are overworked or busy, that partner can be lifesaving at times.

[Anonymous]

Good news. NY Dept of health, the state where this has been happening, has issues new guidance requiring allowing one support person for l&d and postpartum. https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/03/doh_covid19_obpedsvisitation_032720.pdf