Many moms-to-be who are planning to give birth in a conventional maternity hospital may not be aware that they have the option to keep their newborns by their side from birth, until mother and baby leave the hospital together a couple of days later.
Giving birth is no small feat, and every detail should be planned beforehand as much as possible. One of the choices a mom should give thought to before the big day arrives, is whether she will want her baby “rooming in” with her. Rooming in is the term used to describe when a baby is not kept in the nursery, but on mom’s bed or beside her bed, for the customary two days before they go home together. A new mom can also opt to have a partial rooming in: keeping her baby beside her during the day and asking the nurses to care for the newborn in the nursery at night.
Partial rooming in may be advisable for moms who had long or difficult deliveries, and who are in dire need of sleep and recovery. However, for moms whose deliveries were not long or abnormally difficult, rooming in is, many baby experts believe, a much better alternative than the standard placing of the baby in a plastic box for most of the two days in the hospital.
There is a handful of advantages to rooming in with baby. For starters, you are right there whenever your new little bundle of joy gets fussy and desires to start attempts at nursing. Even if your milk hasn’t yet come down on the first day after the delivery, some obstetricians believe that the proximity and ongoing interaction between mommy and baby actually stimulate blood flow and hormones in the new mom, which cause her milk to come down sooner.
Keep in mind also that your baby will be only one of many inside the nursery, and attentive as the nurses may be, they still have many responsibilities — and many newborns! — to tend to. If several babies (or all of them!) start crying simultaneously after one wakes the others, your baby will have to wait his or her turn in line, before the nurse picks him or her up to bring to you for a feeding. By that time, your baby’s initial soft whimpers have likely escalated to full-bodied, ear-piercing shrieks — which are much more upsetting for both baby and mom.
Rooming-in babies cry less and appear more content than babies who are shuttled back and forth from the nursery many times. Rooming-in babies tend to get less jaundiced than babies kept in the nursery. (Jaundice is a yellowing of the skin and eyes that many newborns experience from different causes). Doctors attribute this decrease in the incidence of jaundice to the fact that babies who room in will likely get more breast milk, which will help baby pass excess bilirubin through the stool. (Bilirubin is a bile pigment that’s a normal byproduct of red blood cell breakdown, but which can be toxic when it accumulates in the blood faster than the newborn’s system is able to eliminate it.)
Finally, although some moms may believe that they will sleep better with their babies in the nursery, the fact is that mom may sleep more soundly with baby by her side, as she doesn’t have to worry about what’s happening to her baby. This brings up a related point that if you have your baby next to you, the hospital won’t do things that you may not want your baby to have done, such as giving the baby a pacifier or performing optional tests on your infant.
By Jamell Andrews