Our hospital experience, pt 4
The rest of our stay at VVR was filled with wonder--we wondered how quickly we could get away. The tragedy of communications continued with the people we thought were helping us the most. VVR has 3 lactation consultants on staff who seem to know what they are doing. The problem is that they don't seem to know what the others are doing or saying, and the nurses on staff seemingly don't care what these experts recommend, either. Every single person that "helped" TBO and I figure out a feeding schedule for Owen gave us different information. According to them, we should be feeding the boy: 1) any time he is hungry; 2) every 1 1/2 hours; 3) every 2 hours; 4) every 3 hours; or even 5) every 4 hours, depending on the time of day/night. Even among the consultants we got a different choice of those 5--and on the whiteboard in the room they had even written differing instructions to us, where you would think the others would have seen them! We left VVR not knowing anything at all about when we should be feeding our son (we had to pay a 4th lactation consultant $500 to come to our house and give us an outside opinion that we trusted, and only after one hellacious night of confusion and pain when we realized exactly how messed up VVR had left us).
The fun was not limited to breastfeeding travails, making it obvious to us that it wasn't simply that VVR doesn't have its act together in regards to that one aspect of infant care. On one of our fruitless visits to the NICU, we were virtually accosted by a nurse we hadn't seen before, who informed us grandly that she was available to show us how to bathe our baby, as we requested. I replied (1), "Well, we didn't request that, but it would be great to see a demo. Thanks!" Her response? "You requested the demonstration. Would you like me to show you?" TBO replied (2), "No, we actually didn't ask for it, but sure, please show us." Her response? "You did request it. Are you saying that you know everything there is about bathing a newborn?" (Yes, with the sarcastic attitude applied.) TBO replied (3), "We did not request any demonstration on how to bathe our child. I am a new parent, but I think I know how to give a sponge bath to our son. It would be nice to see your demonstration, though, so thank you."
And at that point, with a huff, she proceeded to give Owen the most insane sponge bath. Ever. Without a word to explain what she was doing, or any pauses to show us how she was holding him or why she maneuvered him in a certain way, she bathed Owen all over, including shampooing, in about 2 minutes total. As if brand new parents could have ever followed that bravura display of brutally cold efficiency (or would want to)! She stalked off without a word, iirc, leaving us stunned into silence as well.
Lest you think that only in NICU are the nurses at VVR radically insensitive, let me share another tidbit o' class with you. In order to facilitate breastfeeding, especially given the lack of time we had with Owen in person, TBO had been given a breast pump, to which she dutifully bound herself for 20 minutes every 2 hours or so. These contraptions require some attention, as well as the use of both arms while on the pump to hold the devices in place. There isn't much one can do while pumping except sit there motionless, hoping against hope to get some milk flowing. These are not silent machines, nor are they invisible, which makes what happened one day even more incomprehensible.
TBO had been getting her blood pressure checked regularly since her arrival at VVR; she was borderline hypertensive throughout her pregnancy, although in reality her stats rarely deviated. (I think some people just have a different baseline for their "normal" BP, but that's my non-professional judgment.) Nurses would pop in, day or night, to wake her up or interrupt whatever she was doing, to take her pressure, write it down, and leave, usually without saying anything. Let me stress that--whatever she was doing. That's right, one time, when TBO was using the breast pump, the nurse came in and informed TBO that she had to take her BP. Both TBO and I looked on incredulously as the nurse began to inartfully wrap TBO's arm up, even as she was using that arm to try and hold the suction cup in place. She then informed TBO that her BP was way up--shocker! Oddly enough, the next time her BP was taken, it had gone back to its normal level. Gee, you think maybe the fact that TBO was straining physically to pump her son's meals at the time you measured it might have had something to do with the high reading? You couldn't wait 10 minutes for her to finish? Jebus!
The final indignity came courtesy of the pediatrician, unsurprisingly. We had finished our time in the Gulag by Friday morning, and at 8:30AM, we had our son and were ready to get the hell out of VVR hospital. We were then informed that we would have to wait for the pediatrician to check us out, and that she would get there before lunch. The fact that this woman hadn't spent 5 minutes examining anybody involved in our stay before then apparently meant nothing to the bureaucracy at VVR, and we were forced to wait. And wait. And wait. Lunch came and went with no appearance by the High Priestess Pediatrician. We finally got the approval to leave at 2-freaking-30 in the afternoon! Our long national nightmare was over.
The main problem for me, other than the complete disingenuousness of VVR's bluster about how breastfeeding friendly they are, was that at almost no time did any of the nurses or lactation consultants seem to realize how messed up they had made us with their utter obliviousness to each others' advice. There is clearly no system-wide policy in place for any of the people there to follow, so everyone "helpfully" pitches in with their own hints and tips, not understanding the difference between personal knowledge/experience and medically recognized or sanctioned best practice. All of the people we interacted with at VVR, other than the pediatrician and the bathing freak nurse, were pleasant and friendly. They seemed to want to help as individuals, but that's the issue--we weren't paying for their individual help, we expected professional expertise, and never got it from anyone there, and the helplessness we learned from their contradictions, and especially the NICU's blatant disregard for our wishes, continues to haunt us weeks later. Instead of preparing us for the challenges of parenthood, VVR Hospital has made everything we face worse, to the point where imho neither of us feels at all competent. Owen deserved better.
The fun was not limited to breastfeeding travails, making it obvious to us that it wasn't simply that VVR doesn't have its act together in regards to that one aspect of infant care. On one of our fruitless visits to the NICU, we were virtually accosted by a nurse we hadn't seen before, who informed us grandly that she was available to show us how to bathe our baby, as we requested. I replied (1), "Well, we didn't request that, but it would be great to see a demo. Thanks!" Her response? "You requested the demonstration. Would you like me to show you?" TBO replied (2), "No, we actually didn't ask for it, but sure, please show us." Her response? "You did request it. Are you saying that you know everything there is about bathing a newborn?" (Yes, with the sarcastic attitude applied.) TBO replied (3), "We did not request any demonstration on how to bathe our child. I am a new parent, but I think I know how to give a sponge bath to our son. It would be nice to see your demonstration, though, so thank you."
And at that point, with a huff, she proceeded to give Owen the most insane sponge bath. Ever. Without a word to explain what she was doing, or any pauses to show us how she was holding him or why she maneuvered him in a certain way, she bathed Owen all over, including shampooing, in about 2 minutes total. As if brand new parents could have ever followed that bravura display of brutally cold efficiency (or would want to)! She stalked off without a word, iirc, leaving us stunned into silence as well.
Lest you think that only in NICU are the nurses at VVR radically insensitive, let me share another tidbit o' class with you. In order to facilitate breastfeeding, especially given the lack of time we had with Owen in person, TBO had been given a breast pump, to which she dutifully bound herself for 20 minutes every 2 hours or so. These contraptions require some attention, as well as the use of both arms while on the pump to hold the devices in place. There isn't much one can do while pumping except sit there motionless, hoping against hope to get some milk flowing. These are not silent machines, nor are they invisible, which makes what happened one day even more incomprehensible.
TBO had been getting her blood pressure checked regularly since her arrival at VVR; she was borderline hypertensive throughout her pregnancy, although in reality her stats rarely deviated. (I think some people just have a different baseline for their "normal" BP, but that's my non-professional judgment.) Nurses would pop in, day or night, to wake her up or interrupt whatever she was doing, to take her pressure, write it down, and leave, usually without saying anything. Let me stress that--whatever she was doing. That's right, one time, when TBO was using the breast pump, the nurse came in and informed TBO that she had to take her BP. Both TBO and I looked on incredulously as the nurse began to inartfully wrap TBO's arm up, even as she was using that arm to try and hold the suction cup in place. She then informed TBO that her BP was way up--shocker! Oddly enough, the next time her BP was taken, it had gone back to its normal level. Gee, you think maybe the fact that TBO was straining physically to pump her son's meals at the time you measured it might have had something to do with the high reading? You couldn't wait 10 minutes for her to finish? Jebus!
The final indignity came courtesy of the pediatrician, unsurprisingly. We had finished our time in the Gulag by Friday morning, and at 8:30AM, we had our son and were ready to get the hell out of VVR hospital. We were then informed that we would have to wait for the pediatrician to check us out, and that she would get there before lunch. The fact that this woman hadn't spent 5 minutes examining anybody involved in our stay before then apparently meant nothing to the bureaucracy at VVR, and we were forced to wait. And wait. And wait. Lunch came and went with no appearance by the High Priestess Pediatrician. We finally got the approval to leave at 2-freaking-30 in the afternoon! Our long national nightmare was over.
The main problem for me, other than the complete disingenuousness of VVR's bluster about how breastfeeding friendly they are, was that at almost no time did any of the nurses or lactation consultants seem to realize how messed up they had made us with their utter obliviousness to each others' advice. There is clearly no system-wide policy in place for any of the people there to follow, so everyone "helpfully" pitches in with their own hints and tips, not understanding the difference between personal knowledge/experience and medically recognized or sanctioned best practice. All of the people we interacted with at VVR, other than the pediatrician and the bathing freak nurse, were pleasant and friendly. They seemed to want to help as individuals, but that's the issue--we weren't paying for their individual help, we expected professional expertise, and never got it from anyone there, and the helplessness we learned from their contradictions, and especially the NICU's blatant disregard for our wishes, continues to haunt us weeks later. Instead of preparing us for the challenges of parenthood, VVR Hospital has made everything we face worse, to the point where imho neither of us feels at all competent. Owen deserved better.
posted by bryduck at 8:39 AM
2 Comments:
Life with your newborn should get easier, I hope. Please send a copy of your four part story to the hospital. Send it c/o the patient advocate (call the hospital for his/her name). If you know ANY names, you should write them in the margins of your story. Don't let this nightmare go unremarked upon.
TBO was the patient but you all were victims. I urge you to do what anon says. You might save another Owen's life. And what, going back a couple of parts, was the shaking-the-baby nurse thinking? Nurses at my hospital were recertified in CPR every year. This was certainly a case for breathing into Owen's mouth/nose I would think.
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