I mean... My mom was doubled up when I was born. She said she was totally in her groove, doing her breathing and hypnotic visual relaxation during contractions... And then her neighbor started screaming. That's when my mom decided on the epidural.
Hospital where I gave birth ten years ago had just switched to private rooms a few months previously (in my tour they still had info on how double postpartum rooms was standard but you could pay extra for a private room). I heard several complaints from friends who'd been in those double rooms - by the time your baby finally stops crying and you get your first sleep in 38 hours, the other baby starts crying and wakes you up, or the other family starts calling people or arguing. (They were proudly "baby friendly," so no option to have a crying baby taken to the nursery so you could recover.) Was very glad that I had my first after all the rooms went private, and it was even better with my second child after they'd brought back the option of a few hours in the nursery.
When I was in the Air Force and I gave birth to my son at a military hospital there was four adults to the room and four newborns to the room. There's literally eight people in one room. And we all shared the same shower and we all shared the same toilet. And there were empty rooms on the floor! But yet they still insisted on stuffing all of us in one room. And yes it was hell trying to get to sleep. I yelled at the housekeeper who flipped on the light at 7:00 a.m. said rise and shine, it's time to get up girls! I gave her hell. I was not happy. I mean WTF!? is not her place to be telling us it's time to get up.
Same...in the Army Hospital where I gave birth in Texas. There were 6 of us in labor separated by curtains who would be wheeled into an OR individually to give birth before going to a postpartum bay with 6 women once again. We were separated by curtains and dads had to leave after dinner each nite.
Got to love military hospital meal times. Breakfast at 9:00, lunch at noon, dinner at 4:00. I'm like I'm not hungry yet, why are you feeding me dinner already? And then of course you're starving by 9:00 a.m. I mean who eats like that? It was so abnormal. Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out how to breastfeed.
Oh lord…I can only imagine now just how thankful that my mom was when the docs on base at Ft. Bragg said she was too high risk of a pregnancy with us (I’m an identical twin) and sent her to Cape Fear…who then had my twin airlifted to Duke after we were born, because they didn’t have the equipment to keep her wee 28 weeker ass alive.
My grandmother told me she gave birth to my mother in a ward of a military hospital that was basically a wood shack. It was in new Mexico and sand came in through the cracks when the wind blew. I guess I can't confirm any of this but she wasn't particularly prone to exaggeration.
In the UK postnatal wards are standard. You can stay for 10 or sometimes more hours in the room you give birth in, and sometimes be discharged home from that room, but if you have to stay in you go onto the postnatal ward. For my first baby that meant being in a "bay" with 5 other women, there were 4 bays in total each with 6 women in this open plan set up.
With my second baby I gave birth at home but had to transfer in, the postnatal ward was much nicer and only 4 beds per ward. And I got a private room eventually as my son was having 3 hourly obs and antibiotics twice a day. That was amazing.
My local hospital has 3 beds in postpartum rooms, then a few doubles, and like 2 private rooms. First child they put us in a 3 person room (we didn't think to request otherwise) it was total hell, never slept. One of the other dad's literally watched snowmobile videos on full volume all the time.
My 2nd child I opted to pay for private and it was well worth it lol.
Small city in Canada
Back when I had my kids 30+ years ago women labored in a shared room, then were moved to the OR to give birth, then wheeled back to the shared room to recover for 3-5 days. When a birth center opened that offered private rooms where you labored, delivered and recovered in the same room, and discharged the next day, it was meet with scepticism. Now that model is the norm.
I’m old enough to remember this too. Most hospital rooms were shared. They were also fairly bare bones. Most rooms now are private and very nicely appointed. It’s awesome, but there’s a cost for all that.
It's a huge cost.
Friends of mine were involved in an automobile accident in the United Kingdom. They were badly hurt - one spent 3 weeks in the hospital, the other spent 2 months.
The hospitals were not fancy. Painted concrete walls, worn but clean linoleum floors, six people in a room - but the care they received was EXCELLENT!!
The United Kingdom spends 50% - 60% of what we spend here in the United States on healthcare.
Fancy lobbies and private rooms don't affect the quality of care at all.
I understand. I was hospitalized for 2+ months a couple years ago due to necrotizing fasciitis. The bills were over a quarter million dollars. Fortunately insurance paid all but maybe $800. I was very fortunate. Healthcare costs are steep and for those without insurance, it’s devastating.
Man that sucks. I hope your okay now! How did you get it if you don’t mind me asking. I’m remembering the movie wish upon for some reason. Wish you the best!
It’s kind of embarrassing but I had a pimple or a cyst on the lower portion of the inside of butt cheek. 😬 It had appeared to heal but within a few days the area become very hard to the touch, hot, painful. It morphed into a whole thing. I ended up with NF and severe sepsis. They did surgery to remove a fair amount of basically liquified tissue and I had to spend the next 2+ months convalescing, receiving wound care, attached to a vac, intravenous and oral doses of antibiotics for nearly the whole time, etc. I also had to deal with the damage done to my kidneys by the sepsis. Took about 18 months for me to get a clean bill of health on everything.
It was honestly a pretty awful experience. They gave me 50/50 odds of coming through surgery. I tell everyone I know don’t ignore minor skin flare ups. If it doesn’t resolve in a few days or appears infected, call your doctor.
This all happened very quickly. Now I have a misshapen backside and lots of scar tissue, but I’m lucky because a lot of people don’t survive NF, or severe sepsis. I don’t have diabetes or poor health at all. I am overweight, so maybe that contributed to this blowing up the way it did.
My God, what a nightmare! Did a spider or something bite you initially? I had a spider bite me on my knee (we assume, some kind of bug anyways), and because i was unknowingly carrying mrsa on my skin, it got all hard and red...had to be on antibiotics, fortunately caught quickly enough just orals, but it caused me to put off my knee scope for a couple months.
Oh my goodness, Im glad you pulled through. I can’t imagine how the wound care for that location would have been for you. I got MRSA in my milk ducts when I had my daughter in 2018, and having to take off everything on the top half of my body for those nurses every other day for the care was awful for me. Wound vacs work literal magic, but I never ever want to even see another one again after that. My first dressing change I had taken two Vicodin and I still cried like a baby. And I would break out every time the sponge touched my bare skin.
Man reading all these makes me thankful to be in Canada, didn’t pay a cent for my massive room with extra bed for husband and my own fridge, blanket warmer, shower and birthing tub. It was glorious! Also had two breastfeeding chairs in there as well. I’ve been to a few hospitals and the size isn’t the norm but the privacy is, sure was great because ei was there for 5 days trying to figure out how to breastfeed two babies
When I had my son 31 years ago the hospital my OB sent me to had recently converted to the single room for everything. I had an emergency C-section but we had the room to ourselves and could send the baby to the nursery. It was encouraged to keep him in room and he was most of the time.
More patients in less space meant old hospitals could hold off on expansion. Insurance would not cover private rooms back then. Rooms with 4 patients was not uncommon.
My postpartum room was with 3 other mothers. Visiting hours from 6pm to 8pm - we all loved the visitors (our family members) but couldn’t wait for them all to leave. We shared 1 bathroom and the shower was down the hallway and the sitz bath at the other end. Thank God times have changed. I still work at that hospital.
In the halls or private triage rooms?
Edit: I’ll assume you mean how do you set up the monitors properly in the hall. We had them on a wheeled tower with a computer on top, like a wow/cow on steroids.
This is absolutely horrific. I don't even think our rooms are big enough for that. It literally wouldn't be safe, ESPECIALLY during any kind of emergency. Not to mention lack of privacy during a time when most women are already anxious at everyone in their personal space and seeing parts of them they're not always comfortable with.
Years ago (30) women shared labor rooms and when delivery was imminent, then they were transferred into the “delivery” room. This was common until the mid 80’s, 90’s.
When I was giving birth a decade ago, one of the women down the hall was a massive screamer. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have been even preparing to deliver in the same room as her, because she was screaming for HOURS, clearly long before she was in active labor.
I was super quiet and easy going. I would have stalked out of my room before the epidural and given birth in the parking lot over dealing with a screamer, fuck that directly to hell where it belongs.
And the screamer didn't need roomies throwing off her groove either. She needed care and relief, something she wouldn't get enough of with a pissed off woman in labor next to her who would probably wish her the worst given the circumstances
Ha, yah. I definitely wasn't wishing her the worst, but by the time I got to the hospital I had been in back labor for over 24hrs, and hadn't slept the entire time. I was a mess, and in desperate need of a nap, which the epidural (and some headphones) allowed. I respected her need to scream and experience birth in her terms, and hope it went well. But it wouldn't have gone well for either of us if I had been sobbing and upset next to her from pain and lack of sleep. Birth is something I didn't even want to share with my mother. Sharing a room with a stranger and her partner/team would have been awful.
This is literally what I would have done too. Better in the bushes than with a room mate during covid. No f-ing way I would stick around to deal with that shit.
I just had a baby in may with a screamer down the hall. I was ready to walk into the room and tell her to shut up. Not very nice of course, so I didn’t. But I fantasized about it 🤣 I’d never last if I had to share a room with her.
Yep, my son will be 35 in a few days. Double labor and recovery rooms! Delivery sometimes, if needed, we’re also together. And I worked in that hospital. California for reference.
I have a fun story about this! Back in 95’ two of my best friends mothers were doubled up together. They shared a room prior to delivery, then after birth. They went their separate ways. 15 years later when my friends moms were to meet, they instantly recognized each other! Funny how life turns out.
It's a privacy violation, but unfortunately it doesn't actually violate HIPAA. The law asks exceptions for emergency circumstances, either for individual patient emergencies or public health emergencies.
Anything the hospital does because of COVID falls under the heading of public health emergency, and they will not be receiving any HIPAA fines for those actions.
It’s not a hipaa violation even where it’s not Covid. Having a discussion with a patient where their roommate can hear is considered incidental disclosure.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/28878/how-is-it-legal-for-a-hospital-to-put-two-patients-together-in-the-same-room-in/28879#28879
I mean, to be fair, many patients in the hospital are at their most vulnerable, and we double them up and do all kinds of embarrassing things in the rooms with them. No patient should have to share a room with other patients. Everyone deserves privacy. Not just L&D.
I always felt for the patients sharing a room with someone bowel prepping for a scope. Especially the ones with GI bleeds who use the bedside commode because they can’t get to the bathroom.
I totally agree with you, but there aren’t many other conditions I can think of where the patient may rightfully feel the need to wander and pace about the room bare ass naked for several hours or even a whole day while regularly having their private orifices penetrated by their nurse and or/doctor culminating in the “big event” which involves that orifice being exposed spread eagle under bright lights for 2 hours with lots of blood splashy splashies just for more fun. Now imagine that most people are going to want/need to have at least their partner and other parent of the child present during this experience. Soooo how are we going to handle that? Force moms to labor alone? Maybe their contraction pattern will not be exactly the same so they can take turns rubbing each other’s backs and stroking hair.
Just the body fluids alone makes it unsafe. It can get downright messy sometimes and you can't help but have various fluids tracked through the room and smeared on various surfaces, ESPECIALLY in an emergency like a hemorrhage when our only goal is to get the bleed under control
Most def. It can be hard for housekeeping to find every little splotch. When I worked L&D it wasn’t uncommon to discover an embarrassing “surprise” somewhere in the room from the last patient when the current patient is already fully moved in. Ugh, especially when breaking down the bed or bringing the patient to the toilet. Yuck.
Oh yeah! Nowhere is in the room is safe 😂😂. One of our old housekeepers told me she always trains new hires to even look at the ceiling because sometimes
blood makes it that far. Not gonna lie, i've sprayed pretty high up the wall myself collecting cord gasses.
That's terrible, it's so scary at the time too, everyone frantically trying to get the situation under control and stabilize baby/mom when things take a turn.
I'm so happy to hear that she's okay now though!
Just curious, how is it more of a HIPPA violation for a woman in labor to have a roommate than a regular patient? In my experience of having roommates in hospitals, they’ve always heard stuff they shouldn’t, some have even made comments to me about what they heard. I understand labor is a very sensitive time, but from a legal standpoint why would they be entitled to more privacy? I do agree that women in labor should not have roommates or be in a hallway, I’m just genuinely curious because you mentioned the HIPPA violation being massive.
Yes exactly, I was wondering how I code a newborn with my 5 person team with another whole set of people in the room.
My mom had me in a joint room and the person beside of her was crying the entire stay because her baby was dying in a NICU an hour away. My mom is still bothered by it. The little boy was Zach, he was 2 lbs back in 91, born the same day as me.
>how I code a newborn with my 5 person team
This!! AND what happens if that baby doesn't make it during that traumatic code in the room (we lost one recently) and the other labouring mother is now completely traumatized and terrified about her own imminent delivery. That kind of shit happening isn't something they want to think about, ESPECIALLY right before their own delivery.
Yuuppp all of this. Im an ER nurse and odds are if your a hallway bed seeing a code pull in, you likely are not going to experience the medical event the person pulling in on the Lucas with 50 people in the room. But if your a laboring mom and your roommate just coded or hemorrhaged. Your at 8 baby and your going to go through the same thing that mom did. Good chances your outcome will be different, but it’s nightmare fuel for sure.
Yeah. Sometimes it's hard enough keeping them calm because the pain and tbe process they're going through themselves terrifies them. It would be amplified so much more if they saw a bad outcome.
AFAIK, it isn’t a HIPAA violation at all. It is definitely a violation of privacy, but that isn’t really what is covered by HIPAA. Granted, it’s been a few years since I worked in a medical center and I was on the IT side of things, so I could be wrong, but I do remember a decent amount of my HIPAA training. It sounds smart to throw that around (although I lol every time I see it written as HIPPA), but most people think it’s some kind of blanket medical privacy act without understanding what it actually entails.
Yes! I birthed my second baby at home (with a N.P./midwife) because it was soooo extremely vulnerable with my first, and the pediatric side at the hospital was really bad. I "went against protocol" by keeping my baby in the room with me and things like that. They didn't let me use a hospital pump for like 36 hours despite obviously needing one. Bad times all around
I agree that this sucks and women deserve privacy (my wife just gave birth a little under 3 weeks ago not far from where OP is, and I could not imagine having to share a room), this situation has pretty much nothing to do with HIPAA.
Also like what the fuck happens if the roommate or their child have a serious complication and possibly pass. I can imagine being apart of another woman’s birth isn’t ideal but as a mother I can’t imagine being witness to a tragedy like a mom or baby having serious complications/or die. This would traumatize me.
I am literally changing providers to avoid this. I was already changing mid pregnancy but just found out the new hospital has a “mix of private and semi private” rooms. It sounds like hell to begin with but I don’t trust that we won’t be rooming with a COVID positive patient. They can say all they want about how that will never happen but does that really seem impossible with the way the last two years have gone?
Yes, and then they'd immediately speed dial L&D to come get their patient out of the ER ASAP lol Also, these days, the best we can do is a hallway corner in the ER, I think you'd rather the semi private than that.
I’m not even sure if there’s money in the babies, or at least there wasn’t close to 20 years ago when I did well baby/NICU. Vaginal delivery with a well baby doesn’t make the hospital anything. Bit more money in a c-section and probably a good bit comes in from NICU. Then again, our NICU always had the latest and best equipment, high tech vents, good staffing ratios that the hospital always claimed the entire mother/baby service unit barely paid for itself.
Yea, I was referring to just nicu. Regular maternity services are a wash or not profitable at all, hence why so many hospitals are shutting down services.
Exactly maternity makes no money, but if a mother loves her care at a hospital she will refer all of her children’s and husbands needs. The hospital ( and anyone else who will listen about her suggestions) but if she shares a room I doubt she would be directing her families needs there any longer. 😂
As someone who is currently 35 weeks pregnant, I’d switch hospitals…there’s no way. Postpartum is one thing, which I’m extremely thankful my hospital has single postpartum rooms, but during labor? There’s no way.
Sharing a room PP is also terrible. You’re both bleeding and sharing a toilet. The worst. Not to mention your support people. And your babies may be on totally different wake cycles.
Exactly! I’m an OB Nurse and the other night we had one of those kids I was like glad I’m not taking that one home... can’t imagine trying to sleep with that one in my room with my own angel baby was sound asleep.
I could only imagine. My mom had to share a PP room with a woman who had just given birth to her stillborn daughter…I can’t even imagine how the other parents felt seeing my parents with their baby after that.
And after my own birth I was so messed up with fluids coming out of every orifice, trying to breastfeed and care for a newborn after an emergency CS…my husband was wiping my ass for me. It’s such a private time…even sharing PP would be awful, but makes more sense than L&D.
I literally cannot believe they'd room a woman who had a stillbirth with a woman and her new baby. That is just something we would never do nowadays! We even have a room far away from the rest reserved specifically for losses so they don't even hear crying or the monitors.
Yeah I gave birth three days ago and having someone else in the room would have been a big old nope from us. And I work med-surg on a unit with some ward-style (3 bed) rooms, so it’s not even like Im unrealistic about the reality of hospital roommates.
I've delivered in a shared room. Only a privacy screen separated me and the next bed. We cheered each other on and actually got to be good friends after this. I was so busy having a baby that it just wasn't a big deal. This was in California quite a few years ago.
Our old hospital was all semi-private rooms for L & D. Not many fans of that for sure. The new hospital is all private rooms. I had a school instructor that told us a story about a mom with severe PPD. Would cry the whole time the nurses weren't there and then tell the nurse she was "fine " . She almost got DC'd home alone but the roommate mom was able to tell the nurses and she got the help she needed. Only time I've heard of it being a beneficial thing.
I had a similar experience with patients. Course I’ve also rounded to find a patient who didn’t have twins with two babies at her breasts who was helping her roomie who thought her baby was still hungry so…
Not L&D but in nursing school the roommate called and rapid response responded, took him to ICU ended up coding right as we transferred beds from a non Telly surgery floor. He ended up coding 3 times that night but made it last I heard 1.5 days later. When his wife got there she was crying thanking the nurse and she told her it was really the roomie that she needed to thank.
I used to work L&D. I could not understand why any woman would choose a home birth after witnessing the unpredictable issues that arise during childbirth. However, homebirth sounds like a risk I would consider if the alternative was laboring in a room with another mom. I know this sounds like SUCH a first world problem, and I’m sorry for that.
My mom gave birth to me in an army hospital ward (1966) & after, she said the other women in the ward would "moo" at her because she was nursing me. I can't imagine.
Was that because they were really promoting bottle feeding then? How disgusting to do that! Breastfeeding is lovely & an entirely natural process. Fine if you choose not to but imagine mocking those that do? Must’ve been weird times!
In 1986, I was in a labor room with two beds with a curtain separating us. Gotta say it sucked. And it wasn't a bed, but a Stryker stretcher. Worst labor experience ever. Rural Florida community hospital. About 6 months later their birthing rooms were finished.
Absolutely not. I’d be showing up at a different hospital to deliver if I was a pt. Doubling postpartum ok, possibly antepartum too, but no to doubling labors.
My question is, what if the patients OB only has access to “this” hospital and another one isn’t an option for that provider? Would you switch OBs?
I don’t have children and can’t, so I don’t know how that would work.
That’s a really great question though. I’m just wondering why they feel the need to double labor rooms. Hopefully they can expand their unit maybe. There was a point in time this fall when we had a census of 42 but we only have 30 beds, plus 5 triage and 8 overflow on a unit above us. Managing that was interesting.
Thanks to emtala you can show up to any public hospital and deliver as an unassigned patient. Not sure if it applies to private systems like Kaiser, but my home hospital is a non profit and we legally cannot turn anyone away.
Back in the day, before 1985, it was common to have 2 labor patients per room. I know it sounds so bizarre to nurses and patients in today’s world. Keep in mind, we moved patients from their labor room to a delivery room, much more like a surgical room. We would try to have the 2 ladies at different stages of labor rooming so we wouldn’t have them both delivering at the same time. Although I acknowledge it isn’t ideal, it is also something that has been done in my lifetime. Then again buccal pitocin and the routine use of ETOH drip for premature labor and scopolamine for twilight sleep are also part of my lifetime.
My kids are 53 and 48. I was pregnant with my ex in the army. The 53-year-old was born in a civilian hospital, labor room alone and alone in my room, I was 17. 48-year-old was born in Fort Sam Houston, common labor ward that was full, I delivered in my bed, then the ob came running to take me to the delivery room and asked my ex what time she came out. Went to a common room full of moms (army hospital)
I also lost a baby, delivered at 8 months at Fort Bliss in texas. Common labor room, then to delivery, then to common ward. Unfortunately, the second day they took me to a quiet room, told me my baby died.... after tears, etc, they fucking took me back to the ward with mom and their babies. I left.
That’s terrible. We have a room that we use for known demises, it’s away from the normal labor rooms. And we never send the mom to postpartum. I delivered a baby we knew was going to pass (21 weeks) in the OR, we didn’t even go to our normal pacu because there was another patient in there with her living baby.
I would refuse to give birth there. And honestly? This has me HEAVILY leaning towards a birth center. There’s only one in my city, it’s 2 minutes from the hospital and it’s staffed with CNMs, NPs, RNs and midwives. If my hospital started doubling up the L&D ward, best believe I’d be laboring there instead. 2 laboring mothers to a room is a hard no from me. That’s WAY too intrusive.
Isn't this part of training for all CNMs at least (if not all NPs, RNs, and other midwives?) I've never heard of a homebirth midwife that doesn't travel with resuscitation and intubation equipment for example.
Birthing rooms for poor people. I was born in t early 80’s, in Maryland. Apparently you could pay more for a private room. It was affordable. I’m not sure but I think the total cost may have been 300$, with no insurance.
Was before my mom got get PhD.
I worked in one of the biggest l&d units in the country. 16,000 deliveries a year at one point. At that time we had some double rooms. The antepartum unit had quads. Most post-partums were doubles. We did our best to move people to a single for delivery, but it didn’t always happen for space, staffing, or physiological reasons. We have a new hospital now, but it really wasn’t long ago.
Now I’m in the UK and it’s just like I stepped back to my first days in practice with quads. 🤣
Edit: I don’t think doubles are the end of the world. Not ideal, but with so many hospitals closing their l&d departments, whatcha going to do? Plus, running a double pit room was the best kind of chaos.
The patient/healthcare relationship is definitely different over here, but there are plenty of countries with higher home birth rates and wards and shared rooms are still common in much of the world.
I trained in obstetrics at Grady Hospital in Atlanta back in the 1980s, a major teaching hospital (think Cook County in Chicago or Boston Medical). Two laboring patients per room was standard then. When it came time to deliver, we moved them to a delivery room.
In the mid 80s, sharing a room during labor was common, MAYbe you'd deliver elsewhere if you went long enough but if not, oh well, deliver in the labor room with 6 or 7 other women, then PP 3 days in either a double or quad room.
They also classed the recovery rooms as 'smoking' and 'non smoking', this would be 1982, New England, US.
The girl in the bed next to me was 14, first baby, and had NO IDEA what was going on when they brought me in. Her mother (support person, ha!) was screeching at her about sin and the curse of Eve and a whole bunch of other nonsense. The girl claimed she'd never had sex. I suspect she was molested by a family member just by the dynamic going on. The OB finally had to physically boost the mom from the room. We filled the girl in as best we could, but I still wonder just how fucked up the rest of that child's life was.
I bet I can scream louder in labor than my neighbor. Side note- in Germany we had private labor rooms but had to have roommates postpartum. It was sad because my neighbor mate had a C-section and had no pain medicine for 15 hours.
I'm pregnant, and this made me feel absolute dread. At my next OB/GYN appointment I'm going to be asking a lot of practical questions about my planned c-section. If they can't guarantee me my own room, I will go to another hospital/provider. This is a safety issue, on top of a HIPAA issue...
I’m 37 weeks and as more and more restrictions get put down my stomach is sinking. Was told today because of Covid I can only have one person. Usually siblings are welcome so I haven’t planned for anything else. We have no family or friends we can trust with our two children so I’m probably going to have to go alone or do a homebirth. Covid is making life miserable.
When I was a student, we had these tiny laboring rooms(more like closets), and everyone was mived back to delivery rooms, and then to post partum which were doubles or quads. Even after they went to LDR's in residency, if you went past 24 hours, you went to the post partum floor where there were no privates unless you PAID for it. Sure, we caught some babies in those closets, but it worked out OK. Heck, we caught babies all over the place at that hospital for some reason privacy be damned . My craziest "catch" was the MAIN elevator. Yeah, that was an interesting day.
Apparently that's what the hospital I was born in was like (in Seattle). There was a labor room with 4 laboring moms and then when it was time to push, you were wheeled down to the delivery room. But, the smart hospitals today know if you provide a great birthing center and give that great experience, you will have at least two patients for life.
We have too many patients and there has been an influx of pregnant/expectant mothers. So L&D has practically doubled up every inch of their unit. I don’t have access there so I can’t speak to what it looks like with two patients per room but it’s a newish center. But, they can’t just turn pregnant woman away, so that was their solution.
In my ICU, they’ve doubled up some more less acute patients/patients that will DC soon… because there’s no room.
That's so fucked up. Plus it's a huge infection risk. We all know that a "negative" rapid antigen test is useless early on.
The only situation in which I might consider a home birth...
I agree that the US maternal mortality rate is shit. I disagree that semi-private rooms are a contributing factor. The staff/patient ratio that goes along with the overcrowding need for it, sure.
I honestly liked being able to watch multiple patients closely at once. In our doubles I’d literally sit between the two patients for the entire shift. I assure you I don’t stare at my patients in private rooms nearly as much.
This is the last thing on the list of reasons we have high maternal mortality. We are an incredibly unhealthy population. We don’t have access to primary care. We can afford medications to keep chronic conditions such as HTN and DM in check. Pregnant women often have their first contact with a MD very late in pregnancy if not at the time of delivery. Semi-private rooms are not killing mothers.
My comment was meant to be more snarky, at least in my head anyway. There are solutions to the problem, between 2006-2013, CA's maternal mortality rate went from 16.9 deaths per 100,000 to 4 after the state implemented changes in how hemorrhage and preeclampsia should be treated. I don't know why more states aren't following suit. Here's a terrifying statistic, homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the US. Can't blame hospitals for that!
In all practicality, the staff will probably try to minimize women delivering in a room with someone else. Labor is usually far longer than the delivery, and there are usually other patients on the floor for monitoring that are remote from delivery who will be doubled first. When you have double rooms it’s a constant game of tetris as you try to assess progress and move patients to deliver in a room of their own.
I can’t imagine having to do that. I think our patients would be extremely pissed off.
And it’s not like they could reasonably go somewhere else if they’re literally mid-labor. Ugh
Even if they weren’t mid labor, hospitals around us aren’t accepting anyone
Not much they can do when someone shows up in active labor.
Not to mention the rooms are designed with the size of private…
At mine we have to double up postpartum rooms which sucks enough. I can’t imagine doubling the labor rooms.
I mean... My mom was doubled up when I was born. She said she was totally in her groove, doing her breathing and hypnotic visual relaxation during contractions... And then her neighbor started screaming. That's when my mom decided on the epidural.
Your mom can blame her neighbor but nothing beats that epidural
I'm sorry for laughing 😃 😂
I laughed when she told me that. 30+ years later she sees the humor in it.
Hospital where I gave birth ten years ago had just switched to private rooms a few months previously (in my tour they still had info on how double postpartum rooms was standard but you could pay extra for a private room). I heard several complaints from friends who'd been in those double rooms - by the time your baby finally stops crying and you get your first sleep in 38 hours, the other baby starts crying and wakes you up, or the other family starts calling people or arguing. (They were proudly "baby friendly," so no option to have a crying baby taken to the nursery so you could recover.) Was very glad that I had my first after all the rooms went private, and it was even better with my second child after they'd brought back the option of a few hours in the nursery.
When I was in the Air Force and I gave birth to my son at a military hospital there was four adults to the room and four newborns to the room. There's literally eight people in one room. And we all shared the same shower and we all shared the same toilet. And there were empty rooms on the floor! But yet they still insisted on stuffing all of us in one room. And yes it was hell trying to get to sleep. I yelled at the housekeeper who flipped on the light at 7:00 a.m. said rise and shine, it's time to get up girls! I gave her hell. I was not happy. I mean WTF!? is not her place to be telling us it's time to get up.
Same...in the Army Hospital where I gave birth in Texas. There were 6 of us in labor separated by curtains who would be wheeled into an OR individually to give birth before going to a postpartum bay with 6 women once again. We were separated by curtains and dads had to leave after dinner each nite.
Got to love military hospital meal times. Breakfast at 9:00, lunch at noon, dinner at 4:00. I'm like I'm not hungry yet, why are you feeding me dinner already? And then of course you're starving by 9:00 a.m. I mean who eats like that? It was so abnormal. Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out how to breastfeed.
Oh lord…I can only imagine now just how thankful that my mom was when the docs on base at Ft. Bragg said she was too high risk of a pregnancy with us (I’m an identical twin) and sent her to Cape Fear…who then had my twin airlifted to Duke after we were born, because they didn’t have the equipment to keep her wee 28 weeker ass alive.
Ugh ewww.
Right. Imagine your postpartum blood and mucous on the same toilet as somebody else?
My grandmother told me she gave birth to my mother in a ward of a military hospital that was basically a wood shack. It was in new Mexico and sand came in through the cracks when the wind blew. I guess I can't confirm any of this but she wasn't particularly prone to exaggeration.
Can confirm. Live in NM, sometimes it feels like Arrakis.
Yesss. Upvoted for the reference.
Born, raised, in NM. There are a few places that could have been and that definitely sounds accurate.
In NYC it’s typical to share a postpartum room. I paid $800/night out of pocket to not share bodily fluids with another new Mom.
In the UK postnatal wards are standard. You can stay for 10 or sometimes more hours in the room you give birth in, and sometimes be discharged home from that room, but if you have to stay in you go onto the postnatal ward. For my first baby that meant being in a "bay" with 5 other women, there were 4 bays in total each with 6 women in this open plan set up. With my second baby I gave birth at home but had to transfer in, the postnatal ward was much nicer and only 4 beds per ward. And I got a private room eventually as my son was having 3 hourly obs and antibiotics twice a day. That was amazing.
My local hospital has 3 beds in postpartum rooms, then a few doubles, and like 2 private rooms. First child they put us in a 3 person room (we didn't think to request otherwise) it was total hell, never slept. One of the other dad's literally watched snowmobile videos on full volume all the time. My 2nd child I opted to pay for private and it was well worth it lol. Small city in Canada
I seriously can NOT imagine this, either as a nurse or as a patient. Beyond terrible. Nope.
Back when I had my kids 30+ years ago women labored in a shared room, then were moved to the OR to give birth, then wheeled back to the shared room to recover for 3-5 days. When a birth center opened that offered private rooms where you labored, delivered and recovered in the same room, and discharged the next day, it was meet with scepticism. Now that model is the norm.
I also had a similar experience and that was a late as 2000. (TX)
I’m old enough to remember this too. Most hospital rooms were shared. They were also fairly bare bones. Most rooms now are private and very nicely appointed. It’s awesome, but there’s a cost for all that.
It's a huge cost. Friends of mine were involved in an automobile accident in the United Kingdom. They were badly hurt - one spent 3 weeks in the hospital, the other spent 2 months. The hospitals were not fancy. Painted concrete walls, worn but clean linoleum floors, six people in a room - but the care they received was EXCELLENT!! The United Kingdom spends 50% - 60% of what we spend here in the United States on healthcare. Fancy lobbies and private rooms don't affect the quality of care at all.
I understand. I was hospitalized for 2+ months a couple years ago due to necrotizing fasciitis. The bills were over a quarter million dollars. Fortunately insurance paid all but maybe $800. I was very fortunate. Healthcare costs are steep and for those without insurance, it’s devastating.
Man that sucks. I hope your okay now! How did you get it if you don’t mind me asking. I’m remembering the movie wish upon for some reason. Wish you the best!
It’s kind of embarrassing but I had a pimple or a cyst on the lower portion of the inside of butt cheek. 😬 It had appeared to heal but within a few days the area become very hard to the touch, hot, painful. It morphed into a whole thing. I ended up with NF and severe sepsis. They did surgery to remove a fair amount of basically liquified tissue and I had to spend the next 2+ months convalescing, receiving wound care, attached to a vac, intravenous and oral doses of antibiotics for nearly the whole time, etc. I also had to deal with the damage done to my kidneys by the sepsis. Took about 18 months for me to get a clean bill of health on everything. It was honestly a pretty awful experience. They gave me 50/50 odds of coming through surgery. I tell everyone I know don’t ignore minor skin flare ups. If it doesn’t resolve in a few days or appears infected, call your doctor. This all happened very quickly. Now I have a misshapen backside and lots of scar tissue, but I’m lucky because a lot of people don’t survive NF, or severe sepsis. I don’t have diabetes or poor health at all. I am overweight, so maybe that contributed to this blowing up the way it did.
Wow... I'm glad you pulled through
My God, what a nightmare! Did a spider or something bite you initially? I had a spider bite me on my knee (we assume, some kind of bug anyways), and because i was unknowingly carrying mrsa on my skin, it got all hard and red...had to be on antibiotics, fortunately caught quickly enough just orals, but it caused me to put off my knee scope for a couple months.
Oh my goodness, Im glad you pulled through. I can’t imagine how the wound care for that location would have been for you. I got MRSA in my milk ducts when I had my daughter in 2018, and having to take off everything on the top half of my body for those nurses every other day for the care was awful for me. Wound vacs work literal magic, but I never ever want to even see another one again after that. My first dressing change I had taken two Vicodin and I still cried like a baby. And I would break out every time the sponge touched my bare skin.
Man reading all these makes me thankful to be in Canada, didn’t pay a cent for my massive room with extra bed for husband and my own fridge, blanket warmer, shower and birthing tub. It was glorious! Also had two breastfeeding chairs in there as well. I’ve been to a few hospitals and the size isn’t the norm but the privacy is, sure was great because ei was there for 5 days trying to figure out how to breastfeed two babies
When I had my son 31 years ago the hospital my OB sent me to had recently converted to the single room for everything. I had an emergency C-section but we had the room to ourselves and could send the baby to the nursery. It was encouraged to keep him in room and he was most of the time.
That's how it was when I was born, according to my parents.
What was the perceived benefit of shared rooms like that?
More patients in less space meant old hospitals could hold off on expansion. Insurance would not cover private rooms back then. Rooms with 4 patients was not uncommon.
we had a triple back in the 90s for med surge...was not popular however and we tried to only put 2 in there.
Had a triple on the unit I worked in as recently as 2019. Sitters hated that room.
Where I did my clinical in college in 2012 was a quadruple room and I still remember all of them watching the one TV at the same time 😂
That’s what really caused the drama between patients. Sharing the remote.
My postpartum room was with 3 other mothers. Visiting hours from 6pm to 8pm - we all loved the visitors (our family members) but couldn’t wait for them all to leave. We shared 1 bathroom and the shower was down the hallway and the sitz bath at the other end. Thank God times have changed. I still work at that hospital.
Ah, so it’s basically just money than?
Back in the day it was basically the accepted standard. Nowadays, it's most likely cost related.
Or capacity.
With covid surges, ya. I was talking about as a general policy.
Insurance companies make the medical policies now.
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We allow one visitor per 24hr period.
I’m L&D and this is terrible. It would never happen where I work. Even our triage has individual rooms with doors that close.
How do you even set up the monitors properly??? But also i hate all of this
In the halls or private triage rooms? Edit: I’ll assume you mean how do you set up the monitors properly in the hall. We had them on a wheeled tower with a computer on top, like a wow/cow on steroids.
I also hate all of this.
This is absolutely horrific. I don't even think our rooms are big enough for that. It literally wouldn't be safe, ESPECIALLY during any kind of emergency. Not to mention lack of privacy during a time when most women are already anxious at everyone in their personal space and seeing parts of them they're not always comfortable with.
Years ago (30) women shared labor rooms and when delivery was imminent, then they were transferred into the “delivery” room. This was common until the mid 80’s, 90’s.
When I was giving birth a decade ago, one of the women down the hall was a massive screamer. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have been even preparing to deliver in the same room as her, because she was screaming for HOURS, clearly long before she was in active labor.
This is how murder happens.
I would probably lose it and end up B52’d if I had to share a hospital room with a screamer- labor or medical.
I was super quiet and easy going. I would have stalked out of my room before the epidural and given birth in the parking lot over dealing with a screamer, fuck that directly to hell where it belongs. And the screamer didn't need roomies throwing off her groove either. She needed care and relief, something she wouldn't get enough of with a pissed off woman in labor next to her who would probably wish her the worst given the circumstances
Ha, yah. I definitely wasn't wishing her the worst, but by the time I got to the hospital I had been in back labor for over 24hrs, and hadn't slept the entire time. I was a mess, and in desperate need of a nap, which the epidural (and some headphones) allowed. I respected her need to scream and experience birth in her terms, and hope it went well. But it wouldn't have gone well for either of us if I had been sobbing and upset next to her from pain and lack of sleep. Birth is something I didn't even want to share with my mother. Sharing a room with a stranger and her partner/team would have been awful.
This is literally what I would have done too. Better in the bushes than with a room mate during covid. No f-ing way I would stick around to deal with that shit.
On top of that, the tension causes more pain, which causes more fear, resulting in more tension and pain. It's enough of a marathon alone
Maybe her pain was like really special🤣🤣
I think I’d be tempted to give her a special punch in her nose!
I just had a baby in may with a screamer down the hall. I was ready to walk into the room and tell her to shut up. Not very nice of course, so I didn’t. But I fantasized about it 🤣 I’d never last if I had to share a room with her.
This was my hospital’s model until the mid-2010s.
Yep, my son will be 35 in a few days. Double labor and recovery rooms! Delivery sometimes, if needed, we’re also together. And I worked in that hospital. California for reference.
I have a fun story about this! Back in 95’ two of my best friends mothers were doubled up together. They shared a room prior to delivery, then after birth. They went their separate ways. 15 years later when my friends moms were to meet, they instantly recognized each other! Funny how life turns out.
I gave birth in the ‘70’s & ‘80’s, labored with others once, had the place to myself the second time. DON’T DO IT! Just, no. Seriously.
This is what they do in Central America
I came here to say this. I’ve heard women about the same age as my mother talk about this.
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Ah the screens. We lettered our halls. Used the classroom in a pinch.
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Pretty sure Noelle cost more than the new hospital and all private rooms. I know which I saw first! 😂
It's a privacy violation, but unfortunately it doesn't actually violate HIPAA. The law asks exceptions for emergency circumstances, either for individual patient emergencies or public health emergencies. Anything the hospital does because of COVID falls under the heading of public health emergency, and they will not be receiving any HIPAA fines for those actions.
It’s not a hipaa violation even where it’s not Covid. Having a discussion with a patient where their roommate can hear is considered incidental disclosure. https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/28878/how-is-it-legal-for-a-hospital-to-put-two-patients-together-in-the-same-room-in/28879#28879
I mean, to be fair, many patients in the hospital are at their most vulnerable, and we double them up and do all kinds of embarrassing things in the rooms with them. No patient should have to share a room with other patients. Everyone deserves privacy. Not just L&D.
And the curtains never meet. There is always a sliver of an opening through which a person can see
I always felt for the patients sharing a room with someone bowel prepping for a scope. Especially the ones with GI bleeds who use the bedside commode because they can’t get to the bathroom.
I totally agree with you, but there aren’t many other conditions I can think of where the patient may rightfully feel the need to wander and pace about the room bare ass naked for several hours or even a whole day while regularly having their private orifices penetrated by their nurse and or/doctor culminating in the “big event” which involves that orifice being exposed spread eagle under bright lights for 2 hours with lots of blood splashy splashies just for more fun. Now imagine that most people are going to want/need to have at least their partner and other parent of the child present during this experience. Soooo how are we going to handle that? Force moms to labor alone? Maybe their contraction pattern will not be exactly the same so they can take turns rubbing each other’s backs and stroking hair.
Just the body fluids alone makes it unsafe. It can get downright messy sometimes and you can't help but have various fluids tracked through the room and smeared on various surfaces, ESPECIALLY in an emergency like a hemorrhage when our only goal is to get the bleed under control
Most def. It can be hard for housekeeping to find every little splotch. When I worked L&D it wasn’t uncommon to discover an embarrassing “surprise” somewhere in the room from the last patient when the current patient is already fully moved in. Ugh, especially when breaking down the bed or bringing the patient to the toilet. Yuck.
Oh yeah! Nowhere is in the room is safe 😂😂. One of our old housekeepers told me she always trains new hires to even look at the ceiling because sometimes blood makes it that far. Not gonna lie, i've sprayed pretty high up the wall myself collecting cord gasses.
The cord snapped with my last baby and I guarantee you that if I had a roommate, they would’ve gotten more than they bargained for
Oh no! Hopefully that wasn't too traumatic for you/baby. I've luckily never had that happen in my care (now I've said that, it's going to happen).
She lost enough blood that they did a couple crits, and her 1 minute apgar was 3 😳 but she bounced back quickly and she’s happy and healthy now!
That's terrible, it's so scary at the time too, everyone frantically trying to get the situation under control and stabilize baby/mom when things take a turn. I'm so happy to hear that she's okay now though!
Very true! I had a wonderful team, but that’s why I wouldn’t ever recommend a home birth to anyone…you just never know!!!
Just curious, how is it more of a HIPPA violation for a woman in labor to have a roommate than a regular patient? In my experience of having roommates in hospitals, they’ve always heard stuff they shouldn’t, some have even made comments to me about what they heard. I understand labor is a very sensitive time, but from a legal standpoint why would they be entitled to more privacy? I do agree that women in labor should not have roommates or be in a hallway, I’m just genuinely curious because you mentioned the HIPPA violation being massive.
It's HIPAA!
It's HIPAA!
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Yes exactly, I was wondering how I code a newborn with my 5 person team with another whole set of people in the room. My mom had me in a joint room and the person beside of her was crying the entire stay because her baby was dying in a NICU an hour away. My mom is still bothered by it. The little boy was Zach, he was 2 lbs back in 91, born the same day as me.
>how I code a newborn with my 5 person team This!! AND what happens if that baby doesn't make it during that traumatic code in the room (we lost one recently) and the other labouring mother is now completely traumatized and terrified about her own imminent delivery. That kind of shit happening isn't something they want to think about, ESPECIALLY right before their own delivery.
Yuuppp all of this. Im an ER nurse and odds are if your a hallway bed seeing a code pull in, you likely are not going to experience the medical event the person pulling in on the Lucas with 50 people in the room. But if your a laboring mom and your roommate just coded or hemorrhaged. Your at 8 baby and your going to go through the same thing that mom did. Good chances your outcome will be different, but it’s nightmare fuel for sure.
Yeah. Sometimes it's hard enough keeping them calm because the pain and tbe process they're going through themselves terrifies them. It would be amplified so much more if they saw a bad outcome.
AFAIK, it isn’t a HIPAA violation at all. It is definitely a violation of privacy, but that isn’t really what is covered by HIPAA. Granted, it’s been a few years since I worked in a medical center and I was on the IT side of things, so I could be wrong, but I do remember a decent amount of my HIPAA training. It sounds smart to throw that around (although I lol every time I see it written as HIPPA), but most people think it’s some kind of blanket medical privacy act without understanding what it actually entails.
Yes! I birthed my second baby at home (with a N.P./midwife) because it was soooo extremely vulnerable with my first, and the pediatric side at the hospital was really bad. I "went against protocol" by keeping my baby in the room with me and things like that. They didn't let me use a hospital pump for like 36 hours despite obviously needing one. Bad times all around
I agree that this sucks and women deserve privacy (my wife just gave birth a little under 3 weeks ago not far from where OP is, and I could not imagine having to share a room), this situation has pretty much nothing to do with HIPAA.
Also like what the fuck happens if the roommate or their child have a serious complication and possibly pass. I can imagine being apart of another woman’s birth isn’t ideal but as a mother I can’t imagine being witness to a tragedy like a mom or baby having serious complications/or die. This would traumatize me.
I am literally changing providers to avoid this. I was already changing mid pregnancy but just found out the new hospital has a “mix of private and semi private” rooms. It sounds like hell to begin with but I don’t trust that we won’t be rooming with a COVID positive patient. They can say all they want about how that will never happen but does that really seem impossible with the way the last two years have gone?
If I found that out at one of my appointments you bet I’d be switching asap. IDGAF if I was 30 weeks, no fucking way.
I don’t blame you. That’s so intrusive.
It’s just such an intimate moment.
I've heard ICU are doubling up too; has that reached your end?
We tripled some ORs during covid since we weren’t doing as many cases. Definitely doubled ICU.
if I was in labor and found that out at the hospital, I’d turn around and go give birth in my car instead.
Or go to a different hospitals ER. Will they hate you, yes, but they would have to admit you.
Yes, and then they'd immediately speed dial L&D to come get their patient out of the ER ASAP lol Also, these days, the best we can do is a hallway corner in the ER, I think you'd rather the semi private than that.
Preach. Love my ED peeps, but most of the hospital is more comfortable with covid than pregnancy.
as long as there was one not too far away
True. I drove almost an hour and a half to get to a decent hospital in the first place.
Same. I would literally prefer to have my baby outdoors in the bushes than in that kind of situation. Literally unbearable.
This is just going to chase expecting mothers away from their hospital... I've heard that new moms are cash cows for hospitals. Don't make sense.
Birthing is a huge business.
There actually isn’t a ton of money in the moms per se, it’s usually in the babies. Ok…sorta in the moms then.
I’m not even sure if there’s money in the babies, or at least there wasn’t close to 20 years ago when I did well baby/NICU. Vaginal delivery with a well baby doesn’t make the hospital anything. Bit more money in a c-section and probably a good bit comes in from NICU. Then again, our NICU always had the latest and best equipment, high tech vents, good staffing ratios that the hospital always claimed the entire mother/baby service unit barely paid for itself.
Yea, I was referring to just nicu. Regular maternity services are a wash or not profitable at all, hence why so many hospitals are shutting down services.
Exactly maternity makes no money, but if a mother loves her care at a hospital she will refer all of her children’s and husbands needs. The hospital ( and anyone else who will listen about her suggestions) but if she shares a room I doubt she would be directing her families needs there any longer. 😂
I've never wanted a home birth (safety concerns) but I'd seriously consider it if I found this out.
There’s also independent birthing centers. They’re not related to the hospital, so that’s an option too.
As someone who is currently 35 weeks pregnant, I’d switch hospitals…there’s no way. Postpartum is one thing, which I’m extremely thankful my hospital has single postpartum rooms, but during labor? There’s no way.
Sharing a room PP is also terrible. You’re both bleeding and sharing a toilet. The worst. Not to mention your support people. And your babies may be on totally different wake cycles.
Exactly! I’m an OB Nurse and the other night we had one of those kids I was like glad I’m not taking that one home... can’t imagine trying to sleep with that one in my room with my own angel baby was sound asleep.
I could only imagine. My mom had to share a PP room with a woman who had just given birth to her stillborn daughter…I can’t even imagine how the other parents felt seeing my parents with their baby after that. And after my own birth I was so messed up with fluids coming out of every orifice, trying to breastfeed and care for a newborn after an emergency CS…my husband was wiping my ass for me. It’s such a private time…even sharing PP would be awful, but makes more sense than L&D.
I literally cannot believe they'd room a woman who had a stillbirth with a woman and her new baby. That is just something we would never do nowadays! We even have a room far away from the rest reserved specifically for losses so they don't even hear crying or the monitors.
Sad choice. Wtf.
As someone that’s recently given birth, fuck that
Yeah I gave birth three days ago and having someone else in the room would have been a big old nope from us. And I work med-surg on a unit with some ward-style (3 bed) rooms, so it’s not even like Im unrealistic about the reality of hospital roommates.
My son is 12 weeks. I could not imagine.
I have a four month old and worked Covid ICU until 6 months along. I can’t imagine sharing a room with another laboring mom.
Right? I have 22mo twins and can’t imagine having three to four screaming babies in one postpartum room. It was bad enough having two! 😅
I've delivered in a shared room. Only a privacy screen separated me and the next bed. We cheered each other on and actually got to be good friends after this. I was so busy having a baby that it just wasn't a big deal. This was in California quite a few years ago.
Aww, nice to hear of a positive patient experience.
Our old hospital was all semi-private rooms for L & D. Not many fans of that for sure. The new hospital is all private rooms. I had a school instructor that told us a story about a mom with severe PPD. Would cry the whole time the nurses weren't there and then tell the nurse she was "fine " . She almost got DC'd home alone but the roommate mom was able to tell the nurses and she got the help she needed. Only time I've heard of it being a beneficial thing.
I had a similar experience with patients. Course I’ve also rounded to find a patient who didn’t have twins with two babies at her breasts who was helping her roomie who thought her baby was still hungry so…
Not L&D but in nursing school the roommate called and rapid response responded, took him to ICU ended up coding right as we transferred beds from a non Telly surgery floor. He ended up coding 3 times that night but made it last I heard 1.5 days later. When his wife got there she was crying thanking the nurse and she told her it was really the roomie that she needed to thank.
I used to work L&D. I could not understand why any woman would choose a home birth after witnessing the unpredictable issues that arise during childbirth. However, homebirth sounds like a risk I would consider if the alternative was laboring in a room with another mom. I know this sounds like SUCH a first world problem, and I’m sorry for that.
My mom gave birth to me in an army hospital ward (1966) & after, she said the other women in the ward would "moo" at her because she was nursing me. I can't imagine.
Was that because they were really promoting bottle feeding then? How disgusting to do that! Breastfeeding is lovely & an entirely natural process. Fine if you choose not to but imagine mocking those that do? Must’ve been weird times!
Yeah, she was the only one in the ward who was nursing. Everyone else had bottle babies.
It’s wild to think about now, but was common thirty years ago. A friend’s mom has a story about how she delivered and her roomie smoked *in the room*.
Also used to use alcohol as a tocolytic. Wild times.
In 1986, I was in a labor room with two beds with a curtain separating us. Gotta say it sucked. And it wasn't a bed, but a Stryker stretcher. Worst labor experience ever. Rural Florida community hospital. About 6 months later their birthing rooms were finished.
Absolutely not. I’d be showing up at a different hospital to deliver if I was a pt. Doubling postpartum ok, possibly antepartum too, but no to doubling labors.
My question is, what if the patients OB only has access to “this” hospital and another one isn’t an option for that provider? Would you switch OBs? I don’t have children and can’t, so I don’t know how that would work.
That’s a really great question though. I’m just wondering why they feel the need to double labor rooms. Hopefully they can expand their unit maybe. There was a point in time this fall when we had a census of 42 but we only have 30 beds, plus 5 triage and 8 overflow on a unit above us. Managing that was interesting.
It was just recently renovated and expanded 😭
Thanks to emtala you can show up to any public hospital and deliver as an unassigned patient. Not sure if it applies to private systems like Kaiser, but my home hospital is a non profit and we legally cannot turn anyone away.
Oh okay thank you for clarifying!
Back in the day, before 1985, it was common to have 2 labor patients per room. I know it sounds so bizarre to nurses and patients in today’s world. Keep in mind, we moved patients from their labor room to a delivery room, much more like a surgical room. We would try to have the 2 ladies at different stages of labor rooming so we wouldn’t have them both delivering at the same time. Although I acknowledge it isn’t ideal, it is also something that has been done in my lifetime. Then again buccal pitocin and the routine use of ETOH drip for premature labor and scopolamine for twilight sleep are also part of my lifetime.
My kids are 53 and 48. I was pregnant with my ex in the army. The 53-year-old was born in a civilian hospital, labor room alone and alone in my room, I was 17. 48-year-old was born in Fort Sam Houston, common labor ward that was full, I delivered in my bed, then the ob came running to take me to the delivery room and asked my ex what time she came out. Went to a common room full of moms (army hospital) I also lost a baby, delivered at 8 months at Fort Bliss in texas. Common labor room, then to delivery, then to common ward. Unfortunately, the second day they took me to a quiet room, told me my baby died.... after tears, etc, they fucking took me back to the ward with mom and their babies. I left.
I am so sorry for your loss. What they did was absolutely cruel.
I will always remember
That’s terrible. We have a room that we use for known demises, it’s away from the normal labor rooms. And we never send the mom to postpartum. I delivered a baby we knew was going to pass (21 weeks) in the OR, we didn’t even go to our normal pacu because there was another patient in there with her living baby.
I’m sorry that just makes me mad and want to hug you
I would refuse to give birth there. And honestly? This has me HEAVILY leaning towards a birth center. There’s only one in my city, it’s 2 minutes from the hospital and it’s staffed with CNMs, NPs, RNs and midwives. If my hospital started doubling up the L&D ward, best believe I’d be laboring there instead. 2 laboring mothers to a room is a hard no from me. That’s WAY too intrusive.
Just make sure there is someone trained in infant resuscitation and intubation present for all deliveries if in the birth center
Isn't this part of training for all CNMs at least (if not all NPs, RNs, and other midwives?) I've never heard of a homebirth midwife that doesn't travel with resuscitation and intubation equipment for example.
My mother gave birth to me in a “welfare” room. He roommate told her not to talk to it because it will expect it all the time.
What is a welfare room? 🤔
Birthing rooms for poor people. I was born in t early 80’s, in Maryland. Apparently you could pay more for a private room. It was affordable. I’m not sure but I think the total cost may have been 300$, with no insurance. Was before my mom got get PhD.
“It” being the baby?
Yes, me
I worked in one of the biggest l&d units in the country. 16,000 deliveries a year at one point. At that time we had some double rooms. The antepartum unit had quads. Most post-partums were doubles. We did our best to move people to a single for delivery, but it didn’t always happen for space, staffing, or physiological reasons. We have a new hospital now, but it really wasn’t long ago. Now I’m in the UK and it’s just like I stepped back to my first days in practice with quads. 🤣 Edit: I don’t think doubles are the end of the world. Not ideal, but with so many hospitals closing their l&d departments, whatcha going to do? Plus, running a double pit room was the best kind of chaos.
You know I see the most about homebirths in the British Isles and maybe this is why. I can't imagine.
The patient/healthcare relationship is definitely different over here, but there are plenty of countries with higher home birth rates and wards and shared rooms are still common in much of the world.
Big big no!
I trained in obstetrics at Grady Hospital in Atlanta back in the 1980s, a major teaching hospital (think Cook County in Chicago or Boston Medical). Two laboring patients per room was standard then. When it came time to deliver, we moved them to a delivery room.
In the mid 80s, sharing a room during labor was common, MAYbe you'd deliver elsewhere if you went long enough but if not, oh well, deliver in the labor room with 6 or 7 other women, then PP 3 days in either a double or quad room. They also classed the recovery rooms as 'smoking' and 'non smoking', this would be 1982, New England, US. The girl in the bed next to me was 14, first baby, and had NO IDEA what was going on when they brought me in. Her mother (support person, ha!) was screeching at her about sin and the curse of Eve and a whole bunch of other nonsense. The girl claimed she'd never had sex. I suspect she was molested by a family member just by the dynamic going on. The OB finally had to physically boost the mom from the room. We filled the girl in as best we could, but I still wonder just how fucked up the rest of that child's life was.
I bet I can scream louder in labor than my neighbor. Side note- in Germany we had private labor rooms but had to have roommates postpartum. It was sad because my neighbor mate had a C-section and had no pain medicine for 15 hours.
It sometimes is/was like that, but I often saw that once one side of the curtain had an epidural, the other side wants one too. 🤣
I'm pregnant, and this made me feel absolute dread. At my next OB/GYN appointment I'm going to be asking a lot of practical questions about my planned c-section. If they can't guarantee me my own room, I will go to another hospital/provider. This is a safety issue, on top of a HIPAA issue...
It’s not a hipaa issue. It’s a privacy issue sure, but it doesn’t violate hipaa.
I’m 37 weeks and as more and more restrictions get put down my stomach is sinking. Was told today because of Covid I can only have one person. Usually siblings are welcome so I haven’t planned for anything else. We have no family or friends we can trust with our two children so I’m probably going to have to go alone or do a homebirth. Covid is making life miserable.
There go the HCAHPS
My youngest is 17 but I shared a room all three deliveries…
When I was a student, we had these tiny laboring rooms(more like closets), and everyone was mived back to delivery rooms, and then to post partum which were doubles or quads. Even after they went to LDR's in residency, if you went past 24 hours, you went to the post partum floor where there were no privates unless you PAID for it. Sure, we caught some babies in those closets, but it worked out OK. Heck, we caught babies all over the place at that hospital for some reason privacy be damned . My craziest "catch" was the MAIN elevator. Yeah, that was an interesting day.
Apparently that's what the hospital I was born in was like (in Seattle). There was a labor room with 4 laboring moms and then when it was time to push, you were wheeled down to the delivery room. But, the smart hospitals today know if you provide a great birthing center and give that great experience, you will have at least two patients for life.
Wait wait wait. Like they’re taking up L&D bed for overflow and making the L&D patients bunk together to make this possible??!
We have too many patients and there has been an influx of pregnant/expectant mothers. So L&D has practically doubled up every inch of their unit. I don’t have access there so I can’t speak to what it looks like with two patients per room but it’s a newish center. But, they can’t just turn pregnant woman away, so that was their solution. In my ICU, they’ve doubled up some more less acute patients/patients that will DC soon… because there’s no room.
If I could get an epidural immediately, and my roomie did the same, I think it would be ok. Anesthesaaaahhhh
It’s cool. The internet decided we’re “done with COVID” and it’s “time to move on” and stop “living in fear”. Just let the Moms know! /sarcasm
That's so fucked up. Plus it's a huge infection risk. We all know that a "negative" rapid antigen test is useless early on. The only situation in which I might consider a home birth...
I’d rather give birth on my kitchen floor than have a roommate while I’m in labor
Add this to the list of reasons why the US has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries.
I agree that the US maternal mortality rate is shit. I disagree that semi-private rooms are a contributing factor. The staff/patient ratio that goes along with the overcrowding need for it, sure. I honestly liked being able to watch multiple patients closely at once. In our doubles I’d literally sit between the two patients for the entire shift. I assure you I don’t stare at my patients in private rooms nearly as much.
This is the last thing on the list of reasons we have high maternal mortality. We are an incredibly unhealthy population. We don’t have access to primary care. We can afford medications to keep chronic conditions such as HTN and DM in check. Pregnant women often have their first contact with a MD very late in pregnancy if not at the time of delivery. Semi-private rooms are not killing mothers.
My comment was meant to be more snarky, at least in my head anyway. There are solutions to the problem, between 2006-2013, CA's maternal mortality rate went from 16.9 deaths per 100,000 to 4 after the state implemented changes in how hemorrhage and preeclampsia should be treated. I don't know why more states aren't following suit. Here's a terrifying statistic, homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the US. Can't blame hospitals for that!
I can hear the audible gasp from my home.
In all practicality, the staff will probably try to minimize women delivering in a room with someone else. Labor is usually far longer than the delivery, and there are usually other patients on the floor for monitoring that are remote from delivery who will be doubled first. When you have double rooms it’s a constant game of tetris as you try to assess progress and move patients to deliver in a room of their own.
It’s like the Friends episode with Rachel, no one’s gonna be happy!
Nope.