OT - Back home again ! (long, possibly boring medical details)

No baby
should have to be away from his momma at this young age, although I do
totally understand the hospital staff's reasoning. MRSA is just too
dangerous.

Perhaps Obama's healthcare reforms might include more than just a single
patient approach to care!

As you are all aware, I suffered severe postpartum depression. I wasn't
hospitalised, but had I been able to take the baby, I'd have gone in
gladly, I did in the UK, they had a mother and baby unit and took a
longer term approach to recovery, so that part of being in hospital is
rest and recuperation rather than intensive treatment. The local
hospital here said the average stay for mental health patients was 3-5
days and the activities done in that time would have been exhausting. I
tried an outpatient program and whilst I could see there are cases it
would help, instead it gave me the challenges of being a working mother,
commuting, reduced time at home to slowly get anything done etc. It
would be curious to see a long term cost analysis, I did some research
and in the US there are barely any programs specifically targeted at
PPD, I found one inpatient one, but babies couldn't stay, only visit and
one outpatient one, which was 3 mornings a week, yet in the UK being
with the baby would be the expectation, even if due to the chronic
shortage of mental health beds in general it didn't actually happen -
there were a few nights when DH was asked to take the baby home because
staff weren't available, it was a totally different mindset.

Cheers
Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:

P.S. Tristan has started to say "ello" occasionally when we say
"Hello" to him. Can an 8-week old really speak or are we just
hearing what we want to hear?

I swear James said NO at that age!

Well we heard a definite "ello" at 6 weeks, we were eating dinner with
family, so it wasn't just us that heard it, iirc he was lieing on a
blanket in a corner rather than in anyones arms so of course we all
turned round, so it seemed to work!

That talker is called Nathanael, who now at age 6 is convinced he's
heard baby sis say his name. She's 10mths tomorrow, doesn't time fly!

Anne

Mum says Big Sis learned to talk at 8 months and has never stopped!
That's 55 years of nattering...

--
Kate XXXXXX R.C.T.Q Madame Chef des Trolls
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.katedicey.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!

Anne Rogers wrote:
No baby
should have to be away from his momma at this young age, although I do
totally understand the hospital staff's reasoning. MRSA is just too
dangerous.

Perhaps Obama's healthcare reforms might include more than just a single
patient approach to care!

As you are all aware, I suffered severe postpartum depression. I wasn't
hospitalised, but had I been able to take the baby, I'd have gone in
gladly, I did in the UK, they had a mother and baby unit and took a
longer term approach to recovery, so that part of being in hospital is
rest and recuperation rather than intensive treatment. The local
hospital here said the average stay for mental health patients was 3-5
days and the activities done in that time would have been exhausting. I
tried an outpatient program and whilst I could see there are cases it
would help, instead it gave me the challenges of being a working mother,
commuting, reduced time at home to slowly get anything done etc. It
would be curious to see a long term cost analysis, I did some research
and in the US there are barely any programs specifically targeted at
PPD, I found one inpatient one, but babies couldn't stay, only visit and
one outpatient one, which was 3 mornings a week, yet in the UK being
with the baby would be the expectation, even if due to the chronic
shortage of mental health beds in general it didn't actually happen -
there were a few nights when DH was asked to take the baby home because
staff weren't available, it was a totally different mindset.

Cheers
Anne

The NHS does get *some* things right! Not everything in mental health
care this this well thought through, but the recognition that babies
need their mums is one bit that works reasonably well.

--
Kate XXXXXX R.C.T.Q Madame Chef des Trolls
Lady Catherine, Wardrobe Mistress of the Chocolate Buttons
http://www.katedicey.co.uk
Click on Kate's Pages and explore!

The NHS does get *some* things right! Not everything in mental health
care this this well thought through, but the recognition that babies
need their mums is one bit that works reasonably well.

It seems like overall they try to take an evidence based approach, but
the money isn't there to back it up, so non urgent and quality of life
things have long waiting lists.

Having lived in both countries, I can see in general it's a huge
conundrum, but the insistance of viewing everyone as an individual does
seem to be a barrier in the US - I read about a case recently where a
mum had delivered twins, don't remember the exact details, but she was
sicker than they were and was in intensive care, or high dependency, but
the babies were ready to be discharged after a brief stay in the NICU
and the hospital wanted to send them home with no one to care for them
(again, not sure of the exact details about the father, I think he may
have been in the military and deployed, but definitely not available).

Anne