Illinois- Possible to have a short postpartum hospital stay?

[WindyCityMom]

Hi! I was wondering if anyone in Illinois (mainly the Chicagoland area) has been able to shorten their postpartum hospital stay, and not stay a full 48hours after a vaginal birth. I'd like to leave somewhere between 12-24 hours after. Is this possible? Is there any legislation that says that baby & I can't leave early? I was wondering as well how to go about doing this, or how you did this. I've heard that I need to talk to the pedi & my midwife, and get clearance from them before the birth.. are there any forms that I need to fill out? I'm pretty sure that if you leave the hosp with an AMA, insurance wont cover anything. I have medicaid also, by the way.

Thank you everyone!

ETA: I will be delivering at Swedish Covenant Hospital.

[purplelilacs]

I have a hospital-hating friend who left within 12 hours of her uncomplicated vaginal birth. She had to leave her baby though - for 48 more hours I believe. This was at St. Alexius.

[gingerstar]

My youngest was born at Mercy, in Aurora, and we both left just after 24 hours later, even with complications requiring D&C for surgical removal of placenta increta.

I didn't do anything in advance, just made it clear afterwards I was ready to go!

I guess I wouldn't make a big deal of it in advance, since you don't know how your birth will go. (I certainly didn't expect surgery - my first two births were unremarkable.) Better just to ask, casually, if there are requirements as to how long you have to stay, and then just be pesky after the birth. They look for certain things - ie, baby has to poop, to be certain that everything is healthy and in proper working order. As long as they see that you are both healthy, they don't actually want you to stay!

Good luck!

[WindyCityMom]

Thanks to both

[goldfinches]

I delivered in the south suburbs and didn't stay anywhere near 48 hours. 1st was about 31, would have been shorter if we weren't waiting for a pedi to show to release baby. 2nd was a little longer, but mainly because I was enjoying being waited on and resting
We didn't have to fill out any "early leave" type forms, just the ones that said they've explained my post partum care.

[MommyDOK]

I'm in MIssouri, but I don't imagine that Illinois is any different. I left exactly 24 hours and a few minutes after both my vbac's. The ob would have released me earlier, but I didn't want to leave my baby at the hospital. THe baby is at the disgression of the pediatrician. So you have to talk to your ped ahead of time. THere is some blood draw that they do at 24 hours; I cannot remember which one it is.

My ped did not have privileges at the hospital that I vbac'd at, so I just used a house doc. Theoretically, if I had found a ped that would release my babies (I think it is rare to find such a ped) prior to 24 hours, then they could have released the baby. Even after leaving in 24 hours, the house ped insisted that I go see my ped a day later, so I still had the visit w/in 24 hours of leaving the hospital.

I'm sure Chicago is big enough that you could call enough peds that 1 will probably let you. Maybe??

[wildlavender]

I'm with a midwifery practice close to the city. I actually asked this past week at my appt. how long I would have to stay in the hospital after delivery. My midwife told me that most of their patients leave 12-24 hours after the birth. I'll be delivering at West Suburban Medical Center.

[SallyN]

The PKU heel prick cannot be done prior to 24hrs. If you want baby to leave before the 24hr mark, you'd need to make arrangements with your ped.

[3cuties]

If you want to, talk to your provider. I was able to leave at 24 hours even at Prentice b/c my doc was on board. This is not a plug for prentice at all since my last birth was a home birth.

[theypswife]

I delivered my daughter at Highland Park Hospital on 12/24 at 6am, and we were home before noon Christmas day! We just talked with our doctor about our wishes beforehand - he's a family practice doctor, so he was my ob and my daughter's ped, and he said that we could leave pretty much as soon as we wanted to. We would have left earlier on Christmas morning, but we wanted to make sure that DD passed the state required hearing test before we left so that we wouldn't have to go back the next day to have her take it again.

[chandasz]

I went home within 12 hours of my second daughter's birth. It's a discussion to have with your pediatrician and your mw/ob.

We simply came back to do the heel prick later....

[maya's mommy]

we also went home in less than 24 hours. My daughter was born at night and we left the next afternoon. As long as you and the baby are fine there is no reason any doctor should tell you have to be in the hospital. Our ped. was thrilled to get the baby out of the hospital as soon as we could.

[lulutattoo]

We went home just after 24 hours. We were ready to go at about 18 (and could have) but it just seemed easier to wait a few more hours and get the PKU test done than to have to go out with baby in the freezing cold (early January baby) an extra time. As long as your midwife and pediatrician are okay with it, you can leave when you feel ready.

[Brownie~]

Gave birth at UIC. Had DS at 11 pm, was out of there by 2 pm the next day. We were a failed homebirth, so they knew we didn't want to be there. No problems leaving at all. Our midwife did the heel stick at our home the next day, IIRC. We left without naming our baby, too! He was Baby Lastname for his first five days. They were cool about everything we did/didn't want to do.

[baturay]

Twice now I've left within 5 hours of giving birth with my baby. We didn't even discussed it before the birth. We just stated it after the birth and with confidence. We'd like to go home. And then the paperwork began and we went home. We had to sign AMA forms. Don't believe that your insurance will not cover it (we were told the same). We have HMO and both times the insurance covered 100%. The nurses will wonder why you want to go home and even try to talk you out of it, but it's all in good intentions. We knew we wanted to go and were ready, so we thanked them, but just kept saying, "Nope, we'd like to go home." It was sooo much easier than I had been it would be. Twice!