so what about the pediatrician after the birth?

[moonshoes]

I have had two hospital births, this will be my first homebirth

I have a couple of logistical questions for those who have BTDT - when did you see your pediatrician?

How did you get a BC and a S.S #?

Since all of this was taken care of for me at the hospital, I don't really know what I should do. Thanks!

~Catherine

[Catherine12]

I would talk to your midwife. For both our homebirths, our midwife checked on the baby several times after the birth - I don't remember the exact schedule now, but as I recall it was something like home visits the day after the birth, a week after, and a six week office visit. These were basically in lieu of the postpartum pediatrician visit (except there were more of them and we didn't have to leave the house until the six week visit).

The midwives did all the things our pediatrician had done after our first birth (a hospital birth), including the genetic screening heel prick test. We didn't take our home-born babies to a "real" doctor until they were 3 months old. Doctors in your area may vary, but ours was perfectly happy with this - we just gave him the records from our midwife. Our midwives also guided us through the birth certificate/social security paperwork - it really wasn't any different than doing it in the hospital.

I believe many midwives do things similarly to what I've described, but this sort of thing may vary from state to state or from one practitioner to another.

[dogmom327]

Our MW officially provided the baby care for the first 6 weeks including doing the BC paperwork (which also triggers the SSN to be sent out). With DC#1, we took him to a pediatrician at 8 weeks to establish care but DC#2 has never seen an MD (she's almost 8mo).

[freistms]

For us, our homebirth midwife will be taking care of the birth certificate paperwork. She fills it out and mails it in, and then we get a birth certificate in the mail from our state's vital statistics office. Normally the attendant has to file for the birth certificate because obviously that process is controlled.

As for social security numbers, either your birth attendant files for one when they apply for the birth certificate, or else you apply at the social security office after you have received your birth certificate. http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10023.html

For health care, I think our situation ends up being kind of more complicated than a hospital birth. Our midwife doesn't do the PKU, and neither does our pedi's office, so we have to go to the health department to have that done. Our midwife does a postpartum visit and we go to her office one week postpartum and six weeks postpartum. But our pedi still wants to see the baby for a newborn exam in the first couple days, so that's another office visit during flu season. We're going to ask for either a first thing in the morning visit or else a clean room.

Anyway, that's our plan. Good luck with figuring things out.

[dachshundqueen]

We had to present ourselves at the county health department with various paperwork IIRC to get the BC and then to apply for a SSN.

We took William the next day to the pedi (it was a Friday IIRC) as I didn't want to go 5 days without a checkup. He was a bit mucousy after birth. Healthy as a horse though, that one.

Liz

[wbg]

OUR MW did the birth cert which we then had to pick up at town hall. I think the SS# just came in the mail?

Our MW did the PP newborn care, but DH wanted her to see a ped, so he popped down the road with her to our wonderful ped on day 1 and day 4. He called ahead and she was taken in straight away. I did not want her in the waiting room, although with 3 older siblings in elementary school, I felt she was pretty much exposed at birth to all the germs anyway! My older DD landed up throwing up at home the night of her sister's birth and her big brother had a fever. Some sort of virus! But she was not affected at all!

It was not necessary for the bub or me, but it made DH feel more comfortable with the extra responsibility he felt as a parent birthing at home. Our ped has always supported our choices so it was just a general once over. No vax debate or even discussion as they know our views and supported our home birth.

[sarahr]

For those of you whose midwives do the newborn care at first, how do you get the hearing screen done? I assume that involves equipment that midwives don't have.

[MJB]

I'm an apprentice midwife and we give our clients the hearing form (it comes with the newborn screen) and they can take the baby into a hospital for the hearing test.
I had a UC and took my son into our pediatrician at 8 days old for the newborn screen. I went to the city health dept. and filled out the birth certificate form. None of it was really hard, a few people along the way were perplexed that we didn't have a hospital birth (the health dept. people on the phone, "Oh, they already did the BC at the hospital," even after I said we had a homebirth) but once we got ahold of the right person it was easy.

[Belle]

We brought our HBed baby to the ped at two weeks. We gave them a copy of the birth records from the mw.

For the BC it was a hassle because our midwife sent it to the wrong place. She was supposed to send it directly to our state dept. of vital records and she sent it to another county's vital records. (She's not licensed in our state so she wasn't sure where to send it) It eventually got to the right place and we got a copy around 6 weeks after the birth.

In theory we should have gotten a SS card too, because we checked the box on the BC forms to apply for it too. But we still ended up taking a couple trips to the SSA office. Our midwives records and the BC apparently weren't enough. The guy at the SSA said they proved she was born but didn't prove she was still alive. Her presence there wasn't enough to prove her existence. So we had to go to back to the Peds and get a copy of the exam record. The Ped's office thought this was rediculous too, but went along with it.

[JennTheMomma]

Our Midwife does to baby well checks first few days after birth. About 3 days to a week we'll be taking baby to see the Pediatrician since our son will need a well check anyways at that time. Our Midwife files the birth certificate and then we can go to the government center to get an official copy of it a few days afterwords, same with the SS#.

[dannic]

I had a difficult time after my homebirth trying to get a dr for dd. Never actually did. She had an umbilical hernia that I wanted checked and I had ppd/anxiety over it. Once the dr's offices realized we were a hb, they wouldn't take us on. I called them on it and they said it wasn't because of the HB, but when they call back to ask where the baby was born and find out it's a hb, then say they're not currently taking clients, it's pretty obvious!

So I'm not sure what to do this time around. Any suggestions? (Not trying to hijack, just asking in context of her original questions...)

[Baby_Cakes]

I interviewed a few pediatricians a few weeks before I was due with DD. I let them know I was intending to have a homebirth, and that wanted her to be seen within a week of her birth. It wasn't a problem at all. Basically, they said that once she was born, give a call and they will see her the next day. Since she was born on a Thursday, I called on Friday and they saw her on Monday.

However, my midwife did the first little check up when she was born, and she came back 3 days later to do the heel prick for her metabolic screening tests.

She also did all the paperwork for the SS# and the birth certificate. They arrived in the mail a few weeks after DD was born.

[thefreckledmama]

We have a family doctor. Since we don't do well baby visits, unless my MW detects something that warrants a closer look, her newborn and 6 wk assessments will be the entirety of check ups after the birth.

[sunfish21]

Originally Posted by sarahr

For those of you whose midwives do the newborn care at first, how do you get the hearing screen done? I assume that involves equipment that midwives don't have.

We were going to skip it b/c we could tell she could hear and would never do a cochlear implant anyway, but our Ped. talked us into it. He made a call to the appropriate department (if she was a newborn we would have had to go up to the hospital L and D floor, but she was several months old) and we showed up.

For us, this time around the midwife cannot file the paperwork for the BC for us. MW are licensed here but not in the neighboring state that she is coming from. I sent away for a form and there is a little run-around we have to arrange after the birth for a witness (but not one from the birth?!?!). For the social security card we showed up at the SS office with BC.

[laughingfox]

I asked my fam doc (we use a fam doc instead of a pediatrician), and she said to bring the new baby in a week or so after the birth.
My midwife doesn't do blood/hearing tests, but 6 weeks of postpardum care for me and checkups on the baby are included.

My first homebirth was with a doctor, and we did the BC/SS paperwork at her office a week and a half after the birth. This one will be with a midwife; she'll be giving me the paperwork and I'll be filling it out myself.

[MyFillingQuiver]

One of the many reasons I chose a homebirth for this baby is to avoid all the hub-bub of exams and visits and being told what to do...honestly, nothing was more frustrating than having teams of ped's looking at my newborns repeatedly to tell me they were healthy, and then having to argue over our no-vax choices, and having to watch a car seat safety movie before discharge (as if we've never done this before) and having the nurse watch us put the baby in the car seat...ugh. Then we had to wait and wait for the hearing tests...and then we were told when to take the baby for his/her well checks. I understand why they do these things. I just don't want to be a part of it anymore.

We don't do well baby checks. I have a family Dr that can check out anything fairly routine, and we have our previous ped if our midwife has concerns that warrant a specialist. She'll take care of all the baby's care for the first 6 weeks, and do the BC, etc.