What do you do for newborn care

[Wendy HS]

With this pregnancy I am going to a midwife and will if all goes well be having my baby at a birthing center and going home the same day. What do those of you who have your babies at home and at birthing centers do about the things like newborn screening, circumcision, jaundice concerns (both my babies had jaundice and one baby they tested for over a week), etc..... I found a wonderful peds that is supportive of my not wanting to vaccinate, but she does want to see the baby and check the jaundice, and still wants to see the baby for well baby checks. Is all that really necessary? I don't want to loose this peds, but I also don't want my child poked endlessly for jaundice that is within a normal range. Another problem is they don't accept the type of insurance we have, and it took quite a search to find a peds that would be open to not vaccinating and still seeing my kids. We got kicked out of the first peds office for deciding not to vaccinate and the next one I found will see them, but there is a major conflict and I am afraid my kids won't get the care they deserve or they will be treated differently. What do those of you do with your childs care when you have a home birth with a midwife?

[Veritaserum]

We skip circumcision (no medical benefits, invasive, and painful), vitamin K (unless the baby has bruising or needs surgery), eye drops (I don't have STDs and am not at risk for contracting them), and vaccinations at birth. My midwife does the newborn hearing screening and metabolic screening (PKU). Before she was able to do the newborn screening, we went to an audiologist for that.

If my baby presented with jaundice that wasn't resolved by breastfeeding and sunshine or if I were concerned, I would take my baby to our family doctor. Our family doctor has been open to our choice to home birth and delay vaccination (she's married to a chiropractor). Well baby checks can help children with developmental delays and can be done without following the vaccination schedule. My 4th child has sensory processing disorder and was able to get early intervention occupational therapy because of concerns I shared at a well child visit.

[fruitfulmomma]

What do those of you who have your babies at home and at birthing centers do about the things like newborn screening, circumcision, jaundice concerns (both my babies had jaundice and one baby they tested for over a week), etc.....

Our midwife does newborn care up to 6 weeks, including the nb screen. She also carries a little plastic thing with her that helps check the babies skin color for jaundice and would advise accordingly if anything showed up.

We don't do eye goop, vitamin k, or vaxxes.

We hired a mohel when our oldest son was born to do the circumcision at our home, but if we have another boy we have decided to leave him intact.

We did wbv with our oldest but none with any of the girls. We do have a family practice doctor which is okay with our decision not to vax and we see him if we have any problems. If it was something needing immediate attention after birth we'd go to the ER.

If you really liked the ped I'd say the wbv may be worth it to keep them, but it sounds like you have other issues going on so it may be that you need to keep looking. Have you looked for a family practice doc? I've heard that they tend to be more lenient with the vax issue.

[Wendy HS]

I've actually gone and interviewed this pediatrician, due to problems with finding one who is okay with us not vaccinating. This peds was super supportive and not pressuring at all, she said as parents it is our decision and she will support our decision. I just wasn't sure about all the other stuff they normally do and how important it is. I have an appointment with my midwife tomarrow so I will find out about all the newborn testing and what she does and does not do, she is a CNM so maybe she will do some of the testing. I prefer to leave out the eye goop as well because there is no risk of STD's. I know she sees me until the 6 weeks check and sees the baby at least once or twice after birth. It seems with jaundice they sometimes do a lot of unneccessary poking. My DD was black and blue from all the poking in the hospital and then they made us take her several times afterwords and later told us it wasn't necessary. They never recommended lights only sunshine so I suppose she must not have been that bad, she didn't look too bad to me. They said it was proubably normal BF jaundice. Thanks for your suggestions.

[terra-pip]

As for jaundice. Two of mine were born in a hospital and they always checked with a forehead monitor thing...like a forehead thermometer...no needle sticks. Except my third had some blood work a second time for a positive coombs result. But even she got her jaundice checked non invasively with the forehead thing.

My first was born in a birthing center and only got a look over to check his color. And with all three we got the advice to nurse in sunshine and take baby out for a few minutes for natural light etc.

Vaccinations: it's your right to refuse these. Check your state laws. We have a family doc..and our standing policy with each other is just don't talk about it. My oldest is on the spectrum and I've had way too many conversations with doctors about vaccinations. It's your child, you have to live with your decisions, not that doctor...so you make the choice and stick to it mama!

All that other stuff was no big deal to sign waivers to refuse..and don't let any "well meaning" nurse change your mind either. I stopped taking my kids to a pede when he literally said I was a negligent mother for wanting to refuse vit k and eye drops. I've had a few nurses tell me why these things were "important"...I just said "thanks for informing me, you should be absolved from all liability now."