Taking newborn to pediatrician?

[mamamoogs]

How soon after birth if at all do you take your DC in for a check up with the ped?

My midwife recommended us calling our ped to tell them we are planning a homebirth and how soon do they want to see the baby or if they would even consider a house call which mine stated no not for a homebirth.

But anyhow he wants us to bring the baby in with in two days of the birth that seem so soon to me how about you?

I was thinking more like a week or so, what do you think, and if i wait a week or so instead of two days will i get grief from him for this?

we doyou recommend we do?

[spedteacher30]

is your midwife going to do any follow up after the baby is born?

we had a hospital birth, but we saw our ped (and two others from the practice) while in the hospital, and met with their NP (who is also a LC) and then brought baby to the office on Monday (born thursday) and again on Wednesday. Monday was with the doc, Wednesday was a follow up and latch-check with the NP. he was back to birthweight at 6 days old, so then we didn't go back until one month. Had he been gaining poorly/not having enough wet dipes, he would have gone in on Friday.

[happy & blessed]

My midwife came for a post partum check at 36-48 hours after birth, and looked dd over. She told us to see a doctor within 2 weeks or so. We took dd in to the doc at exactly 2 weeks. He didn't act surprised at all that dd hadn't seen a doctor yet. I think 2 days is way to young to expose to the germs in a doc's office. If your midwife is coming back to see you and the baby, i wouldn't go in to the doc for at least a week or two. Keep in mind that if you go in at a week, the baby will likely have lost weight, and then you will have to go back at 2 weeks to make sure baby regained to birth weight.

[Doussou]

How timely of a post. I was just at the ped office today and asked them when they wanted to see the baby after our HB. They said that same day, within 24 hours! I just smiled and said, "oh, OK," the whole while thinking to myself "yeah, right!!!!" I am thinking that within a week is more reasonable.

[huggerwocky]

After 4 months. The ped's office said 2 days

[Peony]

We took DD1 after a week.

[Milkymommi]

Welp... we're probably on the extreme end in that my dd is 7 1/2 months and still has not seen anyone. We will begin "well baby" visits shortly just to satisfy the system. We also don't use traditional health care so we have no pediatrician but rather an ND who has no issue with having never seen her for an actual visit. She has seen her when we've brought our other kiddos while they were sick etc. but so far we've had no reason to bring her.

We had a UC but had a CNM come the morning after the birth to do a pp check as well as a newborn exam.

I think it's really up to you and what you're comfortable with. There is really no rule as to what "needs" to be done and to me it's just a matter of your personal opinion.

[Marvelleaux]

We'll be taking ours for the PKU test after about a week. The pediatrician we selected agreed with us that 24-48 hours is way too soon for a breastfed baby to be tested with reliable results

[honeybee]

We took our baby in at 2 days. It wasn't really necessary, but we really like our doc (okay with no vax, homebirth, etc.), she suggested 2 days, and we wanted to let her meet our newest addition (our fp treats the whole family and caught ds1). It wasn't a big deal for us, as the doc's office is close and we were in and out quick.

[alegna]

We didn't.

-Angela

[Genesis]

I never took DS in until he got sick. And that was to our family doctor because I am not comfortable with pediatricians.

After DS was born, my midwife did come for like 5 newborn visits in a period of 6 weeks, so that was nice.

[mlec]

Can you get your mw to do a newborn exam and check the baby at days 2, 4 and 1 wk, or whenever she checks you? Or maybe the ped will do a home visit? It really sucks bringing the baby in (you need rest, the baby doesn't need to be exposed to all those germs), but dehydration can happen pretty quickly. Of course if you're getting wet dipes, no prob. And the PKU test is mandatory in some states. If you do get it done, make sure the baby's heel is warm--the blood comes so much better.

[HeatherB]

I'll be asking my pedi if she'll do a home visit. Didn't think of it last time. My MW will do a few visits and check on baby then, too, so I'm not too worried. I plan to take the baby in at about 2 weeks.

Last time, I asked and they first were laid back, until they realized I wasn't talking about a hospital birth! Then they freaked, it seemed, and said 24 HOURS! Well, whadya know, DS was born at 12:48 am on the Sunday before Labor Day! So we took him in on Tuesday, I think, which was still rather soon, but I just had to laugh at their insistance.

[DreamsInDigital]

My homebirthed babes never saw a ped.

[aran]

There was a thread about this in Feb if you want to see even more opinions. I had the same question, and decided that once this little guy comes out, I'll probably wait a week-ish to see the ped.

[jcchirib]

I agree with others to see if your mw can do as much of the "well-child" stuff, including any state-mandated PKU workups, for you. If your mw can provide care for the two of you 6 weeks postpartum, do that! I guess i'm a slow learner, since we took both of our dds to the ped within two days...and I'm still not happy with myself over it.

dd1, we were frightened into a ct of the head three days after birth, and multiple f/u visits for...absolutely nothing. i'm convinced it was because she was a hb transfer. But we were "dutiful" parents, and brought her to the dr right away.

dd2 was labeled "FTT" one week after birth (or very soon after, anyways), with possible jaundice (levels never more than 11, if I recall correctly), and two separate blood draws to check that. All for a relatively simple bf management issue (sleepy baby).

I'm convinced that if I had just stuck with the mw for the six weeks postpartum we would have had less pressure to supplement, fewer tests/exposures to infection, and fewer blood draws.

[mwherbs]

some places the mw's license requires her to suggest you go to a ped within 2 days-- most of my clients go in when they feel like it which is closer to months later. personally I did not take my kids to a ped- my first 2 hospital born children yes for a while, but didn't keep going back. my last 2 did not see a doctor until much older- dd first visit when she broke her arm when on roller skates-- and ds I took him to a naturopath when he was 2 months old as a way to have a statement about him being my son- and home born-- as one of the hoops to jump through in getting a birth cert.... but that is another long story.
in one of the places I lived there was a doc who would do house calls for newborns born at home.... that was nice for the clients who wanted that

[aylaanne]

In the care contract I signed with my midwives, I had to agree to bring the newborn in to see a ped (we're going to go to a Family Practice) within 48 hours, or to have made arrangements otherwise. I'm going to make an appointment with this office for a general physical for my job and to talk to them about pediatric care and when I have to bring the baby in. Some offices want to do PKU and HepB but I'm delaying vaccinations and exclusively breastfeeding so I want to put it off for a while. I'm hoping we can be at home for at least a week before we have to go anywhere.

[Nan'sMom]

I think I took dd1 at 6 weeks and dd2 at 4 weeks...can't remember exactly. We took dd1 so ped could evaluate her for tongue tie (which he incorrectly diagnosed as not existing) and dd2 to look at a few things we had questions about. Other than that, our midwives were able to help us through any other questions we had and particularly with dd2 who was born in winter, we didn't want to expose her to all the germs in the ped's office (we thought the risk of flu in a tiny infant was too much of a chance to take...as it was when we brought them in both times we made sure to be the first appointment of the day).

The ped didn't hassle us at all, even when I told him dd2 was born UC. His wife had a HB with her second, so he is fine with all of this and doesn't freak. IMO, if you have a ped who's going to freak about something like this, time to go looking for a new one!

[Belleweather]

Our midwife did the PKU, a comprehensive newborn exam, hearing test and everything else the state requires during our 1 week home visit and still told us that we had to take DS to a pediatrician within a week... so we did. (We have a pediatrician I LOVE, so it wasn't a problem) We visited the doc and she asked what we did at the 1 week visit. I told her and she went "...and, um... why are you here?" Everything that needed to be done had been done, so she admired DS and we left. It was nice to have her coo over the baby, but it was totally not worth the PITA of leaving the house in cold December weather. We'll be skipping it with this babe, and taking her in for the normal 1 month well-baby.