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Hospital stay and CPS?  

post #1 of 31
8/25/08 at 12:15am
Thread Starter 
I'm hoping to have a homebirth, but we're still working it out. Say I give birth in the hospital, healthy baby, I leave against medical advice after 6 hours or so. Will CPS show up at my home? Obviously there's nothing to find, but still annoying. From what I can tell, peds will not let a baby go before 24 hours (which is when I left with my other 2).
post #2 of 31
8/25/08 at 12:21am
Do you have a midwife or OB in mind? Can you ask them what the earliest is they'd allow you to be discharged, assuming there are no difficulties? Have you asked your ped if they'll discharge the baby after the birth, assuming the have hospital priviledges? You can call the hospital and find out who the attending peds are, and call the office(s) and ask their policy, too.
post #3 of 31
8/25/08 at 12:43am
Thread Starter 
My OB/midwife that I see told me they have no problem discharging me right away, but that I'd have a hard time finding a ped who'd let us go. We're ped shopping right now, but I am going to call the one we saw most recently to see what they say. There's just not a good ped in our area that's friendly to anything less than mainstream.The ped practice that does the "on call" stuff at the hospital is awful. They're the favorites in town, but they're just plain awful.
post #4 of 31
8/25/08 at 3:56am
There would probably be no problem with YOU leaving early AMA.

The problem comes with YOU leaving the hospital early AMA WITH YOUR BABY.

Depends entirely on the hospital and pediatrician you have. Make sure your pediatrician has hospital privileges at the hospital you deliver in. My sister had a wonderful pediatrician (mine too ) and while he was happy with the bilirubin levels her son had, the hospital was not, and they were poised to call CPS. Yes. CPS would have come in to her home and taken her newborn son from her arms. Yes. It would not be the first time something like this happened.

Do not tell me this rarely happens. People to whom this has happened are mortified into silence. That is why one rarely hears about it.

I knew a woman who cleared everything ahead of time with her OB only to have her OB leave immediately after her birth, become incommunicato and the hospital refused to allow her to leave WITH her own baby unless she signed a disposal of dead infant paper.
post #5 of 31
8/25/08 at 11:37am
One question to ask is, why the 24 hours? Because if there is something specific they want to monitor or test for, you could offer to sign something promising to come back in to your ped's office or the hospital within a specified time frame and have it done.

We did that with some hearing test thing that is state mandated - it can only be given 24 hours+ after birth because they must wait for fluid to leave the ears... so just brought baby back to the hospital for it sometime within the 1st week. We also agreed to come to the ped's office within 2 days for a weight check. TOTALLY worth it to get the heck out of that hospital and back in my own bed cozying up with dad, baby and big brother!
post #6 of 31
8/25/08 at 1:15pm
Ds and I were released from the hospital (after a natrual uncomplicated birth) after about 12-13 hours. I didn't leave AMA either. I had to bring him back the next day for some (routine tests) I didn't have an OB or MW but a family doctor who was VERY supportive of NCB.
post #7 of 31
8/25/08 at 1:23pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I just talked to the ped I'd been taking DS to. She doesn't have hospital privileges, but said if she did, she'd allow us to leave at 6 hours as long as baby was healthy Oh, well. It just makes me have to work harder to find a HB midwife to work with us!
post #8 of 31
8/25/08 at 4:00pm
When I had my baby, I just told them that I wanted to go home. I told them I wanted to leave by noon as I had other things I needed to accomplish. I was firm and respectful, and was knowledgeable about babies and what was needed.

The OB was more reluctant to sign me out, due to the reasons for my induction, but she did (at 21 hours after first arriving). And the pedi signed Baby out before that, when Baby was about 8 hours old.

I could have left sooner, and they would have signed me out, but timing made it the middle of the night. Pedi signed out Baby at 7:30 in the morning, as soon as he came on shift.

Perhaps it is not as hard as some make it seem. I have always been told that 4 hours was the minimum stay, and I COULD have left, with Baby, at that time if I had wanted to (not AMA).

(Of course, they were just glad to be rid of me!)
post #9 of 31
8/25/08 at 4:34pm
In Tennessee, I was told that it is "the law" (I don't know if it really is) that the heel stick had to be done at 24 hours for a baby born in the hospital. My insurance covers three days in the hospital from when they are born, but I told the nurses I wanted out as soon as I could get out. They did his heel stick at exactly the 24 hour mark, and we were already packed up and discharged in the system and got to leave then.
post #10 of 31
8/25/08 at 5:29pm
My mom came home within four hours of her breech birth in 1961 on Mother's Day, an era in which women stayed a week after delivery to get back their strength.

So strange that things have come to this....
post #11 of 31
8/25/08 at 6:28pm
CPS might show up, but they can't really do anything. It's not illegal to leave the hospital early.
post #12 of 31
8/25/08 at 7:10pm
We did the heel stick at about 12 hours. No "law" was mentioned to us. Although there are regulations and routines, I am not sure there is an actual "law" requiring a specific time period, though I could be wrong. It really seems more of a coersion tactic.
post #13 of 31
8/25/08 at 7:15pm
Make sure when you sign into the hospital and are shoved a bunch of paperwork- that you do not sign a consent form for the physicians to make all decisions regarding your/babies care. Cross that part off, initial it- and then sign the paperwork.
post #14 of 31
8/25/08 at 8:50pm
They will do a heelstick no matter how early you leave but the results won't be accurate until at least 24 hours after baby is born, from what my midwife has told me.

I'm not sure what we'll do -- I definitely do NOT want to stay as long as we did last time. It was so exhausting. We got no rest at all and I hated it.

But our ped is part of a group and it just depends on who's on call honestly. So I'm not sure what we'll do, unless we can get the ped to sign something ahead of time saying we can leave early and will go to his office (right down the road from our house) 24 hours afterward for a heel stick.

CPS can get called if you don't do everything according to the norm, honestly. I know someone who refused the eye ointment, with her ped's blessing (tested neg for the diseases it treats) and she got CPS called on her.
post #15 of 31
8/25/08 at 8:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kidzaplenty View Post
We did the heel stick at about 12 hours. No "law" was mentioned to us. Although there are regulations and routines, I am not sure there is an actual "law" requiring a specific time period, though I could be wrong. It really seems more of a coersion tactic.
I just quickly googled it. It says that if it is done before 24 hours, another one is recommended in 1-2 weeks.

I looked up my state law, and it says that in the state of TN, a blood sample must be submitted prior to discharge. So it was the truth, who knew? (FTR, they do have a provision for religious exemption, that must be filed with the Health Dept.)

To the OP, I'm guessing that the PKU is the reason for the wait to 24 hours. Might want to read up on your state's laws on PKU before making any decisions. Just make sure all of your ducks are in a row.
post #16 of 31
8/25/08 at 8:59pm
It's not just CPS - if you leave AMA, without being signed off, your insurance may refuse to pay for whatever part of your bill they would normally be responsible for. However, if you get it cleared by docs, the ins. co should be okay with it.
post #17 of 31
8/25/08 at 9:51pm
My OB released me the next morning (he asked me to stay overnight because I was having bleeding issues). That was at around 12 hours. The peds didn't want to release us, but my OB revealed that family practice docs will often release babe as soon as mom wants to leave. Does your GP have privileges? Maybe you could just use your GP as your child's doctor.

I think I checked DS out AMA. I was GBS+ and they wanted him to stay in for 48 hours. I left around 17-18 hours. No CPS and insurance covered the bill.

I was told insurance may refuse to pay any bills that result as a consequence of leaving AMA. In other words, if we'd had to go back and have DS re-admitted, insurance might have refused to pay.
post #18 of 31
8/25/08 at 10:00pm
Thread Starter 
Ah, nevermind, I found my homebirth midwife
post #19 of 31
8/25/08 at 10:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodheartedmama View Post
Ah, nevermind, I found my homebirth midwife
Excellent!! :
post #20 of 31
8/25/08 at 10:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jocelyndale View Post
My OB released me the next morning (he asked me to stay overnight because I was having bleeding issues). That was at around 12 hours. The peds didn't want to release us, but my OB revealed that family practice docs will often release babe as soon as mom wants to leave. Does your GP have privileges? Maybe you could just use your GP as your child's doctor.
Perhaps this is why I did not have any trouble. My pedi is actually a GP for my entire family. I never thought of it before.
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