[SunShineSally]

If I deliver in a hospital (I did with Ds) will they let me go home that day/night with the baby? I want a hospital birth and I want to go home right away is that even possible??? My OB will not come to the home and my insurance will not cover a mis wife and we do nto have money for one. I want to be home asap with this baby I did not sleep at all last time until I got home and I do not want to be away from my Ds I think that would cause me to become depressed as I already am so worried about him and how he will handel shareing mommy (he is super high needs and clingy to me at the age of almost 5!) will I have to sign us out against doctors orders? or will they not even allow that?

TIA

 

[ani'smommy]

Coming in from new posts -- You can go home whenever you want. If there are any complications, they might want you stay. If you need to sign out AMA, there could be insurance problems, but after a normal natural birth, you should be fine to leave.

I had pre-e with DD and we left about 20 hours after her birth. I wanted to leave earlier, and I would have except they convinced me to stay because they wanted to wait a few more hours for the PKU test. It wasn't really necessary though. Even then they encouraged me to stay, but didn't pressure me when I said I was ready to go home. They didn't make me sign out AMA or anything.

 

[mariacm]

The pediatrician has to agree to discharge the baby, too, even if your OB agrees to discharge you early. Some peds won't do that so early, so check with yours. Also, as PP said, if you do go out AMA, that can mean insurance won't pay and you're stuck with the bill. Be careful about that. And I've heard of hospital employees calling CPS if baby is taken out AMA, calling it negligence to not have baby stay for care dr prescribes.

Do your homework first, and good luck!

 

[zookeeper]

Definitely check with your insurance. Ours covered it no matter when you left. We did have to sign the baby out AMA, but it wasn't that big of a deal. They put A LOT of pressure on us to stay. They dragged out the paper work till it was pretty late. I'm sure they were hoping we'd decide it was too late and just stay, but I wanted to GO HOME! Just stand your ground if that's what you decide! If you leave relatively early, you'll have to have the PKU done at a later time. That was a bit of a hassle. Our dr doesn't do it so we had to go back to the hospital and have it done there.

 

[ShwarmaQueen]

I think it depends on how you go about it. If you deliver late in the day/evening and stay for a few hours, they might consider you staying the night and let you check out early the next day and be ok with it...I had a friend who did this.

 

[mamatolevi]

I'm not sure it's legal for your ins co to deny coverage b/c you leave AMA. I'd check with the state insurance commissioner for your state to find out your rights on that before calling your ins. co. A lot of nurses will try to bully you into staying by claiming insurance woes or state law, but they are not an authority and cannot do anything to you or your baby w/o your consent or a court order.

I've heard of CPS being called on parents who leave early and frankly I think it's just retaliatory behavior on the part of the hospital staff. I'd talk with your ped ahead of time and find out under what circumstances you can leave early.

 

[notjustmamie]

I'd double check with your OB/MW and Ped. They are the ones who actually sign the release forms. In our case, the we could have (in theory) gone home after 6 hours, but DD was born at 8 PM, so that would have been 2 AM--no nurse in her right mind is going to call in a doc to release a patient at 2 AM. So, depending on when your DC is actually born, you may have to wait until your doc does rounds.

That said, most hospitals want you to stay at least 24 hours.

As far as insurance goes, what I understand about AMA is they will cover whatever they would normally cover in the hospital, but if you have complications after leaving, they can refuse to cover that on the basis of your leaving "too early."

 

[SunShineSally]

Thanks mama's I will most defanately call the ped asap about this as she did not see Ds for about 2 days after he was born!!! I will also talk to my obgyn at my next appointment! I sure hope so I also cannot see why it would be a big deal as parents birth at home all the time! I really really want to birth at home but it is impossible to do so unless he/she desides to make an entrance before we get there(could happen as Ds was here in less than an hour!)