I had my little boy in July this year. Born at 33+5 and we spent nearly 3 weeks in neonatal. On the whole, I was really happy with the way things were run. Some of the nurses were absolutely fantastic. So helpful and supportive. However, there were certainly a few areas for improvement.
I agree with what a few other ladies have said about having a key worker who would know all about your baby who you could go to with questions etc. I actually suggested this on my discharge questionnaire. I remember getting so frustrated with rarely having the same nurse twice and having to fill in the new nurse every shift change who sometimes seemed to know very little about my baby. I often felt there was little point in asking questions as they knew less than me. This was particularly true once Thomas moved out of the intensive care section and was looked after by junior / training nurses rather than the highly qualified ones.
I also had a problem with some nurses making silly mistakes. When Thomas was first born, he was weighed incorrectly. We were told that he was 6lb 11oz (which in hindsight is ridiculous for a baby of not even 34 weeks.) This wasnt picked up on until the following day, by which time he had been given a drip and antibiotics, all based on his incorrect birthweight. (He was actually only 5lb 1oz).
Shortly before we were due to go home there was another weighing error (this time apparently due to faulty scales). I had been breastfeeding and had been told that so long as he was gaining weight then he could go home. Understandably I was devastated when it showed he had lost weight. I spent the rest of that day in tears, questioning my ability to breastfeed and what was going wrong. The advice I was given was that maybe my milk was not enough for him or that he would need milk fortifiers which would require him to be bottle fed. The following day I was told they wanted to weigh him again as they had noticed a problem with the scales when weighing another baby. It turned out that he had in fact gained weight and all that stress had been for nothing.
Sorry for the rant but it just made me so angry that a hospital that can do so much for very sick babies, could get something as simple as weighing one wrong on two occasions!
Also, despite all the help I was given to get breastfeeding going as we were having real trouble, it went unnoticed that Thomas had a severe tongue tie which I ended up diagnosing myself after internet research weeks after getting home.
I suppose it is easy to remember the things that went wrong however and I will say again that on the whole, the unit and the individuals who work there did a great job and I am very grateful to them for helping me to finally bring home my healthy baby.
