Hospital Rooms
Hii! Okay, let’s talk hospital rooms!
Before we do that though, I figured I’d start out with the flow of how things go.
There’s always a step one, step two, then step three.
Step one is before you get your private birthing room. It is when we listen to baby to make sure everything is okay, your contractions are evaluated and your cervix is assessed. For OB clients, this is triage and for midwife clients this is your home. This can take varying amounts of time, but most people spend between 30 and 120 minutes in triage, and on average about 90 I’d say. So again, that’s to monitor contractions to see how frequently they’re coming, listen to baby’s heartbeat, and wait for an OB to come to assess the cervix and decide whether they’re admitting the labouring person or whether it’s too early to be admitted and to go home. For those with OBs, this is what triage looks like. For those with midwives, you will likely skip triage all together so you don’t need to worry too much about this but of course you can take a peek as well.
And then step two, your private birth room. If you’re being induced, this is the room you have when they start the pitocin (the balloon is done in triage) and if you’re in spontaneous labour, if they’ve assessed that you’re in active labour, this is where you’ll be too. You’ll stay in this room throughout the entirety of labour and for 2-3 hours after baby is born. This is where all the action happens so where you’ll labour, birth and where baby will be weighed and checked out too. If you want an epidural or to use the gas, you need to be in a private room before you can have any of that. If you’re birthing at the birth centre, I’ve linked to their recorded tour below so take a peek at that, but I will show some of our local Toronto hospital rooms here now.
And then for step three, we have postpartum rooms. Now, when you check in to the hospital they will ask for your insurance information and a credit card, and that’s when you give your preference to what kind of postpartum room you’d like. If you’re working with midwives and you don’t know if you’re staying or not, same thing – birth partner, when you go and give the hospital staff your birther’s health card, please make sure you let them know what your preference for room is so it’s one less thing to be sorted out post birth. Your options for rooms are private, semi-private and shared. Room assignment is first come first serve – meaning, it’s not about if you have insurance coverage or if you’re paying out of pocket. Rooms are assigned in order of babies being born – so if you were the last one in but the first one to have your baby out of four people, let’s say, then you’ll get assigned a postpartum room first and therefore more likely to get what you requested. Hospitals are usually good at accommodating, for example if people request private rooms they’ll try to even put people in semi-private rooms with no one else to make it happen, and if you do happen to be in a semi-private with someone else but requested a private, they will move you once the private room is available so you get what you wanted. Here is what some postpartum rooms look like.
Down below, I’ve got a hospital bag checklist so you can review what you’re bringing, and as always, you know where to find me x
Hii! Okay, let’s talk hospital rooms!
Before we do that though, I figured I’d start out with the flow of how things go.
There’s always a step one, step two, then step three.
Step one is before you get your private birthing room. It is when we listen to baby to make sure everything is okay, your contractions are evaluated and your cervix is assessed. For OB clients, this is triage and for midwife clients this is your home. This can take varying amounts of time, but most people spend between 30 and 120 minutes in triage, and on average about 90 I’d say. So again, that’s to monitor contractions to see how frequently they’re coming, listen to baby’s heartbeat, and wait for an OB to come to assess the cervix and decide whether they’re admitting the labouring person or whether it’s too early to be admitted and to go home. For those with OBs, this is what triage looks like. For those with midwives, you will likely skip triage all together so you don’t need to worry too much about this but of course you can take a peek as well.
And then step two, your private birth room. If you’re being induced, this is the room you have when they start the pitocin (the balloon is done in triage) and if you’re in spontaneous labour, if they’ve assessed that you’re in active labour, this is where you’ll be too. You’ll stay in this room throughout the entirety of labour and for 2-3 hours after baby is born. This is where all the action happens so where you’ll labour, birth and where baby will be weighed and checked out too. If you want an epidural or to use the gas, you need to be in a private room before you can have any of that. If you’re birthing at the birth centre, I’ve linked to their recorded tour below so take a peek at that, but I will show some of our local Toronto hospital rooms here now.
And then for step three, we have postpartum rooms. Now, when you check in to the hospital they will ask for your insurance information and a credit card, and that’s when you give your preference to what kind of postpartum room you’d like. If you’re working with midwives and you don’t know if you’re staying or not, same thing – birth partner, when you go and give the hospital staff your birther’s health card, please make sure you let them know what your preference for room is so it’s one less thing to be sorted out post birth. Your options for rooms are private, semi-private and shared. Room assignment is first come first serve – meaning, it’s not about if you have insurance coverage or if you’re paying out of pocket. Rooms are assigned in order of babies being born – so if you were the last one in but the first one to have your baby out of four people, let’s say, then you’ll get assigned a postpartum room first and therefore more likely to get what you requested. Hospitals are usually good at accommodating, for example if people request private rooms they’ll try to even put people in semi-private rooms with no one else to make it happen, and if you do happen to be in a semi-private with someone else but requested a private, they will move you once the private room is available so you get what you wanted. Here is what some postpartum rooms look like.
Down below, I’ve got a hospital bag checklist so you can review what you’re bringing, and as always, you know where to find me x