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Comment by CodeAndCuffs | Hacker News Reader

For both of our children, the hospital caused us more stress and discomfort than anything else. Newborn baby's finally asleep, wife is comfortable re pain, finally start to get some sleep.

Then the nurse comes in at 2 am, writes her name on the board, asks us questions that they should have the answer to, then leaves.

Nurse change 3x a day, baby doctor checking in to ask if were ok, mom doctor doing the same, house keeping, meal people 3x a day. Plus any legitimate and needed medical attention e.g. baby shots/bath /moms wound dressing change

With our second, insurance would've covered another 2-3 days in the hospital, but my wife nearly had a mental breakdown between normal post partum depression, nursing difficulties, and people interrupting every quiet moment we have with our new family member, so we left asap.

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We had our first child ~3 months ago. We had a room to ourselves and nurses/midwifes would only come in once or twice a day unless they were paged (which we did, they were a godsend). This made the stay as comfortable as could be, and we could get all the quiet time alone we wanted, although sleep was in short supply for other reasons.

This was in Copenhagen, Denmark, so the entire stay was free. Sadly, the central hospital is removing this practice and kicking out patients after 4 hours.

Similar situation in Finland; we had a baby over Christmas two years ago. We spent a few days in a private room with a checkup on the baby/mother around noon and 6pm.

We paid €250 or so for 3 or 4 days (genuinely can't remember I guess my sleeping wasn't so great. Oops!) for the three of us, so it wasn't free, but it was pretty cheap.

I hear it.

For our first child, for the first 24 hours or so postpartum, my wife and child both needed something checked every couple hours.

Our overnight nurse said something like "I'll be doing your wife's checks at midnight and 2am, and your baby's at 1am and 3am". When I asked if my wife and child could be checked in the same entries, it turned out they could. I was surprised the hospital didn't do it by default that way for less time sensitive checks.

Did you have your child in the US? If so I am curious, do the nurses come and visit your home the next day and a week after? I live in Canada and was very surprised when they came to check on the baby and my wife the next day, looking for jaundice, bleeding, etc. I'm genuinely curious if that is covered by insurance in the US?

I've been in the hospital without insurance. They bill you for gratuitous stuff regardless of whether you have insurance. They don't mention that there will be a bill when they ask if you want your newborn's hearing checked or if you want to try the experimental sap-based wound sealer they happen to have (both things that actually happened). They seem kind and polite. Then they bill you. One doctor looks over another's shoulder for five minutes. They each bill you.

This is in the US, mind you. In fact, both stays were in Nashville, TN, in the early 2000s.

I would guess it depends on the specific circumstance as well as the insurer. With that said, I'm not the GP (but am based in the US), but in our case the hospital arranged for a visiting nurse to do a check in the next day and it was covered by our insurance.

Sorry for missing this, I don't check HN every day!

Both medical systems that we had children with (in SF) do not do in-home followups, at least not for us. We had to go back the day after discharge for both of our children (for bilirubin draws). Would be nice so soon postpartum to have in-home visits.

Yeah, my wife and I fled the maternity/recovery ward ASAP after both of our children, because it was so hard to rest and so unpleasant there.

The first time, my wife had preeclampsia during the labor and, fair enough, there were some significant interventions to make sure that her recovery was going apace. But the second time? She had a textbook uncomplicated delivery and fundamentally all we were doing was waiting to make sure that nothing crazy cropped up in the first 48 hours after birth. There was no reason for disruptions in our rest every hour or two.

A key lesson I learned with our first child was "just about everything gets easier once you leave the hospital", so with our second we prioritized GTFOing ASAP. It was a good decision.

Our experience would not have been different (Austria). Especially with the first kid going from hospital home was a bit regretful because of all the services you get in the hospital you need to replace at home.

We had a family room for me, my wife and the newborn. They served food, there were replacement clothes and diapers in unlimited supply, no washing etc.

With the second we opted for having only two days in the hospital because I have to deal with the bigger one going to daycare and then we had to go to the child doctor for the remaining tests since we couldn’t do all in the hospital.

If you have a good hospital I would do that over leaving early for sure.

I would have been happy to stay in a private room for longer too, I've been around young children a lot since I have a large family, but being responsible for a newborn was a scary prospect to get used to.

Regarding food my overriding memory of being the father in Finland was that we'd get food delivered to the room and each plate was labeled. Half the meals had the mother's full-name written on them. The other half just said "man".

I'm sure they took my name at some point, as I was registered as the parent in the country-wide population index, but as far as the hospital was concerned I was just "man".

(In Finnish the word for man & husband are the same, so perhaps I was "husband" rather than "man"!)

Yes. Having a different person coming in every 5 minutes to check something else.

Somewhat tempered by having to go back in a week later, so all these things aren't useless. Child birth isn't the risk free thing we like to think it is.

> Child birth isn't the risk free thing we like to think it is.

For almost all mammals it is, just not for humans, where gestation and partum are uniquely difficult and dangerous.

> For almost all mammals it is, just not for humans,

No, childbirth in nature is incredibly risky. But loss of life is expected in nature and disabilities, malformings etc. simply die whereas humans try to avoid life loss or any disadvantage for the offspring at any cost.

For Hyenas its even worse.

As I understand it they have a high level of testosterone so the females develop penises, which they have to give birth through.

The wikipedia page backs me on the penises but couldn't see the reason mentioned (but does mention penile spines?!) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_Hyena

I'll stop mentioning penises now.

Similar experience here except the meal people were 9x a day, not 3. They would come in to take an order (as I recall there were generally two options) 30-60 minutes before the meal was delivered, and then again some time afterward to clean it up. Which I feel like I shouldn't complain about, since they're providing you with food (although only for the patient, not the poor, sleep deprived dad...) But man was it annoying when you were just trying to get a few minutes of sleep!

This must differ wildly between hospitals. In Oklahoma City we were only bothered a few times a day and never at night during our 3 day stay with our newborn (plus the kitchen cooked us a 5 course gourmet meal to send of off on the last day). And I was often able to meet the nurse at the door and handle whatever they needed quietly without waking mom or child.

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