Hospital Tours

Hubby and I are FINALLY going to tour the hospital today. I'm 37 weeks so I figured we can't keep putting it off. I'm just curious though, how many of you actually did this?? Some people are telling me it's unecessary but of course it's something I feel we definately need to do!

-Melissa

Re: Hospital Tours

I am on the fence about this one. A friend of ours just gave birth last week in the same hospital I will be and had a great experience.

Re: Hospital Tours

We took one. I think it was very informative and even though I knew alot of people who had delivered at my hospital, it was still nice to have everything explained to me and tour the rooms myself

Re: Hospital Tours

what do you make an apt? or just show up???

Are you like by yourself or with a group...what kinda stuff do they show you...???

Im totally clueless

Re: Hospital Tours

We did it and I didn't think it was worth the time. I found the information that my lamaze class gave me about the hospital to be far more informative. You have to do what makes you feel comfortable though.

Good luck

Re: Hospital Tours

I didnt do lamaze..does that mean I should def. take a tour?

Re: Hospital Tours

I did and it helped for me... I need to be able to visualize everything before-hand so I don't feel so out of place and uncomfortable... I was SO relieved to see that the rooms are SO nice and don't look like hospital rooms at all.

Re: Hospital Tours

what hospital is everyone delivering at?

Re: Hospital Tours

It depends on the hospital Marissa. I know for St Catherine's they had a number to call and I think they did the tours after 7:30 or something like that. For me our Lamaze teacher showed us slides of EVERYTHING of St. Catherine's including the nurses. I felt for us it was redundant. If you have not seen the hospital and have not seen the labor room or the c-section room then I would probably want to go. When we did ours it was just us, my mother and MIL. Hope that helps

Re: Hospital Tours

We took a birthing class and then they did a tour at the end of it. I think it was helpful for me to see where I would be giving birth. As a first time mom, I didn't know that to expect so it was one less thing I had to worry about.

I delivered in Chicago, so I'm no help. I'm sure if you call the Maternity Ward they'll let you know when you can come in.

Re: Hospital Tours

I'm delivering at St Charles - they have an educational center that you call and scheduled days of the week they have group tours. I too liked the fact that now I know what everything'll look like, etc...

Re: Hospital Tours

I'm delivering at North Shore LIJ - Plainview. The doctor said to go with that over regular North Shore or Winthrop since it's a community hospital and parking/visiting hours are just better, and they also always have neonatal docs on staff and have a special neonatal unit. The only reason why I would go to Northshore or Winthrop at this point is if I have complications but we're not anticipating it.

Basically the tour at my hospital is every sunday at 2pm. You just show up in the lobby and wait and a maternity nurse comes down at 2 and escorts you upstairs and shows you around. Each hospital handles tours different. We found out ours through our pre-registration papers, it was all in the packet. But you can call your hospital to find out more info.

Basically they went over a bunch of things:
-what enterance to use and where to procede when you get to the hospital
- toured the maternity triage rooms, labor rooms, peeked into the operating room (for c-sections) but they don't let you in really, recovery rooms, etc.
- They show you the showers you can use through labor to help relax and other things like rocking chairs, suites, etc.
- You get to see the regular nursery and special care nursery.
- They go over rules and guidelines like how many people in a room, cameras/videos, security precautions, etc.
- THey also provide you with the pre-registration paperwork and tell you where to go to get that done if you haven't done it already. I had the one paper already filled out that my doc gave me but then went to admissions and signed like 10 other papers that I didn't know you needed.

I found it helpful and reassuring just to meet some of the staff and to see the rooms. The lady who did the tour was REALLY nice and I actually stayed after a few minutes extra and asked her some questions since I'm anticipating a very large baby and I have diabetes so I might be a special circumstance delivery, for example, I waned to know thier procedure if the baby is born with low blood sugar, which is a risk in my case. Some hospitals do sugar water thorugh bottles, others through a prick in the baby's finger and a glove, I wanted to find out which they do.

And of course it was awesome looking in at the nursery. There was a little boy right near the window that was only about an hour old and was in the warmer and he was just so precious, I loved that part. I wanted to go back and stare at him all day!

-Melissa

Re: Hospital Tours

I plan on taking one! MY SIL delivered at the same (I trust her whole heartedly, especially since we are far from what I'm familiar with in NY).

I don't think we'll be able to take any kind of classes though.....at the point when we should, DH is in the middle of holiday season and is lucky if he gets 1 day off!

Re: Hospital Tours

Ive heard that its a ghreat idea to do this...I plan on doing it.

Re: Hospital Tours

We did one with our first child, it was part of the Lamaze class we took. Even though I have been to that hospital hundreds of times, I liked being able to see the L&D suites/rooms and the operating rooms for C-sections. I delivered and will deliver again at Good Sam.

Re: Hospital Tours

Re: Hospital Tours

The pre-registration papers are basically papers that you fill out and give to the hospital in advance, so that when the time comes you don't have to bother filling out paperwork before they put you in labor & delivery. Normally you'd have to fill out paperwork before being admitted into a hospital, or your husband would have to do it while they bring you to labor and delivery. if you preregister they already have all your insurance and consent forms on file and you just give your name and go right up, nothing to sign or to fill out.

Plus when you preregister the hospital will then request your chart from your OBGYN to keep on hand so that if they need any info from it at delivery, they'll have it.

My doctor gave me the paperwork at around 25 weeks. However there were other forms that the doc didn't have, like consent forms. You can just call the hospital or go down there and go to the admissions office and it should only take you like 10 minutes to fill everything out. bring with you a copy of your driver's license and insurance cards.

-melissa

Re: Hospital Tours

Oh, another thing, my hospital doesn't require appointments to go on the tour. HOwever some hospitals require appointments, and I've heard that you sometimes have to make them well in advance. Call asap, see if you need to make an appointment. If you do and they are full, at least find out what enterance to use when you go into labor (most don't have you go through the ER because you can be exposed to a lot of germs) and also find out what the procedure would be for checking in when you get to the hospital.

btw, what hospital are you delivering at?

Re: Hospital Tours

I'm going for a pre-registration at the hospital in 2 weeks...they told me I'd be there for about an hour. They told me that I can ask the nurse then if she'll have time to give us a tour of the maternity ward...if not, if we're interested, we can make an appointment.

I plan on making the appointment for a tour if they're not able to do it the day we go for pre-registration.

I'm not sure if it's going to be a waste of time, but since we're pretty much new to this area, we figure it may be a good thing to go.