We recommend that the two of you introduce your new baby to your family together. Once you have had some time bonding as a new family, we will invite your friends and family into your L&D room for you to introduce your new baby to them. We recommend that if you are breastfeeding, you do so before the baby has been to the Nursery for the first time.
Usually your baby can stay in your room with you for 30-60 mintues after birth, as long as the baby is doing well and staying warm. However, the baby does need to go to the Nursery for a thorough examination. Your Labor & Delivery nurse will briefly examine your baby, but the Nursery nurses will do a very thorough, in-depth exam and will notify your pediatrician of anything they may find that may need more attention. Once it is time for the baby to go to the Nursery, Dad will carry the baby accompanied by your Labor & Delivery nurse. Be sure to take your camera to get a picture of your baby on the scales.
Once inside the Nursery, the baby's Nursery nurse and your L&D nurse will compare together the numbers on the shared Mother/Infant ID bracelets and the official Newborn Identification Sheet, to verify that the numbers match. Whenever your baby is brought to you, the Nursery personnel will check your bracelet with the baby's bracelet to make sure the numbers match. This is another security measure for your baby.
Once the baby has been weighed, your L&D nurse will usually suggest your support persons return to tell you how much the baby weighs. This is a polite way of asking you to leave the Nursery. Visitors are limited in the regular Nursery as an additional security measure for your newborn. Visitors are invited into the Nursery to weigh the baby and then again when the baby receives the first bath.
The Angel Mural
The outside walls of our Nursery feature an Angel Mural. This mural was painted by a local high school student, Gaynor Luce. Inspired by her newly discovered love of art, Ms. Luce created a mural along the 675-square-foot outer walls section of the Springhill Medical Center Nursery in only three days!
Although her timeline was to finish the mural over the summer, Ms. Luce worked 12-hour days to complete the project within only a few days of making her first brush stroke. “I don’t know what got into me,” she explains in her calm, soft-spoken manner. “I was inspired and just wanted to finish.” The latex and acrylic mural features pastel cherubs accented with green, gold, and silver designs, such as clouds, stars, moons and other heavenly formations. Stars on the mural are inscribed with the names and birth dates of many babies born at Springhill Memorial Hospital.
Ms. Luce’s design for the mural was selected as the winner of a special category in the 2003 Color By Kids Art Competition, sponsored by both the hospital and its Auxiliary. Ms. Celia Wallace, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer for Southern Medical Health Systems, Inc., the health care company that operates Springhill Medical Center, chose the winning mural entry.
Students in the grades 9-12 category submitted designs for a three-wall mural to be painted on the outside of the hospital nursery. Before submitting their entries, student artists entering this category were provided with the dimensions of the walls and invited to the hospital to see the actual location for the mural. All of the art supplies, brushes, etc. needed to paint the mural were purchased by the Auxiliary. The names on the mural represent more than 20 years of babies at Springhill Medical Center. However, it was not possible to include the names of more than 30,000 babies! So, when the mural was first painted, employees who had given birth here were invited to put their children's names into a drawing. The ones chosen had their names written on the mural.
Since then, one name is drawn from the deliveries each month to be placed on the mural. Before your discharge, you will be given an information sheet which you can return to the hospital to have your baby's name placed in the drawing.
Infant Security
Springhill Medical Center takes the security of our patients very seriously! That’s why all entrances to the Nursery are locked with coded locks. No one can enter without the code or without permission from the Nursery personnel.
All entries to the Nursery are locked with coded locks. No one can enter without the code or without permission from the Nursery personnel. Visitors are limited in the regular Nursery as an additional security measure.
If at anytime, for any reason, you feel uncomfortable with someone removing your baby, do NOT let your baby go with that person. Instead, put on your call light and tell the person who answers the light that you need to speak with your nurse immediately. We want you and your baby to feel as safe in your Postpartum room as you feel in your own home.