Discharge of Baby from Hospital

• Author: Jeffrey Kasky; Robert Andrew Kasky
• Pages: 79-83

79

CHAPTER

15

Discharge of Baby

from Hospital

Babies with no significant medical issues are customarily discharged from the hospital between two and

four days after birth. Babies in the NICU are generally discharged when the condition which placed them

there appears to have been treated and resolved, fully or partially, to the point where the attending pedia-

trician believes that the child will be best served completing his recovery at home with the family. Babies

who are born prematurely are usually expected to stay in the nursery or NICU for the length of time it

would take for them to have been full-term. However, this rule of thumb appears to be the exception, not

the rule. We have never seen a baby stay in the NICU for the full amount of time between the birth and the

due date, absent other considerations such as opiate addition. There is of course no predetermined time

for the cessation of care in either nursery – it all depends on the baby’s health and ability to successfully

respond to treatment.

Whenever it is that the discharge does occur, it is usually a stressful, happy, sad, and special event. It

is customary for the nursing staff to have a training session with the adoptive parents shortly before dis-

charge in which they discuss feeding, correct sleeping and napping positions, diaper changing, treatment

of the umbilical cord, taking the baby’s temperature, properly reacting to out-of-range baby temperature,

determining when it is appropriate to call either 911 or a doctor discussing the need for training in infant

CPR, among others, and how to dress the baby insofar as the proper number of layers of clothing for the

climate in which the baby lives.

Prior to the nursery’s training session with the new parents, we advise them to listen carefully, ask any

questions they have, but that the session is not an opportunity to have a long personal conversation with

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