EVERETT — Providence Everett Medical Center is closing its newborn baby nursery, part of a trend in which moms are encouraged to spend as much time as possible with their infants in the hours immediately after their births.
The Gail Marie Jubie newborn center was used for infants to be cared for temporarily at a mother’s request to allow her to get some extra rest after birth, such as after a Caesarean delivery. It opened in 2003 as part of the Pavilion for Women and Children on the hospital’s Pacific campus.
No specific date has been set for the closing of the Everett hospital’s newborn nursery, but it is expected to happen by early spring, said Cheri Russum, hospital spokeswoman.
The decision to close the nursery was made because “we were at a point where we rarely had a baby in the newborn nursery,” said Dr. Frank Andersen, who leads the hospital’s women and children’s services.
“Keeping the nursery open when we didn’t have babies there didn’t make much sense,” he said.
Moms can still get some short-term baby breaks if needed with the infants being cared for in what is now unused space in the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit. Stevens Hospital in Edmonds has a similar policy of temporarily caring for newborns in its neonatal nursery.
The number of babies in the nursery has declined as increasing numbers of mothers breast-feed, Russum said. About 92 percent of moms who give birth at the hospital now breast-feed their newborns, she said.
Mothers prefer to keep their baby in their room since babies often need to be feed about every two hours. Breast-feeding “enhances the mother-baby bonding process,” Russum said.
The impact on the nursery is that on some evenings, no babies were cared for there and on others one or two infants were, Russum said.
Hospitals are putting emphasis on increasing the bonding time between moms and babies in the hours just after birth by having the infants remain in the same room as their mother.
“Those first hours … it’s about more than just taking pictures,” said Nancy Reese, manager of the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit.
Researchers have found that babies just one or two hours after birth can discriminate between their mother’s face from that of others, she said.
Even families whose babies weren’t cared for in the Gail Marie Jubie newborn nursery often noticed the plaque on its outside wall, which says: “Dedicated in memory of our beloved sister.”
The Jubie family made a $100,000 donation to the hospital’s nursery program in honor of Gail Jubie, who was murdered in 2000 by an intruder in her Marysville home on Sunnyside Boulevard.
The plaque will be moved to the entrance of the pavilion’s first-floor Children’s Center in March.
“We do know that life moves on and things change; nothing is permanent,” said Harv Jubie, one of the family members who made a contribution to the hospital in his sister’s name.
Since the newborn nursery is not used as much as it used to be, “Why leave it there?” he asked.
Marilyn Savage, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union local 141, which represents hospital nurses, said the closing of the hospital’s newborn baby unit is part of a trend in newborn care.
The hospital has opted to have newborns room with their mother, “which is basically what most hospitals do these days,” Savage said.
However, the announcement of the closure came as staffing changes were being made in the hospital’s labor and delivery unit, which employs about 104 nurses, she said.
Staff was asked to rebid for their jobs, she said, which meant some people had to change hours or shifts.
“There was a lot of turmoil and miscommunication,” Savage said. Several nurses decided not to go through the rebid process, but there were no layoffs, she said.
The nurses’ contract allows managers to determine staffing levels and schedules, she said. “Mother Nature has a lot to do with when babies are born,” Savage said. “There are peaks and valleys.”
The new schedules don’t go into effect until the end of this month. “I’ll put another questionnaire out to people to say, ‘How are we doing?’” she added.
Writer Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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