“ROOMING-IN” FOR MATERNITY CASES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27368, 5 June 1954, Page 2

“ROOMING-IN” FOR MATERNITY CASES

ADVANTAGES OUTLINED IN CIRCULAR

A statement on the advantages of rooming-in” at maternity hospitals will be prepared by the Canterbury Housewives’ Union and circulated among organisations and individuals likely to be interested, says a report from the June meeting of the union. A suggestion will be made in the circuiar that mothers who desire this method of nursing should not fail to ask for it when registering at public maternity hospitals. “Rooming-in” meant that the baby yas placed, not in a central nursery, but mother’s bedsidt* and was attended by her as much as possible from the beginning, with the guidance of the nurses at the maternity hospital, the report says. The practice was bein* auopted increasingly in Britain and in the United States. The decision to send out the circular was made at the meeting of the union, after hearing a report from memebrs who had held a discussion on this topic with the matron of St. Helens Hospital (Miss J. Flint). been claimed that there was little demand for “rooming-in,” but members felt that mothers did not ask for it because they knew that facilities were not available in any case, and many chose home confinement as the only way to have the baby near at hand from birth, the report says.