In Episode 255 of The Pulling Curls Podcast, Hilary Erickson discusses why taking a hospital tour is an essential part of preparing for childbirth. From understanding hospital amenities to getting a feel for the unit and reducing anxiety on the big day, Hilary covers the numerous benefits of a hospital tour. Listen in for practical tips, insightful questions to ask during your tour, and personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of familiarizing yourself with your birthing environment.
Find it here on Apple or Spotify Podcasts
Big thanks to our sponsor The Online Prenatal Class for Couples — a hospital class isn’t meant to take the place of a tour, but it is a great addition to a great class like that one!
Links for you:
Timestamps:
00:00 Hospital amenities vary; inquire during your tour.
04:28 Familiarize yourself with hospital layout and procedures.
08:43 Consider hospital and sibling tours post-25 weeks.
10:36 Your support significantly boosts our podcast growth.
Keypoints:
- Hospital tours are valuable for choosing the right hospital for delivery.
- Many hospitals offer virtual tours post-COVID, sometimes with a nurse answering questions.
- A hospital tour serves as a dry run for driving to the hospital, parking, and finding your way inside.
- Touring the hospital helps you understand the available amenities, such as room features and provided toiletries.
- It’s an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the layout and location of the maternity unit within the hospital.
- Knowing whether you’ll stay in the same room or move to a postpartum floor can lessen anxiety.
- Prepare a list of important questions tailored to your specific needs and concerns for the tour.
- Understanding nurse-to-patient ratios can help gauge the level of support you’ll receive.
- Hospital tours can offer insights into common practices and the birth culture within the unit.
- Sibling tours can help prepare older children, making them more comfortable with the hospital environment.
Producer: Drew Erickson
Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 255, we are talking about why you should take a hospital tour. So let’s untangle it.
[00:00:09.910] – Hilary Erickson
Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the Pregnancy Nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop overcomplicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and Parenting Untangled, the Pulling Curls Podcast.
[00:00:30.270] – Hilary Erickson
This episode of the Pulling Curls Podcast is sponsored by the online prenatal class for couples. Beyond getting to know your hospital, there’s lots of things that you can learn on your own timeline at home. And I recommend the online prenatal class for couples. It is the easy way to get prepared for a reverse. Remember, it is taught by an expert. It only takes three hours, and it is available 24/7. So if you want to join me at 10:00 PM on a Sunday night. Let’s do it. Come join me.
[00:01:03.190] – Hilary Erickson
One of the biggest myths I hear is that people think they have to take the hospital birth class in order to take the hospital tour, and that is not true at all. The hospital uses these hospital tours as a marketing method to help you pick which hospital is right for you, hopefully their hospital, so they are available for anyone to take.
[00:01:20.650] – Hilary Erickson
Now, since COVID, a lot of hospitals have changed to just doing them virtually. Sometimes they have a nurse there that can answer questions after they show you a video, or sometimes it’s just a video. Whatever your hospital is going to do, try and do it.
[00:01:35.330] – Hilary Erickson
If it’s a video tour, if it’s just an online website that tells you some of their policies, do it. Hopefully, they have something. I know lots of hospitals are starting to do in-person tours, and I think it is worth your time. I know it is a pain to get to the hospital, find parking, do the tour, but I would recommend doing it. Okay, so what are the benefits of doing a hospital tour?
[00:01:56.210] – Hilary Erickson
First off, it is a dry run at driving to the hospital. Hopefully, you are taking this tour together, but your partner can understand how to get to the hospital, where to park, all those different kinds of things. It’s just nice to have that done if it’s not an area that you frequent often.
[00:02:11.340] – Hilary Erickson
I know a lot of people live a long way from their hospital, so that is an extra thing. Hopefully, you could schedule this tour maybe when you’re seeing a provider or something by the hospital. I will say that our hospital would even provide impromptu. If your provider knew you wanted a hospital tour, if they called the hospital and said, Hey, Heather would love a hospital tour, is there anyone that can give it to her in the next half an hour? Sometimes we would be able to accommodate that, and you could even get a private tour. So that’s something to think about as well.
[00:02:39.980] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, the other thing is to think about what amenities your hospital have. And when I say that, it sounds like I’m talking about a hotel, right? Is there a country club? No. But some hospitals have a fridge in the room that you can bring food and put food in. My hospital didn’t have that, so just FYI.
[00:02:56.460] – Hilary Erickson
Some have special lighting, some have a tub in every room, Some provide specific things for the mom, special hospital gowns or whatever. But knowing the amenities that are standard in your hospital can help you know what you should be bringing, right?
[00:03:10.420] – Hilary Erickson
If you want a specific lighting in your room and the hospital has fancy lighting, then you know that it’s something you don’t have to pack. Or if you want special lighting in the room and all of it is horrible fluorescent bulbs, you know that that’s a priority for you, right? And you can ask at the hospital tour if that’s even possible, because some hospitals are really reticent to allow you to plug things in that could be a fire hazard.
[00:03:30.400] – Hilary Erickson
So these are good things to ask. Every hospital is super different and weird about those things as well.
[00:03:36.410] – Hilary Erickson
Your hospital tour is a great time to find out what they recommend you bringing in from home. A lot of people think that the hospital provides toiletries, and we do. I mean, I don’t know why they label it as lotion, but we have a bottle of what is labeled as lotion, but it is like white water. It doesn’t even do anything.
[00:03:54.060] – Hilary Erickson
So I always recommend it, be sure if you want to be able to shampoo, conditioner, use lotion. We had a bar of soap for you, so as long as you’re not super picky about that, that would work. But I was really clear on what I would be willing to take from the hospital versus what you should bring. And at the same point in time, I would say, We have mesh panties. You don’t need to worry about bringing panties from home unless you think that’ll make you more comfortable.
[00:04:15.500] – Hilary Erickson
I should do a note that I did a ton of hospital tours because I really enjoyed talking with these patients. And so they always knew that I was willing to go give the tour when the provider would call and say, Can Heather have a hospital tour in 15 minutes? Not every nurse is up for this, but I love chitty chatting with patients, which is why I’m the pregnancy nurse.
[00:04:34.020] – Hilary Erickson
It also gives you a time to get a feel for the unit and where in the hospital you’ll be. You might look at the hospital and be like, Well, I’m going to give birth there. But hospitals, once you get inside, are really big. Is it on the top floor? Is it on the bottom floor? Is it in a separate area?
[00:04:47.410] – Hilary Erickson
The last hospital I worked for was actually not in the main hospital building. We had to walk across the street to take our labs to the hospital because we were a free-standing birth center, even though we were still affiliated with the hospital. If we called a code, those nurses came from the ICU, ran across the street to us.
[00:05:03.620] – Hilary Erickson
So it’s really important that you understand where in the hospital you’re going to be. And I think it just gives you peace of mind knowing, Okay, I’m going to have my baby on the third floor, right?
[00:05:11.740] – Hilary Erickson
Also, it’s going to give you an idea, do you stay in the same room after you have your baby, or do you transfer to a postpartum floor that’s on a completely different floor?
[00:05:19.290] – Hilary Erickson
And it gives your partner an idea of how that transition is going to work as well, because it can catch them off guard if they leave you after labor and delivery to go grab you a sandwich because hello, deli meat. And then they come and you’re not in the room. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, what happened to my wife? Oh, she got transferred to postpartum. But if they already know in advance she’s going to get transferred to postpartum, then they just know, and it decreases anxiety and things like that.
[00:05:42.700] – Hilary Erickson
I think it’s really important to have a list of questions that you can ask on your hospital tour about what’s important to you, and that’s going to vary person to person. You can’t ask things about your specific medical circumstances, but let me give you some that I thought of. One of them is, how many patients do nurses usually have? I will say that a lot of hospitals’ nurses have two patients, mostly up until the patient is pushing.
[00:06:05.900] – Hilary Erickson
Some hospitals, they only have one patient throughout. It really, really depends. And so I think that’s a valid and important question to ask so that you can understand how much support you’re probably going to get from your nurse while you’re in labor.
[00:06:16.520] – Hilary Erickson
Of course, these are not hard and fast rules. There are times that I’ve had four patients, one of them possibly delivering in the hallway because that’s how labor and delivery goes. And there’s times where we only have one patient on the unit and we all just don’t on her because we have nothing else to do. So it really just depends on who’s coming in, but it just gives you an idea of how busy the hospital is in general.
[00:06:36.190] – Hilary Erickson
I think it’s a great one to ask them, How often do you have births that fill in the blank? Go natural. Deliver on their back, ask for extra long cord clamping. Whatever is important to you? Do you ever deliver patients standing? Things like that.
[00:06:49.540] – Hilary Erickson
Now, a lot of those are really going to depend on your provider, usually your doctor. But it does give you an idea of the birth culture on the unit. If the nurse who’s giving the tour is like, No, we really don’t deliver too many patients’ standing. And if I was giving the tour on that, I would be like, That’s something I would talk with your provider about at your appointments.
[00:07:06.370] – Hilary Erickson
As nurses, we can always facilitate that because honestly, we’re not the ones on the floor delivering the baby, and we don’t hold any of the liability for that type of thing. So that is something you’d want to talk with your provider. But usually on the tour, they’re really good about saying that’s something you’re going to want to talk with your provider about.
[00:07:20.630] – Hilary Erickson
But again, these are good things to ask at the hospital tour because maybe they’re going to say, Yeah, we deliver people squatting all the time, and then you’ll know. Another good one that I think you can ask is, What’s something that surprises a lot of patients delivering here?
[00:07:32.640] – Hilary Erickson
If I was answering for my last hospital, I would have said, It is a hidden gem in the valley, so few people know that we even exist. We end up giving great care. But other ones, it would have been like, We ask you for money at the bedside to do your hospital binder. I probably wouldn’t have said that in the tour because I probably would have gotten in trouble. But just ask them just some questions like that so that you start to get a vibe or some idea of things that you might want to bring or expectations you can set for your delivery.
[00:08:00.880] – Hilary Erickson
As a reminder, as I just said, these are PR tours for the hospital. So we’re trying to bend over backwards, show you that you’re going to have a great delivery here, and they’re trying to spin things in a very positive way for the most part. I mean, we are nurses, so we’re probably going to be pretty honest.
[00:08:15.380] – Hilary Erickson
Although a lot of our tours were given by our unit secretary, the person that ordered pencils and pens for us. So she probably spun things nicer than the nurses did.
[00:08:24.970] – Hilary Erickson
And a lot of people are like, Oh, I should take this hospital tour at 35 weeks. I have people taking a hospital tour who are still trying to decide what doctor they were going to go to. So don’t feel like you have to do the hospital tour right before delivery. A lot of people are looking at a couple of different hospitals and they want to take the tour, and then they pick their provider based off of the hospital tour.
[00:08:44.040] – Hilary Erickson
So don’t feel like you can only do it once you’re close to your delivery date. However, if you know that you’re going to XYZ hospital because it’s the one you’re going to go to, I would recommend doing the hospital tour after about 25 weeks so that’s not too far in advance of when you’ll actually deliver.
[00:08:59.500] – Hilary Erickson
Because some hospitals have certain policies that kick in during cold and flu season, or if the parking lot is snowed in, they have specific areas where they want labor and delivery to park because the hospital parking lot gets smaller because of all the snow. So there’s things like that to think of that going a little closer to a due date is handy.
[00:09:18.970] – Hilary Erickson
One thing that I think a lot of people don’t think about is I actually did a sibling tour with my son when I had my second baby. If your hospital offers something like that, I think it can be really nice. It was nice for him to know where I was going to have the baby, and it wasn’t as surprising when he came to visit me because he had seen that unit before. There was a lot less catching him off guard when he came to see me after we had the baby. It also gave us a time to talk that the baby was going to come and all those different things. So if your hospital offers a sibling class, I would recommend it or at least call and find out what they talk about in there.
[00:09:53.080] – Hilary Erickson
My son got to wear a little hat and the little boot covers. It was really fun. We had a good time doing it together.
[00:09:58.640] – Hilary Erickson
So as you can see, I do recommend taking a hospital tour. If you guys have questions, come find me over on Instagram. I would love to chitty chat about what to expect at your hospital tour, or if they said something specific on your hospital tour that had you with a question mark over your head, tell me on Instagram, and I can interpret that and give you some ideas about what it might mean for your birth.
[00:10:18.590] – Hilary Erickson
Stay tuned. Next week, we are talking about smelly fridges and how to get rid of that smell at your house. And the week after that, we have a social worker coming on to talk about postpartum anxiety. So stay tuned.
[00:10:30.250] – Hilary Erickson
Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you liked today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.
Keywords:
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