I think you are probably right about that. The mayor of Boston will be keeping the mask mandate for the whole city. No end in sight for that one.
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Makes sense! I used to follow this stuff really closely, and with that context, I would not expect mask mandates to end in schools in LAUSD and the Bay Area any time soon⌠definitely not until all kids can be vaccinated, and maybe even not after that.
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So, when I delivered 1/1/21, the hospital did the nasal swab PCR which sucked, but it really wasnât that bad. Itâs actually the only time Iâve ever had to do that kind of test. Regarding masks, they asked us to put the masks on anytime a nurse entered the room before I was really in labor (induced) and after the baby was born. During labor, especially once it got going and when I was pushing, they actually donât want the mom to wear masks. Support person was supposed to wear one still though. After birth I
didnât have to wear one during the golden hour and then they asked us to put it on anytime a nurse came into the room. There were a bunch of times we forgot until the nurse had been puttering around the room for a few minutes and I was like âoops, Iâm so sorryâ and they totally didnât care. They just thanked us for trying to remember.
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Iâm going to be delivering again in October and Iâm interested to see if they have any changes in policy. Iâm kind of assuming they wonât. Even when our area removed mask mandates in the past the hospital had the same rules they put in place in March 2020.
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Thanks. Itâs good to hear about other peopleâs experiences.
I will be curious to see what the policies are around c-section and masks. After my first caesarean I was on nasal oxygen all night- maybe the second as well? Although I know you can mask over a nasal cannula because we have an IT guy at work who does.
I am more likely to go home sooner (2 nights rather than 3) if possible because of not being able to have visitors. When it came up when LB was born I was like, hell no, I am taking every minute in this full-service bed that I am entitled to!
Speaking of NICUs, obviously you always want to avoid it but the one where my sister works (which is on the East Coast, donât know the rules here) is allowing only one parent to visit baby in the NICU. The whole other parent just doesnât get to see baby until they come home, which could be literal months. So sad for the excluded parent and so much pressure on the parent who has to do all the parenting.
Side note: PM with your delivery hospital? I need to choose one. (Well, hopefully I need to choose one. If I am having a preemie then I go to the one downtown with the better NICU.)
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Is it just one parent at a time at least? Not like, one assigned person forever?
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If I understand correctly, it is one assigned person forever. I donât think I misunderstood but it is possible.
That would be utterly insane to me.
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I canât imagine having only one parent allowed to go to the NICU. Mr. Meer had specific instructions from me that if the baby had to go to the NICU he was to go also (this was very pre-pandemic).
Not the NICU, but my boss added a new baby to their family last September and they were told that the mom could only have one other adult as her support person. In their case it was the babyâs dad. Even if the dad left the hospital no other adult could come in (e.g. grandparents). I wonder if exceptions would be made for surrogacy.
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My uncle was in the ICU for about a month recently and the rule there was one person visiting per day, but that person could change daily. Not sure if NICU would be different.
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Well, in the beforetimes I know you could have other people come to the NICU like much older siblings and grandparents, but that hasnât been the case since this started.
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Just got word that my kidsâ giant urban school district is dropping the mask mandate on 2/25 and going to âstrongly encouraged.â Well, my personal kids probably wonât get covid again before the end of the school year anywayâŚ
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That was also the rule at our hospital. They official rule actually said there could only be one support person and if that person left the hospital at any point in time they were not allowed to come back. Thankfully they actually didnât enforce that last part. They told us that they wanted my husband to try not to leave, but they understood that especially in cases with siblings the support person would need to occasionally leave and come back. I showed up at the hospital at 10am, was induced and then delivered at 1 am, he stayed with me until 10ish then went home to spend time with our other daughter, came back around dinner time, stayed the night, and then we left the following morning at 10. So I was at the hospital for 48 hours and during that time he left and came back once.
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No visitors at all were allowed during my ER trip last month; husband got me in there and got me into a wheelchair because I couldnât stand, but then he had to sit in the parking deck and wait (closest hospital is 45 minutes from home, so going home was not a good option with everything unknown). Even after they gave me morphine so I was not particularly competent to sit in the waiting room where they parked me, let alone ask or answer questions.
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I texted my sister and got clarification and it was as bad as I thought, for some of the time: âIn 2020 it was only 1 parent for the whole stay, then we went back to both parents. For Omicron it was 1 parent at a time, now they can visit together againâ
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That sounds awful. Iâm sorry.
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Pretty sure it was harder on him than on me, especially after the morphine! But itâs a good thing they took good care of me, because I was in no shape to advocate for myself.
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See and these are some of the areas that Iâm not sure the data supports the cost to patients. If parents share a household, is there that much difference in exposure risk whether dad and mom are both there? But I guarantee thereâs a difference in trauma processing for the parents. Idk man.
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Our city already lifted our mask mandates. Highest rate inthe state. -_-