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Hospital worker explains why parents pay to hold their newborns

By Cox Media Group National Content Desk and Brianna Chambers
By Cox Media Group National Content Desk and Brianna Chambers

TORONTO, Ontario — A Reddit post recently went viral when a man claimed that he and his wife were charged $39.35 to "hold (their) baby after he was born."

The charge was listed as "skin to skin after c sec," or skin to skin contact between the woman and her newborn son after the she underwent a caesarean section.

"During the C-section, the nurse asked my wife if she would like to do skin to skin after the baby was born. Which of course anyone would say yes to. We just noticed it in the bill today," the Reddit user, Ryan Grassley, wrote on the social media site. 
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Days after the post went viral, a Canadian doula wrote a message on Facebook explaining the charge. A doula is a woman who is trained to assist another woman during childbirth and who may provide support to the family after the baby is born.

"During a caesarean, many people become shaky, nauseous, uncomfortable, even faint. These are normal physiological reactions. In order to facilitate skin to skin in the OR, an extra nurse needs to be available to assist," Meaghan Grant wrote. "And before people scream that 'there's a nurse for the baby,' there is, but that nurse has other responsibilities in the OR. They aren't either holding the baby or twiddling their thumbs. So yes, an extra nurse is needed."

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Grant, who said she works on an advisory board at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, said nurses are often hospitals' "biggest budget item" and "their time and their presence ... should be valued."

Instead of "screaming about the big, bad, awful hospital system," Grant urged people to shift their focus.
"Let's (acknowledge) that this hospital is doing skin to skin in the OR! That's amazing! We should be celebrating that," she wrote.

One Reddit user who claimed to be a nurse first explained the charge, commenting on Grassley's post saying: "I didn't know that hospitals charged for it, but doing 'skin to skin' in the operating room requires an additional staff member to be present just to watch the baby. We used to take all babies to the nursery once the NICU team made sure everything was OK. 'Skin to skin' in the OR is a relatively new thing and requires a second labor and delivery RN to come into the OR and make sure the baby is safe."

A representative at Sunnybrook confirmed Grant's post, telling The Huffington Post, that "In the case of a C-section, where the bedside caregiver is occupied caring for the mother during surgery, an additional nurse is brought into the OR to allow the infant to remain in the OR suite with the mother."

Some Facebook users thanked Grant for explaining the charge, while others maintained their belief that it is "ludicrous."
"I'm guessing since the nurse is already at work, she's already being paid and that has already been figured into the hospitals budget. So why they need to charge people for that, no clue," one Facebook user wrote.
"It's not really about disrespecting the nurses in the hospital nor ignoring safety - it's that hospitals in the US are full of exorbitant costs and nurses aren't paid nearly enough in many cases," another commented.

Today an image went viral. This picture was of a hospital bill. On that bill was a line item for "skin to skin after...

Posted by Meaghan Grant on Tuesday, October 4, 2016

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