Baby Beta

Consistently named the region’s “Best Place to Have a Baby,” Erlanger East Hospital offers family-centered childbirth for babies at 32-weeks gestation and later. Seventeen spacious and beautifully decorated birthing suites – considerably larger than traditional hospital rooms – allow families to experience their baby’s birth together, and 24 recently renovated post-partum rooms are designed to allow families to bond in a quiet, home-like environment. We also offer a newly expanded neonatal intensive care unit for premature and at-risk babies.

🎥 VIRTUAL TOUR 🎥

Highlights:

• 17 spacious, beautifully decorated birthing suites provide a comfortable, home-like birthing environment
• 24 recently renovated post-partum rooms
• Newly expanded neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)
• The latest technology in fetal monitoring
• Scheduled and unscheduled C-sections in state-of-the-art operating rooms
• State-of-the-art infant security system
• Special accommodations including TV/DVD player, rocking chair, sleeping accommodations for a member of the family and bathrooms with sit-down showers with a shower massage

(Source: https://www.erlanger.org/erlanger-east-hospital/east-services/womens-services-at-erlanger-east)

When you first show up at Erlanger East, you’ll need to check in with the front desk. Ideally you’ve already visited the hospital previously to fill out all required paperwork (DO IT! and get a tour while you’re at it!), in which case they’ll be able to quickly send you upstairs to the 2nd floor Labor & Delivery unit. The nurses will take just momma back to a triage room where they will have you put on a gown, pee in a cup, and will ask you some assessment questions. Once they’ve ascertained that you feel safe with your partner and done a quick domestic violence assessment, they will be allowed to join you.

The nurse will check your dilation. You want to be around 6-7cm dilated. If you are much less than this, depending on your health and the health of your baby, room availability, etc they might send you home to continue laboring for a bit longer. They’ll also do a nonstress test (the one that checks baby’s heartrate and your contractions) for ~20ish minutes.

If they determine you are ready to go, they’ll escort you to your labor and delivery room (aka “birthing suite,” see image below of one of these rooms, but each one is a little different). Make yourself at home, because you’ll be in this room until baby comes, unless additional medical intervention is necessary like a C-section. You will have access to a shower, couch, hospital bed, etc.

After baby has popped out, if everyone is healthy and things go smoothly, they can do all check-ups and things in the room with you. As soon as possible, they will give you your baby to have the first breastfeeding sesh. After this, you’ll get wheeled downstairs to the Postpartum unit, where you’ll stay until discharged to go home.

This is the time for momma to recover a bit from their experience with the 24/7 support of nurses and lactation consultants. Depending on your birth (e.g. vaginal vs. c-section) and the health of mom and baby, they will suggest that you stay for 2-4+ days.

Each room has:

• Large private bathroom with sink + shower
• Couch (that converts into a bed)
• Mini fridge
• Small counter area with a sink
• Adjustable hospital bed
• Television
• A dry erase board that lists who is currently on shift and how to reach them:

There are two shifts, AM & PM. I believe shift change happened at 8am and 8pm(?). For each shift, you’ll have a primary nurse and a tech who are assigned to you. I believe each of these nurse/tech teams is responsible for a crew of up to 8 rooms (24 rooms, so potentially 3 different teams depending on how full the unit is at the time). These are the main people you will see during your visit, aside from a lactation consultant who works with all moms as needed. Your nurse/tech team will check on you and baby every 2-4 hours or so, taking both of your vitals to make sure everything is going okay. Other visitors might include your pediatrician, an Erlanger photographer (who wants to tell you all about their sweet deal of only $50 per photo lol), cleaning staff, hospital admin staff to get paperwork signed, somebody who randomly comes by with a free snack cart, and your OBGYN/midwife. If they ask to bring a student observer into your room, you have the right to say no thanks.

Your hospital bed will be adjustable to get as comfy as possible, switching between sitting and laying down. It has an attached remote control with a button you can press 24/7 to call the nurse station and ask for whatever you need. This remote also controls the TV.

Other furniture in the room includes a TV tray on wheels, a chair, two trash bins (one for dirty laundry, one for all other trash), a privacy curtain, a couch that converts into a bed that Drexel gives a 2/10 for comfort, and a baby bassinet on wheels.

Something you might notice being absent from this list is any kind of storage or kitchen items. There is a “kitchen” that’s more like a break room down the hall that you are allowed to access that has a fridge full of sodas & juice that you can grab, a microwave, and a coffee machine. You will find a menu in your room. Momma can order free breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the cafeteria if they want, and anyone else like their partner will need to provide a credit card # to pay for their own food. (FYI the food sucks, but we’ll get to that later…)

As you can see in the image below, there is a privacy curtain you can pull closed to prevent visitors (e.g. room cleaner) from opening the door and immediately seeing your boobies that will inevitably be out. This is a nice way to create a little barrier between you and the outside world. You can also request a “do not disturb” sign to be put on your door to stop the flood of visitors if you are needing to chill/nap.

There are the basic items that everyone talks about for go-bags (e.g. toiletries, extra clothes, etc), but beyond those, here are some things that may make your hospital visit at Erlanger East a bit nicer. While the term “go-bag” is used, you can throw a whole bunch of stuff in your car for “just in case” and just grab whatever you might want whenever you want it.

*Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I am using affiliate links below so I’ll make a tiny bit of $$$ (3-4%) if you purchase anything using these links. I’m not planning to get rich off this, but figured this might be a way to partially cover a tiny bit of the website hosting costs that are otherwise just out of pocket for me. I’ll only link to items I have personally used before. Some items I already had so there are no links.*

• Travel mug with flexible straw | $30 – $40 | Get it on Amazon (Hydroflask) or Get it on Amazon (Miir)
  • This was the MOST IMPORTANT item I had. Really any sealed drink container with a flexible straw would do, but when you’re lying down in a hospital bed, the last thing you want is to spill liquid all over yourself like a messy little baby. I know some people use a Camelbak, but those are hard to clean if you want to drink anything except water. You NEED to stay hydrated. Make it easy on yourself and get something like this.
• Battery-powered fairy lights | $6.99 | Get it on Amazon
  • Provides a really nice amount of calm lighting so you can turn off all those ugly flourescents. Battery powered is nice so you don’t have to worry about proximity to an outlet. I left this on all night long while we slept so I still had enough dim light to keep an eye on baby.
• Dimmable lamp with USB ports | $19.99 | Get it on Amazon
  • Sometimes you want a little bit more light, but still want to avoid those terrible flourescents. This lamp plugs in, but then all you have to do it touch it to cycle through 3 different levels of brightness (awesome if you can’t/don’t want to get out of bed). It also has 2 USB charging ports, which makes it easy to keep your phone charged and close by.
• Nightlight | $8 | Get it on Amazon
  • Good to have a motion-sensor light in the bathroom to avoid needing to turn on a bright light when you inevitably need to pee at 3am.
• Frida underwear | $13 – $16 | Get it on Amazon
  • The hospital will provide you mesh underwear. It’s fine, but super loose and low-cut, and I found that when I would scootch my butt back in the hospital bed, it would basically slip off my butt completely. These disposable undies are a lot more comfy and will stay put.
• Overnight pads | $8 | Get it on Amazon
  • Again, the hospital will provide you some massive diaper-esque pads, but they felt a little overboard. I ended up using just regular overnight feminine pads inside the Frida underwear for the first week or so, and then transitioning to just using pantiliners in the Frida underwear.
• Pantiliners | $3 | Get it on Amazon
• Eye mask | $10 | Get it on Amazon
  • Super helpful to block out light if you’re trying to sleep during the day. I bought this particular eye mask a long time ago on a recommendation from a friend, and I’ll never go back. I love how soft and squishy it is, and there are hollow areas to avoid putting any pressure on your eyes so you forget you’re even wearing it.
• Plastic 3-drawer storage cart | $40 | Get it on Amazon
  • I did not have this, and I wish I did. There is nowhere to store all your stuff in the hospital room, so we just ended up with a chaotic pile of all our crap on the floor. Having something like this, or any kind of bin organization, would have been nice to keep our stuff and all the paperwork we received a little more tidy and easy to find, plus provide another table surface for putting things on.
• White noise machine | $20 | Get it on Amazon
  • This is the kind of white noise machine therapists use. If you have a hard time sleeping and like white noise, this is super handy to have.
• Battery powered stroller fan | $13 | Get it on Amazon
  • This was recommended to have for baby’s stroller, but I got extra use out of it by bringing it to the hospital. One of the weird symptoms they don’t tell you about postpartum is night sweats. Having a clip-on battery-powered fan that clamped onto the hospital bed or bedside table helped alleviate some of that ickiness.
• Electric power strip
  • Make the most of your limited outlets and also provides a bit of cord extension
• Memory foam chair pad | $25 | Get it on Amazon
  • I was super uncomfortable sitting in the one super hard seat in the room. I wish I had brought this chair pad, which I ended up buying once I got home to make sitting down a little easier.
• Yoga ball
  • You might only have one chair in the room. If you enjoy sitting on a yoga ball, it can’
• Sleeping bag & pillow
  • For partner to stay comfy on the couch — the hospital pillows are not what you want…
• Brita water filter pitcher | $16 | Get it on Amazon
  • If you’re super snobby like me about drinking filtered water, you might want to bring a water filter pitcher. I didn’t bring one and had to add juice to flavor my water to make it more palatable.
• All the snacks!!
  • Things high in protein and easy to digest like greek yogurt, Perfect bars, etc. You’ll have a mini-fridge to store things. There aren’t any good healthy snacks available for sale at the hospital, so you’ll need to bring your own. Luckily, you are only ~5 minutes from Trader Joe’s if you need to restock!

Have anything else to add? Put it in the comments or reach out at hellobabybeta@gmail.com to let me know.

As I mentioned, there is a special postpartum menu at Erlanger East that you can order from. I’ll share it below.

Be warned this is very much cafeteria-style food. For example, the eggs taste like they are from a bag, the pancakes were frozen for maybe too long because they tasted a little plastic-y. Drexel had a chicken sandwich with french fries once. As I’m typing this, I asked him to rate the quality of the sandwich, and he said this verbatim: “Boo, the food is AWFUL. All I’m gonna say is, worst french fries I’ve ever had in my life.”

The upside is that it’s free, so if you’re okay with canned fruit, that’s always a safe option. We didn’t try everything, so maybe there are some good options hidden in here. Like how badly can you f*ck up a bagel? Idk, someone find out and let me know. 😛

Luckily you are right off Gunbarrel Rd and surrounded by a ton of food options. We ended up enjoying Panera two nights in a row because you can order online and then just drive a few minutes to pick it up. Their soups and smoothies felt really good on an upset tummy, but there is so much personal preference with food that I won’t say anything else.