"Separated from baby"

After over a week at KEMH enduring a very long, 3-day inducement and labour, infection, an unplanned cesarean, a full resuscitation of baby upon birth & a very painful and emotional postnatal experience with baby in NICU for several days, I was finally free to go home.

I have suffered from anxiety for quite some time and felt exhausted and overwhelmed with my experience & lack of time spent with my newborn.

My C-section scar became infected upon removal of the second dressing by my midwife just a couple of days after being discharged. I returned to the Emergency Department to have it looked at. As my blood pressure had risen due to, I believe, pain and stress, I was re-admitted into hospital.

I was told that my 9-day old baby could stay with me in the room as a "boarder", meaning they would be solely under my care without hospital assistance. As I had been given several medications, & we had not prepared for a hospital stay, we decided it would be best for baby to stay with dad for the night & stay with me the following day when he returned during the visiting hour with all of baby's things.

The next morning, we were told that baby could not enter the building as due to COVID, "no children under the age of 16 are permitted into the hospital".

I understand this rule for aged children, but not for a now 10-day old baby who had just been discharged from this exact hospital days beforehand.

I cannot believe the hospital made no exceptions to allow for a mother to see her newborn, for the length of her stay; in the hospital the baby was born in just days beforehand. My blood pressure remained high, as you would expect from a mother being separated from her 10-day old baby, and I had to completely shut down mentally & emotionally or I believe I would have had a major anxiety/panic attack.

I felt the midwives were very kind to me & passed on my requests to reconsider as best they could, & I will be forever grateful to them for this. But I believe the hospital management showed no compassion or care for my wellbeing or the wellbeing of my child. I believe my baby was in absolute distress at home with dad the entire night & day and the hospital tried to convince me to stay an additional night due to inconsistent results.

Being put in a situation where you have to choose between your physical health or the health and mental wellbeing of you & your newborn is one of the scariest decisions I have had to make. I hope that no more mothers will ever have to endure this & am very disappointed with what I felt was the hospital's lack of concern for mum & newborn bonding.