# Signing baby out AMA?



## bama (May 16, 2006)

has anyone ever done this? I am having my third LO at a local hospital,that "doesn't allow" you to leave before 48 hours. My OB is cool with ME leaving, but says they may make the baby stay. I had a friend who had Child Services threatened on her when she delivered in the same hospital. Do you think these threats have any merit? FWIW, my Lo may be a 36 weeker, just like his brothers. LO2 was signed out with our pediatrician's blessings at 36 hours post birth, but he doesn't have priviledges at this hospital.


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## Ahimsa (Apr 7, 2004)

My 2nd birth was a birth center transfer to the hospital. I left with 6 hours after the birth. I wanted to get home ASAP, and be with my baby in my space. I did have to sign releases for the hospital, but the CNMs were fine with it. I had a normal, complication free, drug free, labor and delivery (I had to transfer for high blood pressure, but it ended up going down.) Can you birth at the hospital that your Dr has privileges at? My CNMs had a decent relationship with the hospital.


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## PlayaMama (Apr 1, 2007)

is there a compelling reason you want to leave? my most peaceful time with my dd was at the hospital because it was just her and i in the room getting to know each other.

i love my family but to was nice to have her all to myself AND be there 100% for her without the distractions of other children.


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## bama (May 16, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *PlayaMama* 
is there a compelling reason you want to leave? my most peaceful time with my dd was at the hospital because it was just her and i in the room getting to know each other.

i love my family but to was nice to have her all to myself AND be there 100% for her without the distractions of other children.

Well, for one, I have no one to watch my other two other than my dh. So I would be all alone in an uncomfortable hospital bed. With my second one, we didn't exactly have a lot of visitors. And two, I just think its annoying. They want to come get the baby every little bit, check me every little bit, stuff like that. They act like my 36 week 7lb babies are some kind of liability or something.


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## maritimemum (Aug 19, 2009)

we signed out ama after our transfer due to pprom at 36 weeks... we signed out ama 4.5 hours after delivery... we have had no issues and ds is 4.5 months old...


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## caned & able (Dec 8, 2005)

Someone posted a long time ago the incident of a mother wanting to sign out her newborn and herself soon after delivery; she insisted and was given a form for the disposal of a dead infant to sign in order to leave with her child. She signed it and left. This was in a small rural hospital. Imagine what a big metropolitan medical center would do.

Yes, the hospital can and do keep the infant and call CPS. They do it all of the time.


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## guestmama9973 (Apr 11, 2009)

There is nothing CPS can do unless your child is ill. There is no law anywhere stating a baby must stay a certain period of time. It's all about profit. The longer they can charge you for the "care" of your baby, the better for them. I'd like to see hospital staff tried to keep someone's child. I'm a nursing student BTW...


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## jecombs (Mar 6, 2008)

You might want to try posting this in FYT to get stories from Mamas in your area. I'm a social worker and pretty familiar with how CPS works in my area, but it may be different for you.

FWIW, in my area if a report like that was made it would probably not even be investigated as long as the baby was healthy upon discharge from the hospital and Mom had plans to follow-up with family doc/ped a few days later. CPS around here just has more cases of true child abuse and neglect than they can handle right now (especially with budget cuts), to waste time with reports like that. If if the report were investigated, like pp said, there is nothing illegal about taking your healthy infant home from the hospital. But you would have to be prepared to explain that to a social worker.

You need to weigh-out the pros and cons of this situation and decide if it is worth possible investigation by CPS to take your child home a day earlier than the hospital wants you to.


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## Smithie (Dec 4, 2003)

What stopped me from signing the baby out AMA was a nurse who told me that there have been issues with insurance companies refusing to pay the baby's bill if the mom had signed them out AMA. I have no idea if this is true, but since the time limit at this place was only 24 hours I decided it wasn't worth even the risk of a hassle.


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## RedOakMomma (Sep 30, 2004)

I have also heard of insurance companies refusing payment on AMA hospital stays. If you plan on leaving the hospital early, it may be worth it to contact your insurance provider and know (in writing?) their policy on payments when a patient leaves AMA.


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## laohaire (Nov 2, 2005)

If I understand correctly - and this is just what I've heard/understood, no more - the insurance issue on AMA is IF you sign out AMA AND the baby needs to be readmitted. Then the readmission might not be covered.

In reasonable terms, this would mean that if baby had a complication, parents sign baby out AMA, then return with complications worse that could have been prevented, then the insurance doesn't have to cover those costs since they would have been less if the baby had stayed.

A PP said that there's nothing anyone can do if the baby is healthy. Unfortunately I can all too easily envision a healthy baby suddenly being pronounced unhealthy the minute the parents start squeaking about AMA release. We all know that babies whose only "complication" was to be born at home (especially unassisted) may be pronounced septic, removed to the NICU, fed formula and sugar water, be given antibiotics and have a heel stick every 2 hours for a week.

This is such a hard topic for me to come to a position on, because honestly I do want all children to be well cared for, and it kills me to think of the children who need medical care (even by my own anti-Western medicine standards) but don't get it. But at the same time, I obviously don't agree with all standards of medical care, and I know full well that sometimes the need for it is invented by doctors wanting to punish us.


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## KGB (Jan 30, 2010)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Smithie* 
there have been issues with insurance companies refusing to pay the baby's bill if the mom had signed them out AMA.

That seems contradictory to the way insurance companies seem to work. You'd think that they would jump at the chance to not have to cover an extra day at the hospital. Why would they want to incur more costs by requiring that mothers stay longer?


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## GOPLawyer (Mar 21, 2005)

I've heard lots of people talk about insurance companies possibly not paying if someone leaves AMA but I've never heard any 1st hand experiences of this happening.

Does anyone know of an actual occurrence?


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## AlexisT (May 6, 2007)

I believe it was posted here that they won't refuse to pay for the stay, but they will refuse to pay for any treatment that's a consequence of leaving early.


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## nia82 (May 6, 2008)

DS was admitted to a hospital at 3 weeks due to a minor fever. We wanted to go home and didn't want to do gentamycin, they got hostile immediately and said insurance doesn't cover stays that where left AMA. We were worried, so we stayed, but without abxs. DH talked to the doctor (on call) until he would release us. Took 48 hours! I don't know how much truth there is to this, but we certainly didn't want to sit on a big bill...

I would have loved to go home after birth, but we were kept for DS's jaundice, 4 days after birth. I hated the hospital, it feels so dirty. Luckily we had a great nurse and great ICBLCs who made the stay better.


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## Aka mommy (Feb 25, 2005)

Can you interview the ped's who are on call at that hossy? If you prepare then with your desires, you may be able to find one who will check the baby out asap.

We were going to sign out AMA with our first, we were the 13th family to have a baby and there were only 12 delivery and recovery rooms. They tried to force us to go to the pediatrics area with our newborn. I was NOT doing that and was adamant after poor treatment to get the heck out of there. Thankfully, my OB did one thing right out of all the crap that went down. She asked if we'd like instead to leave early as she was willing to sign me out. I said absolutely and she found the pediatrician and he looked over our dd and signed us out, she was 12 hours old. We would have done it AMA if need be, but the OB and ped were willing to work with us. It saved a lot of headaches and the staff was much more compliant with helping to get us out.

The only issues we ran into was a hiccup with filling out the birth certificate paperwork. We were still in the delivery ward (the first couple ever in the history of the hossy to sign out of delivery lol) and they were unsure how to complete the BC paperwork. Usually the post partum/recovery nurses handled it. So it took 2 extra hours to deal with the paperwork hassle. Looking back, i would have asked for that paperwork as soon as dd was crowning.


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## caned & able (Dec 8, 2005)

Quote:

it would probably not even be investigated as long as the baby was healthy upon discharge from the hospital and Mom had plans to follow-up with family doc/ped a few days later.
Many years ago, my aunt took my cousin home AMA when he was born and while she was in the paediatrician's office waiting room when the hospital *AND* CPS social workers called to make sure that the baby was getting medical attention.

My cousin was healthy, he just had a case of mild neonatal jaundice from the vitamin K shot the hospital gave him. He was a c/sec baby and did not have rough treatment, bruises or any other problems.

The paediatrician just laughed and said that it is such a sad state of affairs when the hospital and CPI collude to make things unpleasant for a new mother.


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## macha10 (Jul 15, 2008)

The hospital did in fact call CPS on us for threatening to sign the baby out AMA (they said we did sign DS out AMA, but we didn't end up doing so), signing myself out AMA, and the fact they knew we were going to co-sleep. CPS showed up at my house 3-4 days after the birth. Even though the claims were found "unsubstantiated", it was a very embarrassing and traumatic event, at a time when I did not need any emotional distress. I still have trouble getting over it 18 months later. #1 reason I will be having a home birth next time. I know that this doesn't always happen, but just to warn you, it could.


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## dannic (Jun 14, 2005)

My dd was born en route to fsbc, amby took us to hosp. and they hyped up "unsterile" environment on us (pretty sure I'm used to whatever germies I've got in my truck vs their hospital!) and said I could check out but they couldn't let baby leave without a ped. before 24 hrs. and that it was hospital policy/regulations to call cps if one were to check baby out ama. We stayed for nine hrs under duress. Finally convinced the ped to let us go if we brought dd into his office the next day--hey he was getting another sure-thing customer right? (at least for one visit)







It was a very traumatic experience and a big reason for our HBing.


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## sioleabha (Jun 9, 2006)

I would be wary of having CPS called because one pediatrician did in fact call CPS on us when I refused an unnecessary x-ray on my 3 month old. CPS only required us to get a second opinion, and our *new* pediatrician's opinion was that the old pediatrician was a jerk, but still.

I would think it would be better to find a ped at the hospital who will be willing to sign your baby out early. Call around to peds who work there, explain your childcare situation and just ask, "If my child is healthy and there is no medical reason to stay in the hospital, would you sign us out early?"


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