Ochsner Health is a system that delivers health to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf South with a mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate.
Labor & Delivery Resources
The staff at Ochsner makes you feel right at home during your delivery.
Learn About our Birthing Options and Newborn Care
Check out these videos and articles as you prepare for delivery.
What to Pack for Your Stay
There’s no telling when your baby may arrive, so it’s a good idea to have a hospital bag packed by week 35. Keep it in the car you’ll be travelling to the hospital in, or in the hallway ready to grab on your way out. Please expect to stay at the hospital for 1-2 nights for a vaginal birth and 2-4 nights for a C-section birth.
Check out our detailed packing guide here.
Rooming-In with Your Support Person
Ochsner encourages and supports 24-hour rooming-in for newborns. With rooming-in, you will enjoy the opportunity to keep your baby with you throughout your entire hospital stay. This will allow you to bond with and get to know your baby better.
To facilitate rooming-in new moms need a support person to stay with them throughout their hospital stay. Preferably, this is the same support person you will rely on once you are discharged so that we can educate you both on the care of you and baby after discharge. This person should be able and willing to assist you with the following:
- Care of the baby, including: assistance with feedings, recording feeding times, diaper changes, watching baby when you are not in the room or handing you the baby if you are unable to get to the crib after surgery (such as C-sections)
- Walking (whether to the bathroom or in the hall)
- Lending emotional support when needed
Our experts will assist you throughout your stay to ensure you and your baby’s safety. If you have any concerns about having a support person available during your stay, please talk with your care team.
Safety and Security During Your Stay
Your designated support person is the ONLY person allowed to stay with you overnight. Children other than the newborn baby are not allowed to stay overnight in the hospital.
During your stay, you, your baby and your support person will be provided with caregiver bracelets. All of these bracelets will share a unique ID number and will be checked every time the baby comes back to the room to ensure the safety of your newborn.
Additionally, your baby will wear an infant security band on one of his or her ankles*.This band sends location information to our security monitoring system and will sound an alarm if it is removed or is brought too close to an exit.
During your stay, all visitors will need to check in upon arrival. At Ochsner Baptist, visitors will be provided with a personalized visitor’s pass that is valid for 24 hours from the visitor check in kiosk.
*Caregiver/baby ID bands are used in place of infant ankle monitoring bands at Ochsner St. Anne Hospital.
Food and Dining
Your care team will provide details on what you should be eating and when, but dining options are available at every Ochsner campus. Find information about your campus’s dining options at the following links: Ochsner Baptist, Ochsner Medical Center – Baton Rouge, Ochsner Medical Center – Kenner, Ochsner Medical Center - West Bank, and Ochsner Medical Center – St. Anne.
Complimentary meal trays are not provided for visitors, including your support person. However, visitors may order trays to be delivered to your room for a fee of $7 cash. Our dietary staff does not carry cash and must retrieve change later in the day, so please bring exact change or plan accordingly. Please order additional trays at the same time the patient’s order is placed.
Magical First Hour After Birth
In your baby’s first hour after birth, they will go through nine instinctive stages:
- The Birth Cry: this distinctive cry occurs immediately after birth, as baby takes the first breath of air.
- Relaxation: baby lies still, skin-to-skin, listening to mother’s heartbeat
- Awakening: baby opens eyes and sees mother for the first time
- Activity: baby starts to move hands, shoulders and mouth
- Rest: at any point, baby may rest
- Crawling: baby starts to make way to mother’s breast
- Familiarization: baby gets to know mother’s breast
- Suckling: baby’s first experience learning to breastfeed
- Sleep: baby and mom often fall asleep after this time together
Skin-to-Skin
Skin-to-Skin care immediately after your baby’s birth helps your baby adjust to the outside world in many ways. Skin-to-Skin care helps babies:
- Feel calmer and less stressed
- Breathe easier, improving oxygen levels
- Calm their heart rate to a normal level
- Warm up to the ideal temperature
- Have more stable blood sugar levels
- Sleep better and longer
- Stimulate their brain development
- Experience bonding with their parents
- Become more eager and ready to breastfeed
Quiet Time at Ochsner
Our Labor and Delivery units set aside two hours in the afternoon as quiet time, a period when lights are dimmed, to give new moms and their support person time to sleep and bond with their baby while utilizing skin-to-skin contact. During this time, hospital personnel will only enter your room at your request.
What to expect:
- Your nurse will check-in with you between 1:30-2:00pm. She will provide any pain management and assist with skin-to-skin set up with your baby. Physicians will only check-in during quiet time if necessary
- Your nurse will turn down the lights in your room and turn televisions off
- Our staff will escort all visitors out of the unit, with the exception of your support person. Visitors that arrive during quiet time will be asked to wait in the waiting room until quiet time is complete
- Our staff will turn down lights in the hallways
- Signage will be placed around the unit, alerting visitors that quiet time is taking place
- Dietary will pick up trays prior to 2pm. If deliveries are made during this time, they will be done quietly
- Lab services may still be done during quiet time but will be done as quietly as possible
- Patient escort will be available during quiet time if needed.
