If it takes a village to raise a child, what do you do when there's no village available? You could call a nurse. Several nurse entrepreneurs in Georgia have discovered a ready market for the wisdom they have learned on the job as health care workers and as moms.
Grandmothers on Call is a phone consulting service for new parents that was founded by three Atlanta nurses who have more than 70 years of pediatric nursing, eight children and 14 grandchildren between them. Nancy McGinty, RN, BS, of Ellijay, works in the newborn nursery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Deanna N. McFarlan, RN, of Decatur, is an office manager/ pediatric nurse in a pediatrician's office. Chris Cox, RN, of Peachtree City, is a maternal/childcare nurse and lactation counselor with Kaiser Permanente.
Sixty years ago, most new moms would stay in the hospital for up to a week and then go home to an extended family of mothers, grandmothers and aunts with experience caring for babies, McGinty explained. Today, new mothers often go home the day after giving birth and have no friends or family nearby to answer their many questions about caring for a baby.
"Working in the nursery, many new parents would beg for my number, particularly if they had no support system in town," McGinty said. "We saw a need for practical advice and common sense counseling that we could fill."
For a weekly fee of $10, parents sign up and can call the service any time from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 404-754- 3625.
"We don't answer medical questions; we refer those to a pediatrician," McGinty said, "but new parents have many concerns and questions about their babies, who develop along predictable patterns but with many variables."
The nurses get a variety of questions including, "My baby is sneezing today. Is he getting sick?" "He just nursed, but he wants to eat again. How do I know if he got enough milk?" "Why is she waking every two hours when she's not hungry?"
"We can walk a parent through taking an infant's temperature or suggest little things we've learned along the way for calming a fussy baby," McGinty said. "We treat every question with respect and confidentiality. Parents who are tired and uncertain have lots of nagging questions they don't think are important enough for a call to their pediatrician.
"They need some reassurance and, as nurses and mothers, we can speak with authority, compassion and a lot of experience."
Lullaby and good night
In Valdosta, Rebecca Green, RN, BSN, MSN, a neonatal
intensive-care nurse, has pinpointed another area
where new parents could use some expert advice.
She launched Bedtime for Baby, a consulting business
to help parents establish healthy sleep patterns for their
children, ages newborn to 5.
"There's no greater gift that a parent can give than healthy lifelong sleep habits," Green said. She estimates that up to 75 percent of families with young children struggle to establish good bedtime routines. "A child's sleeping habits affect not only the child, but the entire family," she said. "When parents are working outside the home and a child is up until 10 p.m. every night, the parents don't have any time for one another."
Worn out from bedtime wars, tired parents often perform less effectively on the job and have less energy to give to their marriage. When a child doesn't get enough sleep and has to get up early for school, the problems can escalate
.Working as a neonatal intensive-care nurse, Green saw first-hand how establishing strict routines was a benefit to infants.
"It's not unkind to insist on bedtime. It's a blessing," she said. "From the moment we came home with our son, we started a routine of quiet time, warm bath, story and a bottle. Now that he's 8, it's a snack and he reads to us, but it's still a wonderful family time. He actually looks forward to going to bed."
The service includes a home visit, an environmental assessment, an individualized care plan and unlimited telephone follow-up.
"The techniques are grounded in research and experience. They can be widely modified based on a particular child's and family's needs and lifestyles - and they do work," Green said.