Rooming-In: Creating a Better Experience

There are both pros and cons to the practice of rooming-in in the hospital after birth. One concern with rooming-in is the impact this experience has on postpartum mothers. Although rooming-in has many benefits, a challenge that mothers face in the early postpartum period is balancing the needs of their newborns while getting adequate rest. To explore this further, semistructured interviews were conducted with 25 postpartum mothers during their hospital stay. The results revealed how postpartum mothers perceived their sleep quality, rooming-in experience, and overall satisfaction. The majority (60%) of the postpartum mothers in this study had a positive rooming-in experience. Nevertheless, many factors were identified as contributors to poor sleep quality as well as positive and negative rooming-in experiences.