#55 Our Dream Bundle Birthed Unit

Justine:
Hi, I’m Justine.

Sarah Lavonne:
And I’m Sarah Lavonne.

Justine:
And we are so glad you’re here.

Sarah Lavonne:
We believe that your life has the potential to make a deep, meaningful impact on the world around you. You as a nurse have the ability to add value to every single person and patient you touch.

Justine:
We want to inspire you with resources, education, and stories to support you to live your absolute best life, both in and outside of work.

Sarah Lavonne:
But don’t expect perfection over here, we’re just here to have some conversations about anything birth, work, and life, trying to add some happy to your hour as we all grow together.

Justine:
By Nurses, for Nurses, this is Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses.

Sarah Lavonne:
It is the last episode of season three. We really can’t believe that we’re here. It’s so funny, again, we’ve said we don’t even realize we have a podcast, but we’ve made it through three seasons and so we were trying to plan for how do we end this season in a fun way and also like a dreamy way because we’re very hopeful around here and we want to inspire you towards hope. So what we’re going to do today is really fun and I hope you find it really fun and inspirational for little baby changes that could happen on your unit to set everyone up for success.

So we are going to dream up a bundle birthed unit. If we could design from scratch, what would it look like? How would the structure be? And I’m going to infuse some research because there’s been a lot of research on what families want, and we also know that the mood and the environment really does set the patient up for “success” with because success means whatever the birth outcome is, physiologic birth, their ability to cope, to down regulate their nervous system, avoiding trauma, helping us walk into an environment also more regulated. I think we potentially underestimate the power of our environment to influence our lives.

I’m currently sitting in my house right now recording this episode and I am surrounded by plants. I’ve become a plant lady and I think about when I walk into my house and there are actual grow lights. There’s something about a grow light for you and your life. People walk into my house and they’re like, “Oh my God, it feels so good. And I’m like, “It’s the plants and it’s the grow lights.”

Justine:
I agree.

Sarah Lavonne:
It’s the actual life energy, and when the lights go off in my house, it’s like, “Oh, my body feels different.” So I walk into my house, I’m like, “Oh, I love my environment.” And I’ve set up a world in which I can escape from the stressors of life, and that’s how it should feel when they’re laboring. They shouldn’t be stressed by their environment. They should be feeling really good about it.

My best friend when she gave birth, shout out to Hogue Irvine, and she was like six to seven centimeters at home. Don’t ask me how we knew that. And she was like trying to wait for eight and she was like, “No, I think I just want to go in. I just want to go in and labor there.” And in my head I’m thinking why would you want to do that? We have the vibe. It’s so nice here. There’s candles, little lights like let’s get in the shower, blah, blah, blah. Mind you, she was going pretty quickly and so I’m glad we went when we did, but when we got there, I was like, “Oh, I see why you want to be here.” They’d blown up the tub for her. There was space lights in the room. It was totally a vibe that they’d set for her, and I was like, “Oh, okay. Yes, we want to labor here.”

And that’s how we ideally would want it to feel. I know that’s not the reality for most of us, but there’s some little tweaks that we can do along the way. I hope you feel inspired by this episode.

Justine:
We haven’t talked about it either, so I’m curious how we’ll differ.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
I will say some things that come to my mind sometimes, I’m like that was the silliest thing you could have thought of, but I was thinking about the waiting room and I was like … My first thought was carpet that I wanted carpet. I don’t know why.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh.

Justine:
I know because I think well, first of all, I’m like, they’re ruptured, they’re bleeding. What am I doing?

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, yeah.

Justine:
Right? But I think when I think about going into bedrooms that have carpet, it always is so nice on my feet. I think I miss carpet though. My house doesn’t have any carpet.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, same.

Justine:
So I just miss it. I nixed that idea immediately. Just so you know, when you’re brainstorming ideas, it’s okay to just make up the ones that come to your brain.

Sarah Lavonne:
That’s really funny. I envision hardwood floors for the sake of safety and wipe ability. Let’s start with the triage process. So they walk in and what do we see in the environment?

Justine:
Smiling faces.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yep.

Justine:
Nice lighting.

Sarah Lavonne:
Mm-hmm.

Justine:
Not hospital lighting. Good decor, just like not cheap.

Sarah Lavonne:
Neutrals.

Justine:
Not …

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh my God. I’m like, there’s so many cute places in LA. In fact, there’s like an office space I need to send you that is so stunning. Oh my god. Wood features or I hear water. There’s a water feature in the corner.

Justine:
Yeah, like a water wall.

Sarah Lavonne:
Like a water wall, nut no cheesy vinyl chairs. Comfy chairs.

Justine:
But I understand the need for plastic because infection.

Sarah Lavonne:
That’s fine, but I want it to look chic. Chic and trendy and calming, and maybe there’s spa music and it smells lavender and maybe there’s a TV going with little tips to down regulate their nervous system. While you’re waiting here, take a deep breath in. Let’s breathe together. See everyone in the waiting area watching it, breathing with me …

Justine:
Totally. I love it.

Sarah Lavonne:
Expand your lungs.

Justine:
There’s a little cucumber water station.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh my gosh, cute.

Justine:
Yes.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yes, I love it. And with a snack sign that says, “If you’re here for a scheduled C-section, please don’t touch this station.”

Justine:
No, totally like people that should eat and people that …

Sarah Lavonne:
Yes.

Justine:
Be informed.

Sarah Lavonne:
I don’t want to give away business ideas, but like that there would be a way that they could scan a QR code and use their time wisely. Stay tuned on that one, but that they would have something to do that feels productive. I almost imagine a couple of birth balls that they can check out and then they end up checking back in to wipe down so that they’re cleanly. There’s like a place that they could pace with a handlebar on the wall where they could stand and sway and lean and the labor warmup is on the wall of killing time, think you’re in labor? Try some of these exercises and it’s almost like this little … Oh my god, like a labor lounge.

Justine:
Well, okay. That was on my list, a labor lounge.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God.

Justine:
So yeah, then I’m like it’d have to be a pretty big triage area or do you have a room next to the triage area?

Sarah Lavonne:
Well, this is going to be the most popular unit in the US. People will drive forever to give birth here, so yes, and it’s like you have your little …

Justine:
So do you have two rooms? You have room where you just want to sit, check in for your C-section, and then you have like oh, next door labor lounge, and that’s very vibe-y.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yep, and it’s like press this button if you are feeling like you need to push or something. Maybe not a button, but there’s some sort of indicator that if you feel these things, please let us know and this is how you let us know and we will expedite the process. Or maybe you don’t tell them that because then people abuse it, but you get the idea. I love the idea of a labor lounge where they can comfortably labor and they don’t feel quite so shunned if triage is crazy. And the ones that have been triaged and maybe they’re doing the walk, they go into the labor lounge for the couple of hours and they have all of those resources available to sort of just be comfortable. And maybe there’s an outdoor access to some sort of outdoor feature.

Justine:
The Hoag Irvine has that, they have a little labor walk pathway right outside. Yeah, that’s really nice.

Sarah Lavonne:
I love all of that. Oh my god, this is the most fun conversation I’ve had in so long. I’ve been having very boring conversations clearly.

Justine:
I would streamline the paperwork somehow some way. I don’t know how. Tell me.

Sarah Lavonne:
They all get an iPad and if they’re waiting, they can fill in their own information.

Justine:
Oh, that’s good. Their own history.

Sarah Lavonne:
Of like how many times have you been pregnant and it auto-populates. We are just full of business ideas. Someday our app will be able to do that, but it auto-populates so that it’s sort of like the nurse can get an idea of why are you there, blah, blah, blah. And then they don’t have … They can just verify the information when they get inside.

Justine:
And maybe it gets shot off to triage. Like as soon as they submit it, the triage nurse can pull it up before they even see the patient.

Sarah Lavonne:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Justine:
And that could even be a way of who they’re going to see next automatically based on what they’ve answered, sort.

Sarah Lavonne:
Ooh.

Justine:
This is what I need

Sarah Lavonne:
Mind you, you need someone laying eyes. But yes, if they’ve laid eyes and they’re like, “Oh, okay, I hear you. Go sit down.” Now mind you, I also would dream of a unit that’s so well staffed that they wouldn’t even need the waiting area.

Justine:
Right. right.

Sarah Lavonne:
So might be a moot point. Private or public triage rooms? And do we triage in an LDR? Some hospitals, they bring them to an LDR and then and/or it’s LDRP where they’re just like a revolving door. What structure do we like?

Justine:
Man, I don’t know. I think there’s something to changing environment. The idea of a triage as a different space and you leave and you’re going to go to the labor room. We’ll talk in sections, but even some units, and we’re trying to do it having rooms that you do the ripening in and then when they’re in labor like in active labor, they go to the labor room and it’s nice because if they’re there for three or four days, it feels different because they changed rooms.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
But anyways, so I think private is nice and if we’re dreaming it, I can do whatever I want and there’s as many nurses as possible. Private.

Sarah Lavonne:
I agree. I would want private triage rooms. This is my own personal preference of structure, but I really like the idea that there is a triage area. I think for the nurse’s well-being because that would matter to me if I was designing a unit that it is kind of nice to change roles to not do the same thing all the time, and there’s benefit and you get parts of that when you’re triaging. And then if they’re admitted, you take them, but then it sort of feels like this luck of the draw and that you don’t know what you’re going to end up doing all night, and there is an element of control that I like. So I envision a triage area that is private rooms that feel still very calming, probably smaller where you have centralized monitoring. There’s at least two nurses there.

Justine:
I’m thinking like the ICU layout. I don’t know what ICUs people have seen, but I kind of like that they can sit in a pod and see in their rooms like they can see what’s going on, but that’s not super private for the patient, but then you can see multiple rooms. Because what I like about our area, my triage, it’s not private, there are curtains, but I can hear and see everything. I would be worried if the door was closed or like what am I not seeing or what would I miss?

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. Speaking of windows, I’m like I love the idea of floor to ceiling windows and sort of that tech where you flip the switch and the window goes non-see-through.

Justine:
Ooh, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
And that goes from outdoor …

Justine:
[inaudible 00:10:07].

Sarah Lavonne:
Right? Or like we’re up somewhere with an incredible view and you can totally see outside, and then you can flip it and change the wall to an image or change the wall to a wall. They want to see outside and there would be assurance that it wouldn’t be see-through from the outside. You can’t see in it anymore.

Justine:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
But they have the option of kind of almost feeling like they’re outside and nurses would be able to see them, but they would still have that privacy of the patient area.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
It feels very modern to me and very chic like I see so many neutrals with little calming colors here and there. Every room has a TV where they have access to meditations, they have access to different … Imagine like Apple screensavers. So nice like choose your vibe for the room. They have a speaker they can program whatever they want.

Justine:
For sure. An Alexa, or whatever.

Sarah Lavonne:
They can [inaudible 00:10:57] phones. Yeah, like tell Alexa what’s up, et cetera. And then I do see a triage unit where then you transfer to an LDR, but I would advocate for LDRP. I’ve never worked in a LDRP.

Justine:
Here’s what I don’t like about LDRP is that …

Sarah Lavonne:
Tell me.

Justine:
A lot of them may stay in that room for so long.

Sarah Lavonne:
Mm-hmm.

Justine:
It’s nice to change rooms.

Sarah Lavonne:
But to pack up is such a pain once you’ve been settled. It’s like when you go to a hotel. For me, if I’m bringing all my stuff, I want to give birth, I want to clean up, and I just want to be settled. I don’t want to have to do the move and change nurses, and it interrupts the bonding for the baby, you’re skin to skin and breastfeeding and then you have to and relocate, and then they’re assessing you. And this I learned at Hoag irvine was she stayed the whole time in the same room, which they don’t … Or no, they do. I think they are always LDRP, but it was from a patient perspective, it felt so just like okay, now we’re in a new season and this is our room, and then you also don’t have to design two different designs.

Justine:
Yeah, it would be nice. So it’s a dream unit. So housekeeping is on it.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh, yeah.

Justine:
These rooms are refreshed so often.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
And they smell so nice.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, and they have fridges. They have hot and cold water makers, and almost like I imagine like a Soda Stream where you could choose between sparkling, you could add a flavor, you can order on your iPad, I imagine secrets where we had Cancun. You can order your room service at any point, it’s all included for you and your partner. You can order your lactation on your menu. You can watch lessons. If you have a question, there’s little education videos there. There’s shower, there’s bath, there’s all of the tools in the room.

Also, the other thing I liked about … Clearly I know where I want to give birth, but Hoag had this really cool sliding glass door in their labor rooms where all of the supplies and the baby warmer were behind it, so they basically when the birth happened, they opened up this wall, they had access to everything they needed for the actual birth, but it was hidden during the actual birth.

Justine:
Oh.

Sarah Lavonne:
It was very cool.

Justine:
That is very cool. I regret not working there.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, well there’s always …

Justine:
I regret telling them no.

Sarah Lavonne:
Maybe you can take that back.

Justine:
Right? Nevermind.

Sarah Lavonne:
And actually I’ll speak to, there’s a study done in 2023 called Environmental Factors Influencing Women’s Childbirth Experiences and Labor Delivery Recovery Postpartum Unit, A Qualitative Cross-Sectional Study. What they did was they asked a bunch of women what they wanted and they narrowed it down to three different categories, and one was a meaning oriented environment. They wanted physical security and physical comfort, so under that, under the meaning, they wanted to minimize noise pollution, so we’d have noise-canceling walls. They’d have ambient lighting, so lots of lighting and soft lighting. Of course, all the tools that we need for us to function. But candles, there’s like a cupboard of comfort measures in your drawer that you can choose from, and if things went missing, it would be no big deal because whatever, we have so much money that we’re so well funded.

And then they did actually say LDRP was their preference. Under the physical security, it was privacy bed ergonomics, and then having the possibility of medical interventions if they needed it, so like of course, having access to anesthesia. And then for physical comforts, they wanted promising symbols of becoming a mother, a peaceful environment and a spiritual environment, which I thought was really interesting. We talk about this in our physiologic coping class, by the way. This is one component of how we can help our patients cope. So we break that down really far in our physiologic coping class.

This is all the content that I taught in Cancun, so if you’re bummed about missing Cancun/if you’ve taken physiologic birth, this is basically physiologic birth part two. If you know the stuff from this class and physiologic birth, you are miles ahead in your practice, and so we are teaching a one-time only two-day class end of February, February 29th and March 1st, and I’m literally teaching it once and all of the proceeds are going towards our new app, which actually yesterday on Stories I shared what it looks like.

Justine:
Good amount, yeah. I was like whoa, she’s doing it.

Sarah Lavonne:
I know, I know. I couldn’t help it. I’m just so excited, and we’re rolling. There’s no going back, but I will be candid and just say we do have to pay for this thing and it’s not cheap as you can imagine, and I’ve committed to pay for things.

Justine:
They might not be able to imagine. Just the average person has no idea how much apps are.

Sarah Lavonne:
I’ll say our goal is 1,500 participants to the Physiologic Birth class, so please invite your friends. It’s recorded for two weeks. Help us fund this app and give you all of the features, but our goal, we have to make 1,500 people so you can do the math of how expensive it is to just get going. So that’s me just being transparent about why I’ve been so stressed because again, I’ve committed to funds that we do not have, so that’s my emotional ploy to come to the class, but also we’re offering value with the class because it truly is.

I spent two years prepping the content. I went and I flew different places in the world to learn from experts to integrate into our practice. We’re bringing in Krista Dancy for a piece of it, so she’s going to do some trauma-informed stuff. If you talk to anybody that’s been to Cancun, I saw a DM come in the other day where it was like, “I got to use all of my tools with my patient last night. It went beautifully.” We hear that all the time, so just know it’s not because we’re greedy, we’re actually trying to create more products for you to better your practice. So come to the class and we talk about mood and environment in that class, including this particular study.

Justine:
Yeah, and speaking of coping, let’s go on to what would be what we use? What would you want? Everything?

Sarah Lavonne:
I would want a shower and a tub. I’d want a closet full of supplies, including bars and balls. I’d want the ladder thing on the wall. I’d want a pole to hold. I’d want affirmations built into the environment. I’d want all sorts of twinkle lights and candles available and diffusers with a whole menu of things that you can order. Maybe you order it on your iPad and there’s like a CNA that comes in that’s just like your comfort person. I’d love a volunteer doula program/I don’t even know if that’s volunteered. I would actually take that fully back. I wouldn’t want it volunteer, I think that’s just what we naturally think. I would want paid doulas on the floor that can be available for comfort measures that work with the team that really integrate well. I’d like them to be able to eat during labor if it’s appropriate, obviously, and I’d like all of these to be available for low and high risk patients.

Justine:
Would you have an acupuncturist?

Sarah Lavonne:
I would have an acupuncturist. We’d have TENS units in every room, which by the way, we sell the ones from the UK that are the standard for labor. We’re one of the only distributors in the US. If you’re looking for a TENS unit, we have those available on our site, but I’d have a TENS unit there that they can get using. Yeah, I’d have all of our educational resources everywhere and almost like a beautiful educational wall where they can walk over, everything would be on telly and/or intermittent auscultation is the norm until it’s not, and then when it’s not, there’s telemetry and when that’s not, then we of course, have all the high risk stuff, but I also would love …

Justine:
We’re going to have to dust it off though because we rarely use it. We’ll be like oh, where?

Sarah Lavonne:
Right, exactly. Hold on, we need that in service. I’d love to have two educators available on the floor to help make sure that we’re up to date on everything. I’d like the manager’s office to be present and with a clear wall where they can … There’s transparency of leadership of what people are working on and that they’re super accessible to the staff.

Justine:
Day time manager.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh my god.

Justine:
And night time manager.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh my God. For sure.

Justine:
Therapist.

Sarah Lavonne:
I want a trauma therapist on the unit, and they are trauma-informed so when you have a hard shift, you can go directly to them. By the way, take our healing trauma and birth professional class. That’s our gift to you. In down regulating your nervous system because we don’t have this, but I would love a unit that has somebody that could respond to critical incidents, that could follow up with the mental health of the nursing staff. I’ve been talking the whole time because I’m rattling off. What else would you add, Justine?

Justine:
You said it all. I heard once that there was a unit, and if this is your unit, please reach out to me because I want to know. But they had nitrous ports.

Sarah Lavonne:
Ooh, yeah.

Justine:
All along their hallway where they could just literally plug in.

Sarah Lavonne:
Stop.

Justine:
Hit the nitrous, hit it.

Sarah Lavonne:
No.

Justine:
Keep walking. Yeah, is that not wild?

Sarah Lavonne:
Stop. That’s so cool. It’s like an oxygen bar.

Justine:
Literally.

Sarah Lavonne:
You go to your little nitrous bar along your little walkway. Yeah, some sort of walking and laboring, but the telly reaches everywhere.

Justine:
Ooh, I’m thinking like a cruise ship.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
They have a cool walking path. Yeah, so having a walking …

Sarah Lavonne:
Do I not seem like a cruiser?

Justine:
No, I don’t see you as a cruiser, maybe a really fancy cruise. I feel like I don’t think you would like to be confined to the boat for that long. You’d be like, “Oh no, I want to go do things.”

Sarah Lavonne:
No. If we were at port, don’t tell me when to come back.

Justine:
Right, yeah. It’s too restricting.

Sarah Lavonne:
I want to just explore and enjoy my life.

Justine:
Yeah, totally. Anyways, the fun walking paths, good views. I wish it could be interactive. This is literally … There has never happened because of HIPAA that we’re dreaming so they can walk and they can see procedures, but I think only nurses would want to see that.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh my god, so there’s a separate unit for nurses who are gnarly like that while they are in labor, they can watch heart surgery.

Justine:
There’s a trauma coming in. Let me watch. It’s so silly. See again, these are the ideas today and then cross off.

Sarah Lavonne:
I mean, I don’t know how good for anybody’s nervous system that would be.

Justine:
No, it would be terrible.

Sarah Lavonne:
But I would love a hospital where I could walk down the back hidden hallway as a nurse.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
And I can peep other things going on. That would be really cool.

Justine:
Maybe instead of an amputee, amputation going on, you could watch … You could bird watch. There could be bird watching.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh, okay.

Justine:
I saw a meme where it was all of a sudden you’re young and then the next minute you’re looking at birds and caring about them and I was like that’s me. I could literally sit and watch birds.

Sarah Lavonne:
What about VR?

Justine:
Oh, yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
I would want VR available even though it can be like nausea inducing and stuff, but I actually was a part of a study right before I left the hospital where they were looking … It’s been published now. They were using VR for comfort meditation.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
And take you to a new place and whatever, but that would be a really fun thing. Can you imagine how cool that would be? You have your little Soda Stream water maker and if you want to socialize with other people in labor or postpartum, there’s a little connecting spot. There’s support groups, but I’m going to my new mom’s support group this afternoon. Not that anybody would want to do that, but I don’t know, sometimes you’re feeling like connecting and then postpartum. We didn’t even think about postpartum.

Justine:
Well, and now connecting. You could do antepartum. You could have things for the antepartum patients.

Sarah Lavonne:
Ooh, yes. Programs for the antepartum patients like a community room.

Justine:
And they have like a baby plan where they’re like this is my itinerary today.

Sarah Lavonne:
Cute.

Justine:
I’m going here. I’m going to go do this.

Sarah Lavonne:
Bed exercises and mental health stuff.

Justine:
Bed exercises.

Sarah Lavonne:
And mental health stuff.

Justine:
Again, they’re going to get their hair done. We know they want that.

Sarah Lavonne:
For sure.

Justine:
Their nails.

Sarah Lavonne:
And they’re still being monitored and they’re still safe.

Justine:
Yeah, but so often so they’re NST so they’re able to walk down the hallway, get their nails done, get their hair done.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yep.

Justine:
Go back, go to their breastfeeding class.

Sarah Lavonne:
Massage therapist.

Justine:
The best.

Sarah Lavonne:
Included. Everyone in postpartum gets massage and myofascial, and you have a myofascial person on at all time to do releases. Oh my God.

Justine:
Can you imagine? I hope someone really rich is listening to this and is like I want to do that.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yes, I want to be the advisor on that board. I don’t want to do it myself, but I will give all of my ideas and what the literature says along the way. There’s an article too we can link down below called Birth Space. It’s an older article. I can’t remember if this is the Australia one, but it really nailed down a million things you can do. It was like an 80-page document where they looked at the research and what they did, and I think it was Australia, don’t quote me on that. You can read it for yourself, but I also mentioned that one.

Justine:
[inaudible 00:22:16].

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, right?

Justine:
Oh, that’s really interesting. Yeah, postpartum. Well, I think they’re LDRP, right? So we included it, but again, it would be massage therapists, it would be …

Sarah Lavonne:
Food.

Justine:
Super enthusiastic, highly trained, highly motivated lactation consultants.

Sarah Lavonne:
And nurses.

Justine:
Yes.

Sarah Lavonne:
That also feel really confident about the postpartum period.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
And feel like you’re getting education. I would love … You have somebody that goes around and does baby basics in the room of let’s talk through your basic skills to send you home. Your discharge training isn’t just a packet of information, it’s like we’re going to do these little mini sessions one-on-one with you and your baby. It’s going to be on breastfeeding, it’s going to be on infant care, it’s going to be on safety, on sleep, and then send them home with this robust resource list of follow-ups if they need help and assistance. And there would be in-home postpartum nurse visits on day, depending on when they go home, like 48 hours after discharge, between 48 and 72 hours after discharge, and then two weeks after discharge for postpartum depression, perinatal mood and anxiety disorder screenings, and making sure we’re grabbing them and then having a robust program for post. We got it, Justine.

Justine:
We got it. I mean, really yummy food too. I’m thinking like a lot of things they say you’re supposed to eat to support your body postpartum and then like various …

Sarah Lavonne:
I imagine hot lactation chocolate chip cookies. They do that at my old hospital at 3:00 PM. I don’t know if they do it anymore, but they used to do 3:00 PM milk and cookies.

Justine:
That’s so cool. Yeah. We just started giving these pretty intense baskets of really tasty, yummy treats for postpartum, and I’m like man, this is nice.

Sarah Lavonne:
What’s the hospital in New York that gives Chanel gift bags out?

Justine:
I don’t know.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, I just saw TikTok of this girl. I delivered at this hospital and she puts … Clunks down her Chanel gift bag and I’m like that’s what we need. Hello.

Justine:
That’s awesome. That’s so cool.

Sarah Lavonne:
Sponsored items. Go home with what you need.

Justine:
Yeah, just easy. Let’s just do all that, guys.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yep. Yep. Again, our billionaire friends listening.

Justine:
Listening. We’ve got the hospital for you.

Sarah Lavonne:
This is potentially a very lucrative thing.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
And then we have the postpartum suites, the Four Seasons for postpartum support.

Justine:
Oh, yeah. Make them like …

Sarah Lavonne:
That anybody can afford. Yeah, but anybody can afford them. They’re all free. Everything’s free.

Justine:
Everything’s free. I don’t know how people make money. The billionaires that want to support us.

Sarah Lavonne:
Right.

Justine:
But everything’s free because it’s a dream.

Sarah Lavonne:
So fun.

Justine:
Well, that was fun.

Sarah Lavonne:
And everyone is well-trained and everyone feels really confident that we’re never understaffed. You can have one-on-one nursing care once they’re active, anything pre … Obviously, like hello, and the nurses that you actually stay in the room, but you can also be friendly with one another that that balance of the patient feels seen, but also you’re not socializing because I know that’s important. And there’s fun events for the nurses and your Nurse’s Week gift isn’t just a water bottle, and it’s a whole vibe.

I think those of you listening, obviously, this is the dream and it can feel really discouraging of like oh my God, we’re so far from this, but I think that there are always things that we can be doing to consider our environment, whether it be lowering the lights before you bring your induction in so it’s not just bright lights the whole way in, right? Considering those kind of like … The privacy piece, close the door. Patients want privacy. They’re not expecting the Four Seasons, they’re expecting to be carried with dignity and respect, I hope, and they may actually not even be expecting that, which is too bad. But show them that that is possible, right?

And again, your energy matters. We say this in every single one of our programs. We talk extensively about this in Physiologic Coping, which we’ll link down below, but pay attention, pause at the door. Listen to Vanessa’s episode about that first impression in building rapport and how to present yourself in a way that sets them up for an environment that feels good. And then consider one thing that you could do on your unit or in your practice to promote a better mood for your patient, and then we can keep dreaming all of us together of the day that we get $3 billion to build out the perfect labor unit.

Justine:
And we’ll all move to that place.

Sarah Lavonne:
Work there.

Justine:
Yes. Yes.

Sarah Lavonne:
Can you imagine how many labor nurses would leave to work at that unit? We would be so well staffed because they would be so excited to work in an environment like that. I want to work in a beautiful place. I’m like we’ve been designing this new website. We had a whole design meeting this morning where I was just like it has to feel a certain way because the environment matters so much, whether it be a website or whether it be the coffee shop that I want to work in and stay around in like that’s the environment we want.

Oh my God, can you imagine a little coffee shop outside for the dads and/or partners and they can go out and they have red raspberry leaf tea and lactation tea and like … Ah, I want to do it. It’s so fun.

Justine:
I want to do it. It would be amazing. Well, that was fun. Thanks for joining us on that journey.

Sarah Lavonne:
And joining us this whole season. You can start a podcast and hope that people listen and you guys are listening and we’re really grateful for every single one of you that does and sort of puts up with … There’s been some episodes this season that have been rather challenging. We brought a lot of invitation, but we’ve also brought a lot of challenge, and I hope you hear us that we mean that in so much love and so much belief in a better world for families and also you living your best life and feeling really good about how you practice and how you’re treated and how you treat others, and so that’s really what we’re here to do is help support you along the way.

I hope this season has felt that way, whether it be the episodes that we’ve done ourselves or with other guests. Just know that we are always here for you. If you need support, if you need something, please reach out. We really want to be that buffer for you in your practice so that you can live your best life.

Justine:
Thanks for spending your time with us during this season of Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses. If you like what you heard, it helps us both if you subscribe, rate, leave a raving review, and share this episode and season and series with a friend. If you want more from us, head to bundlebirthnurses.com, or follow us on Instagram.

Sarah Lavonne:
Now it’s your turn to go and dream a little. It may be about what your unit could be. It may be about your life. Sometimes we need to create some light and some light in the sunshine sense of the word and light as far as not heavy in our lives, and dreaming about a better future while it may sometimes feel hopeless, it also can feel really hopeful. So go dream a little and we’ll see you next season.