One app with a question about breastfeeding and the maternity caretaker is immediately at the door of your hotel room

A day after the birth of their daughter, Sadaf Yazdani (32) and Maysam Naghinejad (35) checked in at the NH Hotel in Groningen, with suitcases full of diapers and baby bottles.

Barely a week old, Baby Yara is now in room 308 to sleep quietly. The hotel breakfast is still displayed in the small hotel room: kaiser rolls, cheese, butter. And a bowl of dates – the only thing that has been brought from home.

The family is staying on the top floor of the hotel, which has been serving as a maternity care enclosure since July. Six mothers, their partners and newborn child receive care for four days, twelve hours a day. It is an emergency solution against the pressure on regular maternity care.

When Lindy van Breda Vriesman (62), director at the Northern Dutch maternity care institution Het Groene Kruis, looked at the summer schedule, she immediately saw: we won’t save this. Due to a birth peak, holiday periods and the departure of thirty freelancers, it was impossible to get the grilles around.

She reduced care to the statutory minimum of three hours a day. Even that turned out to be insufficient: in June one hundred families were on the waiting list. “The only solution was a maternity hotel,” says Van Breda Vriesman. “We had to offer parents the care they needed.”

Take care of

The need in the maternity sector has been high for years. According to branch organization Bo Birth care, more than seven hundred vacancies are open nationwide. The deficits are greatest in the summer months, if the annual birth peak coincides with holidays.

Maternities normally receive about 49 hours of maternity care, spread over eight days. Sometimes more, for example after a heavy birth. The maternity nurse helps at home with breastfeeding, monitors mother and baby and supports the care.

Every facade falls away in their own house. Parents can sometimes occur better here

But due to the staff shortage, the number of care hours has been falling for years: from eighty hours in ten days to three hours a day for eight days. And sometimes that doesn’t even work, because according to trade union FNV, five hundred women did not receive maternity care last year.

That needs the trade unions on the poor working conditions. “The work as a maternity nurse is heavy, unpredictable and poorly paid,” says Manon van Essen spokesperson of the CNV. Many newcomers stop within five years. At the same time, a large part of the current staff is approaching the retirement age.

In June, the trade unions handed a petition to the Ministry of Health, in which they demand better working conditions and higher rates. The collective bargaining negotiations are still ongoing.

Back complaints

The maternity hotel can also offer a solution. Here a maternity nurse can divide her attention over several families, which makes healthcare more efficient.

Rotterdam, The Hague and Tilburg, among others, already preceded Groningen. In some hotels it is also possible to give birth, so that both types of care are arranged in one place. In Groningen only the maternity care in the hotel was housed, that was enough to help all women on the waiting list.

And instead of the endless travel, the team was now able to work from one fixed place. Less travel time, fixed gratings: it ensured that departed staff returned. Colleagues with back problems also went back to work because the hotel takes the cleaning tasks out of your hands.

Maternity nurse Jantsje Kooistra (41) has been working in the maternity hotel since the opening. Earlier she visited two or sometimes even three families every day. “You won’t last long,” she says. “I’m glad I can work here now.”

Zoom in

Appen

Yazdani and Naghinejad are also satisfied. When they doubt or panic, maternity care responds quickly. “Then I app:” Do you want to help with breastfeeding? ” And then she is immediately at the door, “says Yazdani. “Very nice, because everything is new to us.”

Not everyone is so enthusiastic: “Some women, especially those with several children, liked to receive maternity care at home,” says Van Breda Vriesman. “Thanks to the extra capacity that was released through the maternity hotel, we could fortunately also offer that option.”

Every facade falls away in their own house. Parents can sometimes occur better here

There are sometimes doubts among maternity nurses. At a family at home they immediately see how things are really going. Whether the fridge is empty. Whether a mother barely gets out of bed. Whether the tension runs between partners. “Every facade falls away in its own house,” says Kooistra. “Parents can sometimes occur better here.”

And in those first days after the birth, a special relationship of trust is created at home, because the maternity assistant is running in the household. “You see a family directly in your own rhythm,” says maternity nurse Hadassa Wijnja-Urban (27). “You miss that in the hotel.”

Gain

But that former working method – a lot of care at home, with fixed hours per family – is untenable according to the sector. BO Birth care is therefore working with health insurers on a new model, which focuses more on online consultations, regional cooperation and appropriate care. “A mother with five children often saves herself with fewer hours, while a brand new mother still has to learn everything,” says Van Breda Vriesman.

In Groningen, the Groene Kruis wants to keep the maternity hotel open permanently. “It holds staff that otherwise may leave because of the work pressure,” says Van Breda Vriesman. “By linking mothers who appreciate the maternity hotel to these care providers, we improve healthcare and we strengthen the team. That is a profit for everyone.”

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