Going Home

If you had your baby in the hospital or birth centre with no problems, you can usually go home within 6-24 hours. If you had a caesarean-section, an assisted birth or your baby was born early, you might need to stay a few more days.

Your midwives will:

  • Perform checks on you before you go home
  • get any medication you may need to take with you
  • check how well your baby is feeding and talk through the things you can expect once at home.

When you and baby are ready to go home, your midwives will

arrange for a community midwife to visit/contact you within the next 48 hours.

Before you leave the hospital, they’ll give you a phone number to call the midwifery team. Remember to take this number with you.

If you had your baby at home, the midwife should stay for about an hour. She will help you with feeding and do checks to make sure you and your baby are both okay. After that, the midwife goes back to the hospital, but you can always call if you need help. The midwife will visit you the day after you go home. They will help you for as long as you need. After that a health visitor will take over to check on you and your baby.