Recently, our family grew by +1, and we got our lovely daughter back home for a couple of days. The experience in the hospital or clinic surrounding the birthing process before, during, and after made me realize that

1. I need much more order in life than other people (where I complained, others coped silently, but equally confused about what was going on when); and
2. Checklists are an amazing tool for clarity and to manage expectations.

If you read life hacks and productivity tips including checklists, you’ll know the adage that “if it’s good enough for plane pilots, it’s good enough for you” or something like that. Over the past couple of weeks, I found that checklists would have been super useful in many situations around giving birth to a child. We did have a checklist with items to pack before heading to the hospital. But that was it.

During our stay there, the hospital staff was very nice overall, but with 3 shifts and alternating staff, I estimate we were in touch with 12 to 24 people overall. Nurses, midwives, doctors, cleaning personell, and people noting what food you’d like to get.

All of them sticked to some plan, but we didn’t know which.

Since we didn’t know what to expect, we couldn’t help correct the processes.

For example, my wife got a pill tray for morning/dinner/afternoon/night with 5 pills in total on day one; the nurse delivering the tray matter-of-factly stated “here are your pills for the day”, and that was that. We could read parts of the pill’s packaging to infer it was 4x Ibuprofen (painkiller) and 1x Pantoprazole to regulate stomach acid, a problem esp. with painkillers, as we found out during a web search we did to double-check what’s going on. Confronting the staff with this aafterward they relayed similar information.

A checklist with a heading like “on day one, you can expect …” that listed “painkillers and stomach acid regulation pills”, maybe with a short note that keeping the painkiller dosage up for about a week is a very good idea esp. after vivisection, for example. (Days later, our midwife at home helped clarify this, too. But hospital staff didn’t.)

Same with child checkups. On which day, what checks do we need to have performed? Same with checksups for my wife.

Everyone working there was in their respective “zone”, apparently assuming that a lot is already known. The gears were well-oiled, all things considered, and they worked quite efficiently as a team. But nothing about the process was relayed to patients.

A checklist would’ve been amazing to get more clarity. Also to set expectations about the first night with a newborn. We knew a lot in advance, but I can imagine that not everyone giving birth for the first time knows that baby poop is black as tar at first.

How many distress calls for nurses and midwives could the hospital avoid with a bit of preparation work?

How many resources would this free to deal with truly stressful situations? (We noticed that the average time a midwife or nurse spent with us was about 3 minutes, hardly any longer; and when we needed more instructions, they pointed out that there’s already three other couples waiting in the hall to get help.)

Since our baby child dictates our dayly rhythms, I’m also prone to forget to finish tasks. I have capacity to do a couple of things in between; but at step 2 I’m being interrupted, and then never actually continue with step 3.

Again, checklists help me as a father and husband to get things done in an orderly fashion, too, and my wife appreciates that she also knows what to roughly expect from me during the day.

Checklists. It’s good for pilots, it’s good enough for you.