Compulsory Rooming-in in the Ward and Private Newborn Service at Duke Hospital

Every hospital nursery is faced with the danger of an epidemic of infectious diarrhea of the newborn. During the past 10 years, these epidemics have been numerous and the mortality has been high.¹In spite of every precaution to prevent cross infections and to maintain isolation, a nursery is a source of danger, even though it is subdivided into smaller units.²It was not until Moloney introduced his Cornelian Corner program that there was a solution to the dilemma.³He recommended that infants should be kept with their mothers immediately after delivery to improve the psychological relationships between the mother and infant. We adopted this plan of rooming-in not primarily for its psychological advantages but in order to avoid the possibility of nursery epidemics. We had not had an epidemic, but the only obvious way to avoid one was to abolish the nursery. A year was required