[mommatrauma]

22 y/o female 9 months pregnant...recent crack/cocaine use...strolls into the ED, sits down in waiting room....triage nurse realzies she's got big belly and asks why she is there? "I think my baby is coming out" very calm...not yelling...doesn't look uncomfortable...but walking a little funny...sits in W/C gets wheeled back to treatment area...I go over to help her get undressed and she stands up and says very calmly, I think its coming out...having already delivered a child, I'm thinking ok lady, lets get you in the bed and undressed and get you to L and D, cause ER nurses don't like birthing no babies...well I go to pull her pants down and as I grab them, I feel something hard...Oh yeah...that'd be baby head...needless to say...we threw her into the bed, finished delivereing the baby...healthy little girl despite mom's extracurricular drug activities...and over to L and D she went...so now when they say "I think its coming out..." I always ask if they feel something rubbing the inside of their legs? and frisk them like they are packing a gun...

[grammyr]

Every delivery is crazy. 4 bed ER equipped with a warmer and a fetal monitor, both of which are in a locked closet in the old nursery

[TrudyRN]

Originally Posted by Ruby Vee

Years ago, I was working in heme/onc. We had a 6 months pregnant girl with leukemia -- she had been warned not to get pregnant, but didn't listen. She was in sad shape: infected, platelet count in the toilet. The baby wasn't moving so they did an US and found that the baby was dead. The plan was to transfer the patient to OB on Monday and induce labor. This was Sunday morning.

The patient was on a Demerol drip for pain from her leukema, and the new grad I was working with had been turning up the Demerol all night long for "abdominal pain." When I finally got a free moment to check her charting, I asked her "what KIND of abdominal pain?" Well, it seems that it came in waves, and her abdomen was rather rigid. Holy $hit!

So I go tearing in their in whip up the sheet, and sure enough, the gal is crowning! She's totally out of it -- probably from the Demerol. I sent the new grad to get the resident while I paged the nursing supervisor. (I knew nothing about OB then, and what little I thought I knew has totally evaporated since.) The new grad came back, saying the resident "wouldn't come." By this time, the supervisor was there, and she said, "Ruby, just go get him."

I found the resident in the on call room, staring into space with his face twitching a bit. "Come on," I told him. We need you.

"I ain't comin'," he said, reverting back to his south side of Chicago speech patterns. "I don't know nuttin' about no babies. I ain't comin'. I don't know nuttin' about no babies"

Not knowing anythng about babies myself, I wasn't particularly sympathetic. I took him by the arm and started leading him toward the patient room, all the while updating him on vital signs, platelet count, etc. Just outside the room, he stopped suddenly and YELLED "I AIN'T GOIN' IN THERE! I DON'T KNOW NUTTIN' 'BOUT NO BABIES!" With a marked lack of sympathy for his antics, I yanked on his arm and said "You HAVE to come. You're the DOCTOR." Right about that time, he -- the resident, I mean -- started to fall. He was having a grand mal seizure. I wasn't watching HIM -- I was trying to drag him into the patient's room. I dislocated his shoulder on the way down.

The patient squirted the baby out -- no problems. No bleeding at all, even with a platelet count of about 5. The supervisor caught the kid, reamed out the new grad, wrote out both incident reports and saw the resident admitted to the ER. Day shift started about 20 minutes later, and my head nurse came to speak to me about "Why everything is such a mess here. And when I came back to work that night, the resident was a patient on our unit. As I walked into his room at the start of the shift, there were five or six residents visiting him. "There she is," he said, pointing at me. "There's the ***** that dislocated my shoulder!"

That's the only time I ever had a patient give birth. But my best friend assures me that Pavulon doesn't stop contractions . . . that's another story.

I'd like to take a swing at your boss.

What ever happened with the resident? Did he sue you or were you prosecuted? I hope not. And I hope the new grad learned a valuable lesson and I hope that patient avoided future pregnancies. Scary stuff.

[KR]

Originally Posted by mommatrauma

so now when they say "I think its coming out..." I always ask if they feel something rubbing the inside of their legs? and frisk them like they are packing a gun...

OMG, LOL. The frisk them like they are packing a gun line is classic!! I love it.

[tntrn]

This will have to go under the "eeeuuuu" category, but we had a dad put the babe to his own breast once many years ago. No kidding. Our very droll and not always so proper English nurse came out to give us that information. We took turns going in to "help" just to verify.

[NewbieEDRN]

Originally Posted by n8isgr8

not really all that crazy but I was a phleb at a hospital and this girl had nipplerings on both breasts and said she was gonna breast feed but wouldn't take the rings out that the baby would just have to get used to them. I suggested that the baby may choke but that is as crazy as I have seen

Very sad

[NREMT-P/RN]

Had one deliver in bed at home. Everything A-OK --- but,
the mattress hosted what looked like either:

A. A hog slaughter

or

B. A Manson family reunion (bad analogy but, keep an open mind)

===================================

Mom, babe and dad to the truck for the trip to the ED -

We told them that we would go back to their house (there was family there) and try a little clean up (yep, it was THAT bad).

They declined. "Dad" noted that

"We'll just flip the mattress over. No big deal."

Ewwwww! Can you imagine the smell! Can't wash that OUT!



I loved being a public servant!

[channiek]

I had a few, but the most recent one was when a car stopped in front of the unit with family calling frantically. Naturally I went to have a look. The baby was allready crowning, so I delivered the baby in the car. It was cramped and dark but I did it without to much trouble. Wrapped the baby warm , put Mom on a gurney and took them up to L&D in fine form. My friends just laughed and shook their heads because it always happens to me!!