L&D/NICU hostility!!!!

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

Just wondering if this unfortunate situation is unique to the facility where i work or if it is everywhere! whenever the NICU gets very busy, the nurses become very hostile and rude to L&D nurses. Last night I walked into the NICU and overheard a conversation between 2 nurses. There was a 36 wk baby on a vent, was induced because mom had severe PIH. 2 NICU nurses were complaining because "the ob docs think that 36 weeks is full term. they even had pit on her!!!" When i tried to explain to them that it was necessary to deliver due to severe pih, they said "well they had mag on her and just decided to turn it off and induce her. why would they start pit if she wasn't contracting anymore." i had to explain that the MgSO4 was for pih, not ptl. they had no clue, just thought that we induced for the fun of it!! but what is even worse is that they frequently convey these feelings to the parents. " well, your baby probably wouldn't be on a vent if your doctor didn't induce you" and parents have no idea, they think that ob's are doing something wrong!!!

then, after that conversation, had a 32 week pt come in, 8 cm, bulging membranes come in, called nicu to alert them and was told "well you better stop her." I explained that we were going to try but no promises. I was asked "well what are you going to do, pit her?" I again explained that we were going to try to stop her but what are the odds at 8 cm and bulging membranes? they were so rude. So, back to the original question, is it everywhere or just here???

sorry about venting. i am just so frustated. We do all that we can for our pts and are treated like we are tring to harm babies and the nicu is there to save their lives when we try to kill them.

We don't have a problem in our teaching hospital between nursing units; it's more with the residents. My chief called the neo resident today to tell her to expect a 26 weeker who was 4-5 cm and the neo said " Hon, why don't you call us just a little closer to time for delivery" Well, needless to say, that PROM went back for a stat section and peds was like, "What???" I don't know the solution to this; we have monthly conferences between peds and OB to try to get "on the same page". I hope it will help.

Although when people say ignorant things like what those NICU nurses said , it is VERY frustrating and offensive, but also realize that at the heart of the issue was ignorance. One solution to this problem would be to cure the NICU nurses' ignorance! Try giving mini-inservices between L&D nurses and NICU nurses at staff meetings where you (or a nurse who likes to teach, if you don't) discuss frequent L&D and NICU problems (PTL, PIH, etc) and discuss the treatment of them. Might help a little? Good luck!

Jennyp

mother baby i now how you feel with the short staffing on night shift and the over staffing on days. prime example is about a week ago Iwas only labor nurses on, had fairly experienced rn nusery nurse and a rn orientee new to post partum and a telemetry lpn who was not certified this made up my whole shift for the night. get this the dayshift consisted of 8 rns 2 lpns 1 ob tech and the nurse manager. to handle the same pt load except for one c/s pt that i had preped at 6 am. gee and when i got back the next night the place was a mess.instuments were dirty,rooms not stocked,no blankets in warmers and so on. this just gets mygoat at times.:)

Specializes in OB, Post Partum, Home Health.

That sounds so familliar Mark. Why is it that there is this unwritten rule that all of the "housekeeping" tasks are the responsibility of the night shift? Last week, came in to night shift. 5 pts for 2 nurses (evenings had 4 nurses but "thought we could do it with 2 nurses"). There were dirty delivery carts in the hall that needed to go to decontam that had been there since 0800, nothing in any of the rooms, no blankets in warmer. To make matters worse, the had acutally had no pt's for first half of shift, 2 came in about an hour apart, and three pt's came in 30 min before end of shift. It gets better because they said that since three came in at same time, they didn't have time to do admission and history info in computer. My question is this, why didn't they have time? 4 nurses, 3 pt's, and they didn't do any of them, even if 1 or 2 had been done. ok, but to just say "we wouldn't have time to do 3 admissions so we didn't do any of them?" It bugs me so bad. And it seems that this is not the case with all nurses, just a few. You know the ones that complain that they always have too much to do, their pt's are too high risk to be able to do anything else etc. Came in to report the other day and got this report from fellow nurse who was taking care of 2 low risk laboring pt's. "I was so busy all day. My pt in this room probably feels neglected because I wasn't in there hardly at all. And my pt in that room probably has no idea that I was actually her nurse, I was so busy that I just ran in to turn up her pitocin and I didn't even realize that she was having variables until she had been having them for about an hour. And to top it all off, I didn't get any charting done because I was so busy, I am going to be here for 3 hours charting!" WHAT THE H***. OK, lets recap, she didn't chart, she didn't watch her monitor strips and she wasn't in either of her pt's rooms, exactly what was she doing????????? I hate that!!!!!!!

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

wow...I am sooo glad we don't butt heads with L/D where I work...sure we have the usual grumbles about things not documented or called for a tachypneic baby that is being fried under the warmer or for a baby that is obviously transitioning, but we all sympathize with each other...when they are hoppin' so are we! We send our code pink team over and they assess and do all that good stuff. They are really good about bringing back those kids that need to be brought back.

As for the misinfo..that should be reported to the CNS and something needs to be said. Obviously, these people need to go back and read some books! That kind of stuff steams me!

I would say we fight with the nursery people more...they have sent us more kids than I care to count that are perfectly fine! Ugh!

And I have always said and will still say...no way could I be an L/D nurse...hats off to you all!

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