Met and worked through greatest fear in OB

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

Specializes in OB, Med/Surg, Ortho, ICU.

Hello Allnurses community,

I had an experience that I thought I'd share. I have practiced OB nursing in our hospital for two because of a lack of nurses in that area. The thought of coding a neonate has always terrified me, and it finally happened a couple days ago. It was a scheduled repeat C-section with no risk factors other than advanced maternal age. The neonate was nonvigorous and we began NRP protocol. He had no resps and a HR 60. Two sets of 15 compressions and bagging brought him around, much to the relief of all involved.

Now meeting my greatest fear, I am finally comfortable with OB. I laugh in the face of double and triple charting- hahaha! Does anyone else what to share an "aha!" moment?

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Good job! It's great when you can handle the scary stuff without screaming and running out of the room! :lol2:

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

Good job! I remember when I first became a nurse, I would think about the "what ifs" that might come through the door and it would make me very nervous. Then you're faced with one of those situations, and you don't have time to think about being nervous while you're in the moment, you just react and deal with what's in front of you. That's when I realized it was pointless to be nervous thinking about potential emergent situations, because you always get through them. I started to welcome those situations, because I knew they would make me a wiser, better prepared nurse.

I now know that I know how to deal with a crash section, a life-threatening PPH, eclampsia and massive newborn resuscitation. I don't yet know if I know how to deal with maternal resuscitation or an AFE, though (which I guess is a good thing!).

Don't be surprised if you need to debrief afterwards, or spend 20 minutes alone to cry when one of those situations occurs.

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Totally been there, done that. Used to be terrified. Now scared but excited. Changing a blue, limp body into a pink, screaming baby. Quite an adrenaline rush.

In babies, you're not really coding them, you're helping them make the transition from the womb to breathing. It always amazes me how babies little hearts really want to beat if we can just get the breathing started.

We had a 20 weeker born. Of course, way too early, so no breathing or chance for resuscitation. An hour later another nurse showed me that the little heart was still beating, faintly about 50 beats/min. No circulation, just the heart beating. On one hand it was quite disturbing, but on the other hand it gave me confidence that those little hearts want to beat. We just have to do our job with NRP. It works.

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
We had a 20 weeker born. Of course, way too early, so no breathing or chance for resuscitation. An hour later another nurse showed me that the little heart was still beating, faintly about 50 beats/min. No circulation, just the heart beating. On one hand it was quite disturbing, but on the other hand it gave me confidence that those little hearts want to beat. We just have to do our job with NRP. It works.

In those situations, keep the baby very warm. Increases metabolism, and they go faster. :(

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.
In those situations, keep the baby very warm. Increases metabolism, and they go faster. :(

Yes, we do this too. This is why we encourage parents to hold or do skin-to-skin if they are emotionally capable. If they can't hold, one of us does. It really does help.

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Specializes in OB, Med/Surg, Ortho, ICU.

Thanks for all the feedback!

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