What exactly is the postpartum units and the mother/baby units

They are the units that have the mother and the baby after birth until they are sent home. You do a lot of assessments on both mom and baby and a lot of teaching (about breastfeeding, bottlefeeding, baby care in general, what mom should expect with her body, etc). Some of those units keep mom and baby together all the time (they call it couplet care), others still send babies to the well baby nursery for procedures or if mom wants a rest.

I am a Mother-Baby nurse and fergus51 nailed it. That is exactly what we do! Lots of teaching, encouraging, and teaching, and encouraging, and oh, did I mention teaching and encouraging! Sometimes somebody will hemorrhage or seiz and make the day a little less "routine". I work at a hospital that averages 600 births per month, so there is never a dull moment though! (We are also a teaching hospital, gotta love the residents!)

Not a PP nurse, but a suggestion: If you have any extra time, see about volunteering in one of these areas at your local hospital. You'll get more of a sense of what goes on that way, as opposed to just hearing about it. There's still nothing that can totally take away the shock of the first day you put on your 'RN' badge, but seeing the environments in person is really a good way to learn more.

I don't know what it is like for clinical in the states but I am in nursing school in Saskatchewan and we did rotations on the mother-baby unit and labor and delivery. Hopefully you will get these experiences too. I really enjoyed them and they give a good taste of what it would be like to work there.

I work on the PostPartum unit at my hospital. We are connected to NBN and L/D as the Maternal Child Care Unit (or something to that effect). But basically, at my hospital, we get the moms and the NBN gets the babies. The babies come out to the moms after shift change and after the Pedes make rounds in the morning, and then, can either go back when the mom needs a rest, or needs to get some teaching, or can "room-in" with Mom.. especially if they are brest-feeding. If the baby is on IV or bili light, or for some other reason cant come out to mom, we encourage mom to go to Nursery and visit with baby, where there are rocking chairs, etc to encourage bonding. So, basically, we take care of the moms and their bodies as they go back to normal from being pregnant. Watching for excessive vaginal bleeding (called lochia, considered excessive when soaking approx one pad/hr or passing excessive clots), any sign of temperature (over 100.4), severe pain not controlled by meds (usually NSAID like Motrin or Naproxen with every meal, with Tylenol #3 for more severe pain) or nausea/vomiting. We aid with pericare for moms with stitches after tear/episiotimies and with breast care whether mom is breat/bottlefeeding baby. On the ceasearen sections, we add in incision care and basic teaching of patient port-op. Some of us, like me, work in ALL areas...so we can help a little more with teaching in the care of baby... or helping with problems on the few Intrapartum moms we get still pregnant with UTI, etc. I love it. Wouldnt work anywhere else in hospital permanently.

However, we only do about 100 deliveries/month (slightly rural hospital though) so we also have to pick up a good bit Med/Surg overflow. Now, I really like this aspect in that I do not loose my skills... I have dropped NG tubes, accessed PACs, dealt with chest tubes, central lines, and any other types of patients. I even did an Exchange Transfusion today....and I had never even heard of the procedure! The only patients we CANT get (or really not supposed to get) are ones with infectious diseases, pneumonia, flu, open decubitus, bronchosopys, fever of unknown origin etc due to the increased risk of infection of the moms and the babies. We also cant get ANY heart/telemetry patients since we are one the East side of the hospital and telemetry can only work on the West side of the hospital.

Overall though, I like our unit a lot. Big turnover though. C sections only stay 3 days, vaginal deliveries 2 days... so always getting new patients.