I am soon to enter my Maternity/Peds clinical portion. I'm curious to know if you see abortion procedures during these rotations. I'm speaking of elective and medical emergencies...or would this be something that falls under OR?
Can any of you share your experience in Maternity? Did you see any sad things? I know that, realistically, I will see some depressing stuff (already have)..just want to know what to expect. Thanks
EDIT: Ps. I'm not asking anyone if they are pro-life or pro-choice. If you want to speak about that please take it to another thread. Don't be rude and mislead my topic. It's a simple question. Thanks
I'm not the person you were responding to, but OB can be full of drug addiction....depending on where you live, I guess. Where I am, more than half (I think the stat is 62%) of our newborns have positive drug screens. Truthfully, some of those are not the result of maternal addiction, but we do see an awful lot of neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Worst thing I witnessed was a full term baby, mother had a placenta abruption. The baby had died the day before in utero--so doc induced labor and mother knew the baby was dead (obviously). I did not witness the birth, but myself and another student helped to bathe the little girl for her pictures. She looked like she was sleeping and it was so heartbreaking.
I was in a very LARGE hospital in Northern NJ back in the late 80's when I was in my undergrad. I did pre-op observation on "abortion day" in the OR. I don't know if they even perform elective abortions in hospitals anymore, highly doubt it. Like another post stated, if you are assigned a patient and a bad outcome ensues, you may or may not be able to stay on the case. It depends on many factors. Just focus on good nursing care and you will be prepared. All experiences are valuable :)
Worst thing I witnessed was a full term baby, mother had a placenta abruption. The baby had died the day before in utero--so doc induced labor and mother knew the baby was dead (obviously). I did not witness the birth, but myself and another student helped to bathe the little girl for her pictures. She looked like she was sleeping and it was so heartbreaking.
This might be a little off-topic, but the worst thing I ever saw in the NICU/special care nursery during my peds/L&D rotations was an anencephalic baby girl - all she had was a brain stem. She had a complete skull but it was full of CSF - creepiest xray/MRI I'd ever seen. They said that what probably happened to her was some sort of cerebral hemorrhage while her brain was forming and after her skull had started growing, and the brain died/never developed and her body just filled the cranial cavity with CSF. (According to my research - you can imagine this was both my paper for peds and my massive care plan project - typically in anencephaly the skull never develops, and they're stillborn with a strange, almost gnomelike face and an almost collapsed head.) She had a brain stem and a very small amount of brain tissue, but that was it.
And she was lovely - just a beautiful baby. She was full term, fat, and gorgeous - and in reality nothing but a shell. She could breathe, she could eat (which was really creepy - she still had a sucking reflex), she reacted to pain - but that was it. She looked like she was sleeping all the time - she looked like a baby doll. And her parents wanted her so bad - they would talk to the NP about when she'd go to school and why wouldn't they talk about stuff like vaccine schedules because she'd need them down the road - hideous. To me it was almost as bad as if she'd been stillborn - in fact, it was worse in a way. I took care of her during my rotation in the NICU and it was just awful; you'd sit there and hold her and think, who are you, little one - because we'll never know.
Sorry - not trying to hijack the thread. But I think about that poor baby and those heartbroken parents from time to time even now, and the post about the stillborn baby girl made me think of them again.
Oh, Carolinapooh, that's the worst thing I've ever heard Those poor parents!
The worst thing I saw during my OB rotation was a fetal demise around the 25th week. She had a complete placenta previa, so she had extremely high risk for uncontrollable bleeding. It was awful to think about. I never heard what happened to that mom.
Worst thing I witnessed was a full term baby, mother had a placenta abruption. The baby had died the day before in utero--so doc induced labor and mother knew the baby was dead (obviously). I did not witness the birth, but myself and another student helped to bathe the little girl for her pictures. She looked like she was sleeping and it was so heartbreaking.
I'll answer that - I've seen it both at Duke and on the Internet.
A lot of times bereaved parents will request pictures of their baby - there are photographic firms that specifically do this free of charge for the parents. Many hospitals have started doing this as a courtesy. For some it's a bit creepy (it creeps me out a little bit), but I've read that it's really helped parents with the grieving process because it humanizes the baby and makes them more of a person. Some of the pics are really beautiful and are more than a little sad, because the baby looks like its sleeping and is just so perfect. It's more than I can take. But apparently for a lot of parents it's been very helpful.
I have known many women who have lost babies and I have also suffered from fertility problems am on private forum for people who are going through infertility treatments where I have heard lots of stories. Most people I know do take pictures of their babies there is even several photographers that do free photographs for the parents. They want a picture of there baby just like anyone else would of their baby. I have seen a few of them and most of the time they look like just a newborn picture. I can say the parents I know who have taken a few pictures they mean the world to them and they cherish them. I can't even imagine going into the hospital pregnant planning on coming home with a baby and leaving with nothing but a broken heart.
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sethmctenn
214 Posts
I'm in the South. There are no schools anywhere near where I live where abortions are seen during school