Be honest - Do you get excited about birth anymore?

Hushi05 · Jul 23, 2011

I feel similarly. I find the labor and delivery part of L&D to be, frankly, rather boring. We have residents on our floor, so they manage the labors and I feel like a mere servant. Laboring and delivering a patient is just hard work.

Fortunately, we are also a critical care unit for very sick pregnant women, and I really enjoy the ICU part of L&D- women with strange and mysterious conditions under the care of the MFMs are far more interesting to me than laboring ones who want an epidural ASAP.

nola1202 · Jul 26, 2011

I remember one thing that really helped me get perspective when I woked in what we called the full service nursery (well-NICU in one big loong room.)

I thought the nurses were all burned out and mean at first because they would just ignore the babies who were crying and didn't rush over to hold and cuddle them. They said, look, if a baby is crying, it is pink and breathing, that is a good thing in my book, also it clears their lungs of any residual fluid, it's ok if a baby crys sometimes. After 6 months of attending C-sections, at risk births,

and careing for the healthy new born, I got it. Pink and breathing is good, and I wasn't cruel or evil for not rushing to their side. I did learn to help infants teach themselves to self soothe, and that a small intervention could lead to a happy baby.

rn/writer, RN · Jul 26, 2011

I remember one thing that really helped me get perspective when I woked in what we called the full service nursery (well-NICU in one big loong room.)
I thought the nurses were all burned out and mean at first because they would just ignore the babies who were crying and didn't rush over to hold and cuddle them. They said, look, if a baby is crying, it is pink and breathing, that is a good thing in my book, also it clears their lungs of any residual fluid, it's ok if a baby crys sometimes. After 6 months of attending C-sections, at risk births,
and careing for the healthy new born, I got it. Pink and breathing is good, and I wasn't cruel or evil for not rushing to their side. I did learn to help infants teach themselves to self soothe, and that a small intervention could lead to a happy baby.

I have to deal with this in postpartum. Moms and dads complain that the baby won't sleep. I have to explain that babies do cry sometimes, and they need to learn to differentiate between the low-grade, "letting off steam" cry that babies who are fed and changed sometimes make on the way to sleep and the charged-up cry a baby makes when it really needs something.

If I have the time, I stay in the room with them and talk them through the urge to rush and pick up the baby every time it lets out a peep. I show them that if the baby's needs have been met, they need to wait at least a minute or two before picking the baby up. Even after that minute or two, they can put a hand on the swaddled kiddo and gently rock it in the crib.

The parents are amazed and relieved that even a newborn can need to vent a little and that they can soothe themselves and go to sleep if they're not snatched up from the crib with every whimper.

Of course, if baby doesn't settle, then it's time to pick her up.

But I'd say around 70% settle down and everyone gets some sleep. The parents are happier knowing they don't have to be slaves to every single cry, and they start learning, even before they leave the hospital to hear the difference in cries.

I just love teaching parents to relax and trust themselves and their child. Frantic parents make for a frantic kid and that makes everyone (even the nurses) unhappy. If they can believe that their gut will tell them when something is really wrong and that they have a whole big safety net of docs and nurses, grandparents and others who will be there for them, they're able to enjoy their baby and not treat him like a ticking time bomb.