Do you bag your bodies naked?

lamazeteacher · Mar 12, 2011

When I worked in L&D, some years ago, we prepared the packet described above, and allowed the parents to hold their baby until they called to indicate their readiness to yield it's body to hospital procedures. We cried with them, when the emotions came up, too.

Crooning the lullaby is a beautiful thing....

Merlyn · Mar 15, 2011

Naked- easy in, easy out. Don't make yourself crazy. The morgue stacks them, The Pathologist cuts them, and the funeral home makes them beautiful. We're not talking King Tut here.

snoopy29 · Mar 19, 2011

Interesting thread and very thought provoking.

My intellect tells me it makes not a bit of difference to my patient what they are wearing but my emotion wants this last opportunity to make them comfortable.

In particular, and admittedly I am sure it is far more about my needs, if I am looking after a baby that has died I carry them down to the morgue carefully and warmly dressed. It would haunt me to do otherwise.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · Mar 19, 2011

The policy in most places is not to send them with a gown.I always do.

What an indignate way to save a nickle.

mee9mee9 · Mar 20, 2011

a nurse has to touch and pick up a dead patient and put it in the body bag? what if its a murder victim?

Merlyn · Mar 20, 2011

I think it is all about the nurse's and family's feelings. It would be nice if Mr. Jones could go to the morgue all dressed up, but the fact is that as far as we know for sure the thing that we wrap is just something he walk around in while he was on this earth. There was one exception, there was an accident a young girl. She came into the ER in pieces. The main body came in on the stretcher and her head they brought in in a bowling bag. An other nurse and I were to assigned to clean the body because the family was coming in to see the girl. So, while my friend cleaned the body, I sew the head back on the neck. We washed the hair and since I was at that time was in the theatre, I did the make-up. We dressed he in a purple nightgown, put sand bags in a pillow case prop her head up and put a black ribbon and her neck to hide the stitches. the family came in mourned and left. When the undertaker came, he said he could not have done a better job. When he left, I look at my friend and she looked at me. We both started to cry over this poor young girl that met such a horrible end. I'm not as cold hearted as I pretend to be.

allnurses Guide · Mar 20, 2011

a nurse has to touch and pick up a dead patient and put it in the body bag? what if its a murder victim?

Well, we've usually been touching and caring for them up to that moment, and yes, we do post mortem care. Death is part of life. The body bag is just the last thing we do before taking the body to the morgue or releasing it to the funeral home.

Murder victims become the responsibility of the Office of the Medical Investigator, and they come to examine the body, and are the ones who place it a body bag, preserving chain of evidence.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Mar 20, 2011

I think it is all about the nurse's and family's feelings. It would be nice if Mr. Jones could go to the morgue all dressed up, but the fact is that as far as we know for sure the thing that we wrap is just something he walk around in while he was on this earth. There was one exception, there was an accident a young girl. She came into the ER in pieces. The main body came in on the stretcher and her head they brought in in a bowling bag. An other nurse and I were to assigned to clean the body because the family was coming in to see the girl. So, while my friend cleaned the body, I sew the head back on the neck. We washed the hair and since I was at that time was in the theatre, I did the make-up. We dressed he in a purple nightgown, put sand bags in a pillow case prop her head up and put a black ribbon and her neck to hide the stitches. the family came in mourned and left. When the undertaker came, he said he could not have done a better job. When he left, I look at my friend and she looked at me. We both started to cry over this poor young girl that met such a horrible end. I'm not as cold hearted as I pretend to be.

Wow. That's an incredible story. I don't know that I could have done what you did.

casi, ASN, RN · Mar 20, 2011

For me the hardest part of post-mortem care is zipping up the body bag. Its uncomfortable to zip someone I've been taking care of into a bag. It would be even harder for me to zip them in naked.

I always send patient's to the morgue in a gown, brief, and with any wounds that may ooze covered.

I understand that the first thing the mortuary is going to do is get them naked, but the idea of zipping someone naked into a body bag just makes me really uncomfortable.

NtannRN · Mar 21, 2011

My pt the other day coded and passed away. The family waited while we did a "quick" clean up so they could come in asap. When they left, we did the complete post mortem. We have a specific gurney that has a cover. We place the pt on that place the cover and then cover with sheets. As we were about to place him on the gurney, more family came and I could not in my heart deny them to see him. I stressed to them that my pt. Was about to leave, I unzipped the bag (think goodness he had a jonny on) covered him with a sheet and placed a pillow under his head. I worked hard to save this man and failed, the least I could do was help his family and make sure he looked as they would want to remember him.

chimpanzee · Oct 27, 2011

So when a patient passes away are the sheets and gowns etc washed and then re used or are they thrown out? It's kind of gross if your a patient and to think that someone could have died in the gown your wearing or the sheets your using... but then again i guess it isn't much different when it comes to sleeping on the beds.... it's not like they're going to throw away the mattress because someone died on it.

Bortaz, MSN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

No, I don't bag the bodies naked. I always wear scrubs when I do it.