First day of my Obstetrics Rotation!

la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN · Nov 2, 2015

Oh man, I was so scared for my first day, too. I don't have any kids, I have very few (read: one) young child in my family and I my experience with babies and pregnant women amounted to making sure I never had any of them or became pregnant myself until my life goals were achieved. I was so intimidated!

My first day I was assigned to the mother/baby (i.e. postpartum) unit and it was pretty ho-hum. You go in, assess the babies with the nurse, talk to the moms and see how their pain is being controlled, if they're having issues breastfeeding (and make sure they aren't overfeeding if they're doing formula), if they've been having any trouble going to the bathroom, etc. This can be either an incredibly rewarding part of patient education or it can be incredibly frustrating. Consider the hospital you are going to and consider the surrounding population and the implications for the patients you are likely to encounter. This took me a minute to figure out.

Subsequent days were either NICU, nursery (which I never went to and you might not even have at your facility), vag deliveries, c-sections, or back in postpartum.

NICU was miserable for me but I changed my first diaper and fed my first baby there so there's that.

My first vag delivery was really surreal. We got in to clinical usually at 6 or so and my pt delivered at about 7:30 or 8. It was........interesting. The physiological process was cool but then dealing with the brand new mom was fairly aggravating and I could not see myself doing L&D after that point. Things went incredibly fast. Baby's born and then BAM - assess on the warming crib, rub down to stimulate crying, throw the baby on the mom and clean off and rub more with the towel, palpate the cord, cut the cord, assess the placenta, watch the doc sew up the little tear, footprints for the baby, put the bracelet on the baby, eye ointment, vitamin K, and BAM off to the nursery while we clean up mom and get her ready to go to the room in postpartum.

The c-section I saw was also my first time in the OR. Again, very surreal and I felt bad for the pt because I wanted to knock the baby daddy out for scaring the poor woman about what an epidural needle looked like (even though this wasn't even her 1st or 2nd one). She was terrified and I was pissed at him. But, it was cool seeing the procedures and how the OR works and it ended up being all good.

Anyway, there's the snapshots of what I had going on for L&D. Good luck! Have fun. :)

Jacrazz · Nov 12, 2015

It's not my favorite....I go to school in the evening so not much action besides the babies. Moms are tired and taking visitors by the time I get there...hopefully you go to school in the day time so you can see all the good stuff!