first exposure in the hospital

Eirene, ASN, RN · May 17, 2008

It'll be fine. Assess for bruising, redness, tearing, the stiches, etc.

Always wipe front to back (you probably already knew this).

Don't touch insides of the pads.

I think it's more of teaching the patient's how to care for themselves. You'll be fine.

lemonaidangel · May 17, 2008

They are letting you do OB without any previous hospital exposure? Wow. My school would never let us do that! Since we cared for two people, both mom and baby (before and after the infant was born!), it was considered essential that we had experience in assessment and performing basic hospital duties.

But on the other hand, for the most part patients are healthy in labor and delivery, I guess it may be a good place to start after all. Good luck to you! Just remember that there is a lot of teaching involved! We had to go down a list and check off everything we've taught the mom in her chart and that she understood the instructions given. If it has been several hours since the baby was born, mom has had a chance to rest and is feeling better, you won't have any trouble getting your teaching done. I generally found parents to be very receptive and very eager to learn how to take care of their new baby!

My typical OB day was like this:

0600: Arrive at hospital, change into the hospital uniforms, get assigned client, get report

0700: Introduce self to parents, explain that I was a student and that I would be working with their nurse that day. Then I would start my infant assessment because we were required to have that done and charted by 0800. This may or may not be done in the parent's room. Start from the head, work all the way down to the toes. (I loved testing reflexes!)

chart

0800: Do mom's vitals and complete assessment, which doesn't have to be as thorough as a head-to-toe on a med surg client. Breasts, fundus, peri area, lochia, homan's sign, pain level. That's it.

Chart.

0830: Grab instructor to get medications. Give meds.

Chart

0900: Stay and talk for a good hour or so with the parents. Teach as much as possible. First find out what they know about infant care and go from there. If this is their 7th child, they typically don't need as much information as first time parents do.

Chart

0945: Interrupt teaching session to do another complete assessment on baby. At our facility we needed to grab a nurse if the baby's temp got below 97.7 degrees, if the heart rate was higher or lower than 120-160, and if respirations were higher or lower than 30-60.

Chart baby's assessment

1000: Continue with patient teaching, help her take a shower, change sheets if needed, etc. I once was able to teach the parents how to give their baby a washcloth bath for the first time. It was so much fun!

1115: Finish charting, give report to nurse, gather in an empty patient room (because there was no conference room available) for post floor conference.

1200: Go home!