First 4 hours of the newborn's life...?

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Can anybody help me with this question? We have to answer questions for a Newborn Study Guide for clinicals, this one may seem to be really simple but I am just not sure about it.

Q. List and prioritize six nursing actions you would carry out during the first 4 hours of the newborn's life.

So obviously I could throw some things out there, I know it's important to keep a check on temperature, bp, check for jaundice, etc....but it is apparantly referring to 6 specific nursing actions and I just cannot find the right answer. Can anybody help me out here? I've looked everywhere in my book and we just started OB last week so this is all very new to me.

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Specializes in ED.

Whenever I've had questions like this, I always think, "what's gonna kill 'em the quickest" and go from there.

Don't forget Maslow either. I know it is more difficult to come up with a Maslow plan for a newborn but it might help you come up with your answers.

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Just throwing out some assessments: RR, HR, Temp, Skin color, umbilical cord (2 arteries, 1 vein), sole creases, nipple assessment, genital area and anal inspection, reflex assessment (Moro, tonic neck reflex, Babinski, startle, etc), birthmarks, HEENT, check for symmetry of thigh fat folds (you can perform Ortolani's and Barlow maneuver to check for hip dislocation), feel roof of mouth for any abnormalities (while doing this, you can also assess the sucking/rooting reflex).

I'm sure I have left some out, but when we were doing Ob/Peds rotation, we assessed the newborn head to toe. Starting with fontanels and ending with sole creases. I absolutely loved this rotation and miss it dearly. Enjoy! It is a semester I'll never forget.

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I don't know what your instructor wants exactly, but having worked L&D/Mother/Baby, one of the MOST important nursing actions (after assessing for the health of the infant) is to get that baby to the breast/mama's chest. Facilitating maternal-infant bonding and breastfeeding are priority actions, and should not be forgotten (but unfortunately often are). Any L&D/Mother/Baby nurse knows that it is important for bonding, for mother's recovery, and for the establishment of breastfeeding to get that baby to the breast within the first couple of hours of life. After that, the baby and mama both get sleepy, and if breastfeeding hasn't been initiated prior to that, it often becomes an uphill battle.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Thanks for all the great answers everyone! I'm not exactly sure what they are looking for either...I mean it would be different if they just wanted to know what nursing actions to carry out for a newborn....but they were very specific with the question, they wanted to know within the first FOUR hours of the newborn's life, SIX nursing actions...it just threw me off a little bit. Maybe I will figure it out! :confused:

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For the 1st four hours, I would suspect that temp reg is a pretty high priority.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

Sugar, Temperature, Airway, Cardiac, Skin Color, Activity are the top ones we watch.

Actions...just put them in a plan... Nurse will monitor______________________.

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