How can nurses help?

[VTBabyNurse]

Hi everyone,

Tonight I am working in the NICU and I just witnessed a conversation between two mothers that disturbed me a lot. The sad thing is that this type of scenario happens frequently around here. Basically they were talking about how hard it was to raise their 11 children and how the baby's daddy was abusive and wanted custody of the children. One of them said the baby's daddy tried to break her neck last night and she broke his nose. The other one countered with a story about how her baby daddy punched her in the stomach. Then they act so concerned about thier premature baby and yet they did drugs during their pregancy. It is so disheartening to see this. I really feel worried for these children because the state of VA is not strict with cases like these and the babies go home with the mothers.

I know you all have seen this too. But how can we as nurses make changes to help these children? How do you all deal with these types of situations?

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

On my unit, we usually get our social worker and our CNS involved. It does seem like some of these kids already have two strikes against them even if we're able to discharge them in reasonably good health.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

All I can say is to get the unit case mgr or social worker involved.

[ktwlpn, LPN]

Hi everyone,

Tonight I am working in the NICU and I just witnessed a conversation between two mothers that disturbed me a lot. The sad thing is that this type of scenario happens frequently around here. Basically they were talking about how hard it was to raise their 11 children and how the baby's daddy was abusive and wanted custody of the children. One of them said the baby's daddy tried to break her neck last night and she broke his nose. The other one countered with a story about how her baby daddy punched her in the stomach. Then they act so concerned about thier premature baby and yet they did drugs during their pregancy. It is so disheartening to see this. I really feel worried for these children because the state of VA is not strict with cases like these and the babies go home with the mothers.

I know you all have seen this too. But how can we as nurses make changes to help these children? How do you all deal with these types of situations?

Sadly it's not uncommon for women like this to try to "one up " each other.They act like it's a badge of honor to survive getting their heads knocked around.Take what you hear with a grain of salt.It's true that the state wants to keep these children with their mothers as much as possible-IMHO that seems only to ensure that the cycle of abuse/self abuse continues.As for dealing with the emotional aspect of nursing-talking about it here and in RT helps as does other stress relieving activities.You've got to find a balance between caring and making yourself sick .Everyone of us has been involved in situations that really impacted us and we can burn out if we aren't careful....THis type of thing you are talking about is a symptom of a sick society-Change has to come from a bigger entity then you- all you can do is call the social worker or pull the mom aside and offer her the number of your local battered women's shelter and maybe the local AA chapter.