Leopold's Maneuvers

Yes.... you should always do leopolds to try to locate the fetal back for fetal heart tones as well as trying to confirm vertex position.

YES!!

as above stated...also I find it a means to "lay hands" on a woman, establishing a warm touch/more personal relationship with her. The monitors are great but do remove that human touch. Many new grads and residents will run right to a monitor, pulling up the strip to assess maternal/fetal wellbeing. This is a mistake. Always remember there is a LIVE human being attached to that monitor and treat her as such. She has a lot of information to impart if you ask the right questions and make astute observations.

And Leopold's manuevers, just are a part of this whole-person assessment. Develop a skill for this by practicing and learn it well. It CAN help you determine a lot of things and like the poster before me said and also help establish a warmer relationship with a mom-to-be---especially if you provide her with the information you find. It just makes it all much more personal. technology is a wonderful thing but NEVER takes the place of this touch and YOUR assessment skills. Pay attention to EVERYthing in the labor/deliver environment.

Good luck to you!

thank you all. i loved the interaction in my ob clinicals. i guess i am apprehensive about assessing fetal descent. practice, practice....

i'm relieved to know that their are nurses out there who do not always depend on the machine.

:)

yes practice practice practice...we all needed it....

even the most experienced of us.

As with the above posters. I use Leopold's to locate fetal back and as a reason to "lay hands" on my patient. While I am locating fetal postion I am talking to the patient. I can assess abdominal tenderness as well as contractions and ascertain fetal movement. Sometimes just taking those few minutes to touch, talk to and listen to the patient goes a long way to establishing the tone of the whole labor.

Yep I do leopolds on all my OBs too for the same reasons.

I try to do one before I do a cervical check or at least palpate a ctx. I feel that this lets the pt gets used to me touching her.