Hi all ~ I am an ER nurse, so I have never had a reason to post to this forum until now. A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the birth of my first grandchild. It was a wonderful experience! My grandson is the most beautiful baby ever (I'll bet all grandmas say that). The reason that I am posting is that our very special day turned into a nightmare and I hope that by relating the experience, I can bring an awareness to others so that perhaps this avoidable occurance can be prevented.
About an hour after the birth, the new mother and baby were moved from the birthing room to the postpartum floor. I was with them and was present during the mom's room orientation. In retrospect, I cannot remember the nurse ever mentioning the importance of having all siderails up when the baby is in the bed with the mom. I was in my grandmother mode and not my nurse mode and I feel all kinds of remorse for not catching this oversight.
Later in the day, the new mom decided to try and nurse her baby. She was alone in the room and fell asleep at some point while the baby was nursing. One of the siderails on the bed was down and, as the mother fell asleep, the baby rolled off of the bed and landed on his head on the hard floor. He suffered an intracranial bleed and was in the NICU for six days. The neurosurgeon was ready to do a craniotomy if the bleed expanded by one more millimeter (it measured 31mm wide x 10mm deep). Luckily, the bleed stabilized after 6 hours and surgery was avoided. My grandson is OK now, but will have to have weekly scans until the hematoma resolves and will be enrolled in a monitoring program for head-injured infants.
As a nurse, I feel horrible for not anticipating the potential risk that nursing a baby in a hospital bed posed. As a grandmother, I feel so much grief that my little grandson had such a rough start in this world. No one is to blame, though...it was a horrible accident. I don't know if the hospital had any policy about mothers nursing their babies in bed and siderails. I would like to see signs posted in every postpartum room that state "If you have your baby in bed with you, all siderails MUST be in the up position". If that were policy and it were made very clear to the new mothers, perhaps accidents like this one could be prevented.
I am very grateful to the nurses who responded so quickly and saw the importance of having the baby examined immediately. Within minutes, he was seeing a pediatric intensivist and a CT was done within an hour of his fall. All of the staff were great about keeping us updated on our little guy's condition. We all seem to have moved beyond the trauma of that day, but I have this nagging feeling that I should have prevented it somehow. Since I can't go back in time and change things, I decided to post our experience here so that those of you who are in a position to effect policy can bring this awareness to your workplace. You guys are in the best position to educate new moms and ensure the safety of our newest little beings. Thank you for being there.
