On to OB......Now what?

AgentBeast, MSN, RN · Mar 10, 2012

Pregnant women and babies.

Clovery · Mar 10, 2012

Everyone was way nicer than I expected. I thought the pregnant women & new moms wouldn't want students around (understandably), but everyone was so friendly. I liked OB - it wasn't very stressful compared to some of my other rotations.

RADIATION_RN · Mar 12, 2012

I am in OB right now and it is going pretty well, especially for me being male. I was nervous about how the patients were going to be towards a male student but it is all in the demeanor. Our OB rotation is only 5 weeks and we are in postpartum for three weeks and labor and delivery for 2 weeks. Every school is different of course, but here is how mine is :

1st week postpartum : we are assigned two moms only and all care and meds associated with them. Not too bad, had one mom who was a fresh C-section so I had some IV fluids to hang, LR with 20 units of oxytocin seems to be the usual and she had a foley. My other mom was a lady partsl delivery but had problems with pregnancy induced hypertension so she was on q 4 vitals as opposed to normal lady partsl delivery moms are usually vitals q shift. Not a lot of meds like in med surg. We do have ALOT of charting to do though. We have to chart something at least every 2 hours during our 12 hour clinical.

2nd week postpartum : we are assigned 2 couplets...meaning mom and baby, so essentially 4 patients. At first this was a tad overwhelming for me but the hospital we are in hands out really handy I&O sheets so they can keep track of their baby's intake and output if we weren't in the room. One thing, at our facility, the babies never leave the room unless mom asks for a break. So doing an assessment with my instructor on a newborn in front of the mom made me a little nervous but the mom was totally cool.

3rd week labor and delivery : our clinical group of 10 is split up so some went to L&D first and had super exciting busy days. On my first L&D day I was assigned to a nurse who had one patient. She was admitted at 0700 for VBAC induction. I got to start her IV and draw labs. Since we aren't allowed to hang Pitocin in the L&D setting, I watched my nurse admit her, hook her up to the fetal monitoring unit, and start the Pitocin. Then it was a waiting game. I got a lot of studying done that day because our instructor encouraged us to bring study material. The OB broke her water at 0930, then more waiting. We aren't allowed to give meds or chart in L&D so I did more studying. By the end of my 12 hour shift, she had only dilated to 3 cm so they were going to take her for a C-section after I was gone. *sigh* Maybe I'll get to see more next week.

Hope this helps!