postpartum care

[LKatie]

I am a freshman in college and I am trying to decide on a future career. I know I want to work with kids becuase I love them and specifically would like to work with babies. I have read a few things on here talking about postpartum care in the labor and delivery unit. Is there a name for these nurses and can you please help me understand more of what they do? Do nursery's not exists or are they not really used anymore? Also if any of you have any suggestions about careers I might be interested in please let me know!

Thank you!

[germanshep]

Postpartum care nursing varies depending on the facility. My facility is one of the largest hospitals in the county, so we probably do care differently. If the mom is a regular delivery, the couplets (mom/baby) come to our floor (postpartum) within an hour. If the baby has to go to the NICU the mom still comes over regardless. If the mom had a C/S, the couplets stay in the pacu for 2 hours. Immediately after delivery the neonatologist nurse does the apar score, assessment, vitals, etc. Then the baby sleeps for a while. The babies delivered via C/S are VERY sleeply so they sleep. In some facilities, the L and D RN does everything - high risk, antepartum care, delivery, postpartum care, step down NICU, etc. Good luck!

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

Postpartum is the nursery, sometimes referred to as Mother/Baby units in some hospitals, depending on where you are at. I do not work in postpartum, but I can share with you my clinical experiences that I had as a student. In postpartum, you are responsible for both mom & baby as patients. We only had 2 patients as students (unless the mom had twins or triplets, then you would have 3 or 4 patients that day) but I think the nurse:patient ratio was 1:4 or 1:6. We were responsible for doing assessments every 4 hours on both mom & baby as well as vital signs. We would facilitate maternal-infant bonding as much as possible. Some mothers unfortunately did not want much to do with their babies, so sometimes I would just hang out in the nursery and care for the infants there. We were responsible for administering vaccines (in particular the 1st of the HBV to the infant). A majority of the medications are PRN and postpartum includes A LOT of teaching. If you have a patient who is on their second or third child, teaching may be minimal or not necessary at all.

At the hospital I had clinicals at, postpartum nurses would be expected to float to L&D and vice versa.

[46oldnewrn]

It is not all happy and rose smelling. I remember doing my clinicals and there was a mother who apparently was not so happy about being a mother. She would not hold her newborn for hours. It made me so sad for that baby.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

It is not all happy and rose smelling. I remember doing my clinicals and there was a mother who apparently was not so happy about being a mother. She would not hold her newborn for hours. It made me so sad for that baby.

Yes this is true. You may also be dealing with drug babies...I went to the special care nursery for a day and remember an older infant (I think around 6 months?) on methadone because mom decided she wanted to do drugs during her pregnancy...so sad. Mom hardly came by to see her baby and she still had custody...