Preconception/Pregnancy and Work Safety

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Specializes in med-surg, telemetry.

Hello fellow nurses!

I am a new RN and work in a small community hospital's stepdown unit. My husband and I are finally getting ready to start a family. I am reading up on preconception and am trying to figure out if there are any special precautions I should take now or once I become pregnant. Are standard precautions enough? Are there any diseases or treatments you would definitely avoid exposure to? Obviously I should avoid radiation. I'm immune to varicella and hep B. Anything else?

Thanks for your help!

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Specializes in Med-Surg, LTC.

I steer clear of shingles (7 months) even though I had chickenpox before-better safe than sorry IMO. I also wear gloves to give meds like proscar and megace, which are cytotoxic. If I have to crush cytotoxic meds I get another nurse to do it. I got the H1N1 vaccine but if we had a patient with H1N1 I'd probably ask to be reassigned anyway.

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We try to be protective of our pregnant nurses. No assigned shingles, chemo, RSV pt or anyone else needing extra precautions. We make sure they know we are available for transfers or lifts of certain pts. This is not to say nurses who are pregnant can't lift or transfer but we don't want them to put themselves at risk. Our floor is very schooled in this since last year we had 10 pregnant nurses....!

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Specializes in med-surg, telemetry.

Makes sense... thanks!

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