Pregnant nurse working with isolation patients

Nurses General Nursing

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I was wondering what everyone thinks about this situation. I am 31 weeks pregnant and work on a med/surg floor as an RN. For at least the last 8 years, general conscensus amoung co-workers on my floor has been once a female nurse is pregnant she no longer will take patients on pre-cautions....MRSA, VRE, CDiff etc. We also ensure that these nurses dont take patients with chicken pox, shingles, necrotizing facitis, head lice, scabies. Basically nothing too contagious or too nasty.

Things have been going fine with this during my entire pregnancy-as well as for a few of my pregnant co-workers until recently I was floated to another unit (the icu). Here I was expected to take on two isolation patients. They presently have a pregnant nurse who will take any and all patients regardless of their diagnosis. But I refused as my floor had already let them know 3 hours before my shift began that a pregnant nurse would be floating and therefore the assignment needed to be 'clean'.

Well my refusal created a big stink I guess and now infection control is saying that there is NO reason why we cant care for any patient including shingles, chicken pox, menigitis and CMV. Im just upset and with so little time being left for my pregnancy (9 weeks) i hate to expose myself and my baby to something now. Am I being too cautious? Do you think my OBGYN would give me a doctors note to avoid isolation patients?

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Specializes in NICU.

CMV??? Oh, HELL no. Our unit doesn't see much of the others (shingles, etc) bc of our patient population, but we don't even let pregnant women in the same AREA as a CMV patient. I've seen what congenital CMV does to a newborn. I'd let them write me up, discipline me, fire me, before I worked with CMV as a pregnant nurse. I can't imagine that your OB *wouldn't* write you a note for that.

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Specializes in ICU, nutrition.

Well, I worked in the ICU through 2 pregnancies, and they tried their best not to give me any isolation patients, but not because of the "clean" vs. "dirty" but because the gowns were so stinkin hot I'd almost pass out in the patient's room if I was in there for longer than 5 minutes. Charge nurse didn't want to scrape me up AND have to take my assignment lol.

Only thing I steered clear of was CMV, and one time I had to put a feeding tube in a patient at my other job (metabolic support). I got about half way through it and and patient's wife mentioned that he had CMV. I about had a stroke. Fortunately I wasn't at risk as the patient had been on antivirals for about 10 days and was no longer considered contagious. It was an honest mistake that it wasn't brought to my attention, and with so much MRSA anymore, I just assumed it was that.

If you are floating from a non-critical care area to a critical care area, maybe that was the only safe assignment they could give you. I know when we get house floats in ICU we have to be careful that the patients they get they can handle.

My OB would write a note for just about anything, but I'm not sure that's fair. There's no reason you can't care for anything but CMV or shingles/chicken pox, I don't think.

Just my :twocents:

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protect yourself and your child -

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I know this is a little different, but I just went through nursing school pregnant and my instructor would not give me patients in isolation because of it. I think that was fair of her. She told me that if I was working on the floor already as a nurse that I would not be expected to handle those patients either. I think your job is being completely unsensitive. You are growing a little person inside your body and you shouldn't be around those bacterias and viruses. I would tell them to go to **** if they gave me a hard time about that. Def. get a note from the OB- Then nobody can say anything about it. That's your baby and it's your right to protect it. :heartbeat

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protect yourself and your child -

I have never worked any where that pregnant nurses were not protected.

I know they say MRSA is not a risk, but if we could avoid giving it to a pregnant nurse, we did.

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Specializes in Infection Preventionist/ Occ Health.

At my hospital we avoid giving parvovirus, MRSA and CMV patients to pregnant nurses. Other isolation patients (pneumonia, RSV, etc) are fair game as far as I know. We are also expected to give chemo if and when we become pregnant if it is not easily avoidable.

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When I was pregnant I was exposed three times to meningitis...all three presented with atypical symptoms. All three times the staff freaked out on my behalf when it was announced. On another occasion I was about to walk into a room that, unbeknownst to me, held a child with possible measles. A coworker practically screamed at me to get a mask on before going in there. I don't know if it's a written thing or not, but pregnant nurses should NEVER be expected to care for isolation pts.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

I have just come into this issue as well. As I walked out of a patient's room I was told they have shingles. I'm 16 weeks pregnant. I immediately called my OB and they said that if possible I should have another assignment but if that wasn't possible to wear gloves at all times. I went and told them I would not take that patient until he is healed. I looked online and it looks like pregnant nurses are pretty well okay to work with most patients but I say if your unit was being cautious thats great. And since that is what they have been doing for you your entire pregnancy I don't see why that should have to change if they are floating you. And they even said you were pregnant when they floated you so they could have made adjustments.

The thing is you have probably come in contact with many many different diseases while out in public. Community acquired MRSA is out there, people with shingles, and chicken pox, etc...

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Specializes in Cardiothoracic Transplant Telemetry.
I know this is a little different, but I just went through nursing school pregnant and my instructor would not give me patients in isolation because of it. I think that was fair of her. She told me that if I was working on the floor already as a nurse that I would not be expected to handle those patients either. I think your job is being completely unsensitive. You are growing a little person inside your body and you shouldn't be around those bacterias and viruses. I would tell them to go to **** if they gave me a hard time about that. Def. get a note from the OB- Then nobody can say anything about it. That's your baby and it's your right to protect it. :heartbeat

At my work that note from your ob would just get you placed on leave as being unable to complete your assigned job. We keep pregnant nurses away from cmv and shingles, and try to keep them away from known c-diff. There are too many pregnant nurses at any one time on my floor, and too many patients on isolation precautions to be able to give "clean" assignments to everyone who is pregnant.

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This was a big concern for me, my son is now 6 months old, and I'll tell you why.When I first got pregnant, I was in the hospital where I got a clean assignment whenever possible, but there were times, usually the pt would be placed on isolation during my shift(So they were clean when I got the assignment), where I cared for c-diff, Mrsa, and esbl. Once I had a pt I cared for for 2 days and when I came back after one day off she was on iso for mrsa nars. I was freaked, but my ob was actually more concerned about me lifting and he said to us the proper precautions and it would be okay.Stil the hospitsl staff did their best to help.

Anyway, when I was like 8 months, I switched to a LTC for the 8 hour shifts and OMG!! They never let me have a clean assignment, even if one was a available.They said that it shouldn't matter if I was pregnant. I even had a pt that I swore had chicken pox, but in LTC there is a desk nurse so she talked to the doc and really down played it (it was a fri) and he said he'd look at it on monday.This stupid nurse argued with me, that it was not chicken pox and if I don't like it I could go home. Against my better judgement, I stayed and the rash did turn out to be chicken pox! My ob said that as long as I had chicken pox and my titers were good then it was ok. However, the CNA that worked with me caring for that pt was also pregnant, and was not from this country and had never had chicken pox. I wanted to slap this stupid desk nurse for putting two pregnant women in that situation. I will never work in LTC again while preggers because the really didn't understand diseases/their transmission/ect... There would be mrsa of the nars pts walking around the halls and, well, you get the picture.

Anyway, my baby is a healthy boy. No problems. My ob really said the one to be avoided is TB, but I think the LTC would have given me a TB pt if they had to.:no:

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I personally know of a physical therapist who was exposed to a patient with CMV while working. Her son was born with devastating disabilities. He has a cochlear inplant to help him hear and looks similar to a child with cerebal palsy. I know this has been very hard on the mother and I would hate to see this happen to another healthcare worker.

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