nursechar

Hello, This a little late, and the lady may have already delivered, but I can tell you all about St. Mary's Hospital. The NICU is excellent and a level III, they have awesome NNP's and Neonatologists. The L&D unit has very experienced and knowledgeable nurses. St. Mary's is the only hospital in Grand Junction that delivers babies and is the largest hospital between Denver and Salt Lake.

At the hospital I work at (L&D), we take a minimum of 3 call shifts a month. The call shifts are 12 hr shifts and most of the nurses are getting really burnt out. Many times we are getting called in to staff other units because the nurses on the other units are not required to take more than one call shift per month.

Our facility has pt.'s sign a consent form stating the risks of the med and that the FDA has not approved cytotec for use in this manner. We usually use 25-50 mcg pv, and 100-200mcg pv for IUFD. Personally, it seems to work okay, but it's a little risky. Why not use Pitocin that can be turned off at any moment and has a very short half-life. We also use prostaglandin suppositories for IUFD, but it can make mom's have a fever and feel awful.

Valene, Just wondering if your babies have a lot of blood sugar probs from the Pitocin mixed with the D5LR instead of just plain LR, and if your facility has many uterine ruptures from the Pitocin protocol they use?

We had a pt. on our unit,G5, P4 , who had all SVD's previously and was term , came in having uc's q 2-3 min x3-4 hours, palpated strong, but never had any cervical change over 3 hours and was given MS 10 mg and was sent home. She came back in 8 hours later, same ctx pattern, still palpating strong and no cervical change from prior exam, 3/80/0, at this point she had SROM, clear fluid. Come to find out she had cryotherapy on her cervix since her last delivery, so her physician manually dilated her to complete with cervical dilators and she had a healthy baby. Has anyone else ever seen a physician do this before? It's not common practice at our hospital.

:) Most of our providers use Cytotec 50 mcg lady partslly for inductions. Occasionally, some of them use 50 mcg p.o. if the patients cervix is really favorable. For fetal demise, we usually use Cytotec 100-200mcg. At our hospital, we have a Cytotec consent form that pt's are required to sign prior to cytotec use. The form basically states that cytotec is not approved for use in Obstetrical patients for induction of labor. Does anyone else have such a form at their hospital?