beachmom

We had a baby born with some major heart defects (lg ventricular septal defect, transposition of vessels and two other things). We shipped him to the big hospital with neonatal cardiology. They told us he would be having surgery within a few days, an...

Mother Knows Best: Last night we had a pt. in L&D with her boyfriend and mom as labor coaches. They want a totally natural birth which is good and we always support that, but they resisted all of our care. When we would explain the need for somet...

At our hospital,with the H1N1 situation, we are not allowed to come to work with symptoms like yours. We have to tell our managers that we have flu symptoms to help them keep track of the flu situation. Luckily, our hospital has tried to make it a bi...

To be fair, maybe we should have a thread on "hospital birth gone awry." Sometimes our interventions cause problems that would not have occured had the birth been at home. Just because a problem happens in a home birth, doesn't mean the home birth s...

I've wondered that too. How likely is an infection with birth greater than 24 hours after water breaking. At my hospital they are induced if their water breaks and no labor starts. If it goes past 24 hours, they are usually sectioned for failure to p...

Birth: The light at the end of the tunnel. Or We help people out. (This one you may have to think about before getting it, so not the best for a T-shirt.)

We also put ice in diapers. It's the right shape. It absorbs moisture. On ortho they put ice in baggies covered with a towel, but when the ice melts and Ziploc opens, you have a wet bed. Also, towel can slip off, and you have ice next to skin. I don...

At our hospital we don't time recoveries. Sometimes the labor nurse does recovery and takes them as a couple for the rest of the shift. When she's done with the busy part of recovering mom and admitting the baby, then she'll offer to help another nur...

AROM's are pretty common in my hospital. It seems like we have SROM's that start labor, OR we have labor where pt. comes to the hospital and then gets an AROM. Docs do it sooner than midwives. It is supposed to speed labor, which is popular with docs...

We like them except if they try to prevent us doing our thing. We have one in our town, and she is great helping laboring women. I haven't worked with her, but the other nurses like her because she makes their job easier. We have a lay midwife here ...

One of our best baby nurses is a man. He doesn't do labor, but he does postpartum, babies, NICU and GYN surgeries. It's different than the norm, but people accept him as they would a male doctor. If we know a woman has been sexually abused, usually ...

If a pt. is my friend or relative, I will tell the charge nurse not to assign me to them. I wouldn't feel comfortable, and neither would they. Or if they are someone in the community who I know and don't like or vice versa. If they are a neighbor or ...

Had a wonderful "mother nature" birth last evening. We had a woman really wanted a VBAC with no meds. Her first baby was C/S d/t being ten pounds and too large to come out. This baby was supposed to be smaller, but the doctor said she was rather wor...

We never purposely put our babies in distress. If pit causes distress, pit is slowed. Sometimes there is a fine line between upping it to get good contractions vs. lowering it to make baby happy. I have noticed often with inductions, the body just is...

You have to be able to think quickly and be calm in emergencies. You've probably had plenty of experience with emergencies in ICU, just a different kind than in ER. I'm a good floor nurse, but in emergencies I still get the "deer in the headlights" f...

You should find out first what the volunteers do. At my hospital they sit by the front door and direct people to patients rooms. They help in the gift shop. They pass out newspapers. The only patient contact they have is wheeling them out of the ho...

We have about 60 babies/month. Everyone does couple care and GYN surgeries. A few part-time per diems just do those only. Most of us specialize in either nursery/NICU or labor. A few do everything. (I'm nursery/NICU) When a baby's born, I leave my ...

I asked a doctor once if she had any patients who didn't know they were pregnant. She said only a few, mostly teens who were in denial. One, however, was a woman who was told she could never have kids. She was obese and had lots of stomach issues. S...

Great informative reply nerdtonurse! Honestly, and unfortunately, I think I would freeze. I'm by nature not assertive. It took quite awhile for me to learn at work to deal with agitated patients or take charge in medical emergencies. I've never been...

It's all in how you look at it. It's a plastic surgery clinic, and it sounds like they are just offering free care as a perk to those who work there. They don't get it until they've worked there three years, so they are not saying you have to be pret...

If the chest tube wasn't in the correct spot, then yes, the lung could collapse. For example, if the chest tube migrated a bit and was sucking on tissue rather than the space between the lung and the chest wall. Or if the chest tube was up high and ...

We can use an ultrasound any time without an order, but we can't officially diagnose anything. For example, if we check a woman and think it feels odd, like maybe breech but we're not sure, we can use the ultrasound to check the position before call...

I love their blankies. I want some like that.

I'm not Catholic. I am pro-life, and I wouldn't help with an elective abortion. If a mother's life was threatened, I would help with that abortion. While I would want to save the baby's life, in an either/or situation, I would side with mother. Than...

We have an OB doctor who ordered Norco IV. The nurse informed her, "It doesn't come IV." Dr. said, "Well, give it IM, whatever!" (Norco is hydrocodone and tylenol - PO only) She also wanted to order a magnesium drip for a pre-eclampsia pt. She had no...