rrprn

The prenatal care issue that I mentioned in my previous postings was not meant to be the focus but I'm glad that is the direction this discussion went to. I would like to again thank everyone who has posted because it has made me look beyond my own feelings about this case. This was my first stillborn delivery since starting in OB. It, unfortunately, was paired in my mind with the lack of prenatal care. Now, looking at it from different viewpoints has helped to remind me that not everyone views "western" medicine practices as the "right" thing to do. There were probably many reasons that went into why this woman chose not to obtain prenatal care that was available to her. Due to the rapid nature of her delivery, there was no time to explore this with her. This case will stay with me forever. All I can do now is try to learn from it to be a better nurse. As another nurse in my department reminded me: "When OB is good, its really good. But when its bad, its really bad..."

I know for a fact that this pt had access to very good prenatal care that she would not have been charged for. I didn't mean to sound judgemental of this woman. She is now going through something that I would never, ever wish on anyone. I think my anger/frustration is that with even minimal prenatal care, we would have had at least known if she really was close to her due date. Thank you all for pointing out different viewpoints about my posting. I'm still trying to process everything that happened and my own feelings about it all.

Recently our unit has had an increased number of women coming in with NO prenatal care. As scary as this has been, we recently had a stillbirth baby born to one of these women. This was not the woman's first birth without any prenatal care. There was very thick meconium fluid, but we had a fhr in the 150s up until the infant was delivered. As a newer nurse to OB I'm trying to figure out how to cope with the feelings of anger with the mother for not getting prenatal care when its available free and the sadness that I feel for her at the same time. I keep replaying everything in my head, trying to make sense of it all. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.