Question for the L&D nurses

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Hello! I'm an ADN student at the end of my third semester (the end is in sight!), and just finished my L&D clinical rotation, which was absolutely fabulous and taught by a ridiculously good clinical instructor. It was also kind of neat to be back on the floor I had my child on three years ago, to see things from the other side of the aisle. :)

So, I came away with a couple questions. Since I started school, L&D is one of two places I'm really interested in. And while I saw some amazing things during my clinical, I was also really disturbed by a couple things I saw (the delivery of a 26 weeker, and a boy who had a circumcision gone wrong among other things). I came home and worried and worried and cried for those babies. My question is, does it get easier? How do you cope with sad/upsetting things? Is L&D not for me cause I'm too damn sensitive? It was an amazing experience, but I still find myself worrying about those babies...a lot.

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Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

To be brief - in any specialty there are hard things. You learn a measure of professional detachment. So yes, in a manner of speaking, it gets easier.

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The only specialty I decided I wouldn't work when I was a student was L&D. Three years later it is all I have done and I wouldn't change a thing. I work nursery and PP also, and while it doesn't get easier, you learn to weigh out the good you have done with the bad you couldn't help. In school my instructor told me OB is 98% pure joy and 2% sheet terror; hold onto that humility a d OB is a wonderful, gratifying experience.

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I never really had a problem with this except for Peds. I will say that after 6 yrs in L&D that its not as hard for me to deal with the demise pts, but I never had an issue with the preterm babies. If it is deliver or mom dies, then deliver. Its a no brainer for me. I had a pt who waited and waited against the advice of her MD and ended up gorked out in the ICU because her body just couldnt tolerate it. I had another that was in severe HELLP and I delivered her at like 26 weeks or something crazy, but her organs were starting to fail, so delivery is the only option. I am very personal with my pts and bond, but for the most part I try to look at things clinically and that it was not my choice to make regarding thier care in that sense. I still have a really hard time with the demises though. I will pass on those if I can.

I would NEVER work in any unit other than L&D, its home. And you will know where home is when you find it. Don't look at the baby as if it were you in the bed, it makes it easier that way.

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I may be crazy, but I think the worrying and crying I have done over my patients in the past has made me a better nurse. There will be tragedies in any nursing field, but the ones that have happened in my OB career have always hit harder. I think that's why it's my calling. You will start to become less sensitive, but never immune. And you have to learn what kind of compassion and support each family needs at each moment. Sometimes I cry with patients; sometimes I cry out to God later in the car or at home. Having a strong concern for the well-being of each family's baby is our business. The 98% of the time when there is joy is worth experiencing sadness and terror at times. If you want to experience that joy most of the time, you figure out how to cope.

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