Starting 5weeks of mother/baby on monday, ill take any advice!

pecanpies · Jan 5, 2012

Hey there! Frankly, I found mother/baby pretty boring - lots of snoozing on heavy pain meds (er, the patients, not me ), lots of visitors, nothing much going on...pretty quiet. For whatever reason, though, some of the nastiest nurses I've ever encountered were mother/baby nurses. What helped me was, at the start of my shift, saying something like this to the nurse I was assigned to:

"I really appreciate you taking me on as a student today. I know you're very busy and I don't want to add to your stress. If there is anything I can do to help you today or make your day easier, please let me know. I'll run errands, get drinks for patients, make coffee - whatever I can do to help! And if there's anything interesting that comes up today, I'd love it if I could be involved or even just watch."

I said it sincerely and I meant it every time. And yes, it did mean I ran a few errands, got drinks for patients, and changed a bed or two (though no one ever took me up on my offer to make coffee!) - but that took maybe 15 minutes of my 12 hour shift. In return, I got to spend about 2 hours in NICU (no one else in my group did), was pulled in to watch a high-risk C-section (no other students were allowed in), and was allowed to help out with or perform some procedures which the nurses typically wanted to do themselves.

Good luck! I know it's a challenge to be a guy in L&D (at least, based on what my guy nursing student friends said) but you can do anything for 5 weeks!

thatsthekeyRNC · Jan 5, 2012

Just finished my maternity rotation and it was pretty uneventful! I didn't even get to do a complete postpartum assessment because the opportunity never came up. I was lucky to get to see a lady partsl delivery and I got to do/see a lot in the newborn nursery, but postpartum was disappointing. I took vitals, talked to moms, helped with diaper changes, answered some basic baby care questions, and brought water/supplies, but missed out on a lot of the skills. None of my patients had IV's or foley's or needed meds while I was there. It was really nice to have time to talk to the patients, but I know missing the skills will put my group in tough spot going into peds/med surg (maternity is our first rotation). The hospital I was at just wasn't a big maternity hospital, so we all missed out! We ended up spending a lot of time on the computer researching high risk conditions.

Mom's might turn you away, but the male in my group probably did/saw more than we did just by the luck of the draw!

It'll be jammed into your brain, but it's good to memorize the postpartum assessment right away so you're less nervous.

Relevant skills would be: IV removal, foley removal, injections, peri-care...

Good luck! It's a nice rotation :-)

dee78 · Jan 5, 2012

I will have maternity this semester as well, but I love it!! I spent 6 weeks in LPN school and it was the best part of the program, but I have 3 kids and I am really interested in OB. That said, treat it like any other rotation. Like the other suggested, thank them, offer to help, and be available. I always make sure that my nurse knows that I like to stay busy and want to see as much as possible. If they see that you are an eager learner and not just there because you have to be then they will usually respond well. I was allowed to see the birth of a newborn with hydrocephalus. Make sure your instructor also knows what you have seen and what you haven't.

The guys in my LPN class didn't have any problems with mothers not wanting them to be in the room. This may be just my experience, but by the time you get around to delivery day you have already been seen and examined by multiple people, what is one more watching?!?

NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN · Jan 6, 2012

I really enjoyed my mother baby rotation. My advice is simple: study, study, and do more studying. The other posters have great advice as well, so no need to repeat what they said.

bigsick_littlesick · Jan 10, 2012

I, personally, didn't and still don't want to have anything to do with OB. No offense to OB nurses out there, just not my cup of tea. However, I found it to be not as bad as I had anticipated.

The things I remember were to calculate drip rates for Pitocin (the facility didn't use pumps for this, not sure if this is commonplace), hanging piggybacks of amp, finding the baby's heart tone especially during NSTs, mom/baby assessments, LATCH and NIPS scores, knowing what nonreassuring and reassuring heart rates looks like... That's all I can rack my brain of right now. That rotation seems like it was so far away!

Oh, and if you have access to a neonate simulator, practice counting its heart rate with competency. I don't know why, I had such a hard time counting, I'd always get to a certain number and then lose count from getting nervous or distracted (normal heart rate can be 120-160 [per our book]). I finally got better at the end of the rotation :)

We only had one guy in my rotation group and he didn't have any problems but I do know that the medic students that were there at the same time as us (which were all male), were having a hard time with the staff as well as the patient/family. Not sure why it was like this but I felt bad for them

I do remember sitting down a lot, watching the fetal heart monitor, especially when I was in high risk antepartum. My one lady was very close to delivering lady partslly but I had to go to post conference so I missed out I did get to see a c-section and that was pretty cool. I liked nursery a lot because well, babies are cute! I fumbled a lot when giving this little girl a bath but I don't have a lot of experience with children or newborns in general compared to my other classmates.

This is a great rotation to get in some practice placing Foleys (lots of epidurals)! I got my one and only so far there. Hope this helps!

KristeyK · Jan 11, 2012

See if you can get into triage!!! I got five IV starts on the day I spent there. Made the rotation worthwhile. LOL.

It may not be as bad as you have it made out to be. I know one of the guys in my class got to help deliver a baby, and the mother was totally cool with him checking her cervix.

When you're in postpartum, see if they'll allow you to do the immunization(s) that the babies get. I spent two of my days on that unit and probably did 30 vaccinations.

anonymousstudent · Jan 11, 2012

We had 2 men in our mom/baby clinical, and I believe that each of them was only rejected once the entire 10 weeks.

Even if you have a mom who doesn't want a male nurse, there is always plenty to do in the nursery. I got to give lots of shots to newborns, help with circs, and do many, many, many assessments. :)