Hi. I am not a nurse but a concerned parent of a half year old baby. I was searching online about the necessity of heel sticks and this is where I got to since the "heel sticks" topic is closed I will leave my comment here.
My baby was not a premature baby, she was just born with typical mild jaundice. So at the hospital she was taken away to test levels. I asked the nurse about what she will do and she said don't worry it is just a little prick in the foot. Okay. Three days later at the doctor's office they decided to retest levels. The technician or nurse who did it took MINUTES and it was not a "LITTLE PRICK."
I was devastated. My poor baby crying in AGONY. I didn't know what to do but ask do you really need that much blood. I am still traumatized about this experience. I am traumatized. WHAT ABOUT MY BABY???!! My poor baby crying in AGONY.
I had no idea about this to save her as this is my first baby.
If I knew about this "hell prick" I would NEVER EVER allow any nurse or anyone else for that matter to do that to my baby.
There has to be a BETTER WAY to obtain a blood sample.
And after reading some of these NICU patient comments I am devastated for these poor poor babies.
Please as nurses don't allow yourself to do this procedure if you are not good at it. Truth hurts, but you are really making these babies suffer. And I want to let you know I am angry at your profession for this. You have to find a right way to do this. It is unacceptable that these babies should suffer so much!! I want to scream and cry at the same time.
Most places, especially NICUs, don't depend on venous sticks, heel sticks are the norm. We don't use veins on kids in our unit in case we need them down the road. And in an outpatient setting they rarely do venous sticks unless they need a lot if blood, not a 0.5ml microtainer or 2 cap tubes.
So her baby got a heel prick 6 months ago? That makes more sense with neonatal jaundice...is your baby getting heel pricks now? I guess I don't understand why you are bringing it up 6 months after the fact? Is your baby getting more blood work done for other things and you're trying to find different ways for a blood draw?
I've had a couple of 6 month olds on my unit and if they need some blood other than like a small amount for a blood gas, our providers do an arterial stick in their wrist. I don't know if it hurts more or less...
Also, I would add an addendum about only nurses with good skills providing heel pricks: If we only ever let very experienced nurses do them, then in a couple of decades, no one would be good at them because no one would teach them and then you'll have the blind leading the blind for future babies and would be damaging (to what would be your great-grandchildren).
Of course I understand that no parent wants that for their child, but the key is: is the person doing it safe? Are they being supervised if they are new/inexperienced? And does the inexperienced person know when to call for back up? We allow 2-3 tries for IV starts, for example, and then we call for someone else who is better at them. But the only way we can individually get better at doing them is actually doing them.
Ok, I'm not a NICU nurse, but worked mother-baby for a while and did my share of heel sticks.
From my experience, other than the initial jolt from the actual stick, what gets the babies crying and yelling is not so much pain as it is being annoyed that we are holding their foot and hindering their movements. That crying had more to do with anger than 'agony'.
And seriously, you will have to harden yourself. God forbid you have to deal with this, but imagine the look of utter betrayal your child gives you when you hold him down to be sedated for surgery. Or the first time your kid takes a face dive and needs stitches. Heck, you'll probably need more sedation than they will if they ever break a bone!!
I know it sounds harsh, but I'm saying this from the heart of a mom as well as the mind of a nurse. You need to toughen up for your child's sake. Hearing your child cry hurts, but it's for a good reason. Kids are resilient and can handle so much more than we give them credit for. Not to mention the fact that, in the immortal words of my mother, "They won't remember it on their wedding day".
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Lady3 -- I remember feeling the way you do now. As traumatic as it is for a new mom or dad to see their child screaming, I can say from experience that your pain will pass slower than your child's every time. I have been amazed at the rebound of my children over the years. I hope you are able to see some calm and that your new baby is consoled simply by your touch. You have a blessing and miracle there. Congratulations.
I agree 100% I cried, as silent tears ran down my cheeks, to see my daughter SCREAMING with her first round of immunizations. I was surprised how much it bothered me..... so I blamed it on post pregnancy hormones.
She will be 18 here in a few days...she doesn't remember a thing.
If you're still furious six months after a heel stick, perhaps you need to seek some sort of counseling. Lots of variables are out of your control as a parent, and you are going to see your child hurt and crying for the rest of your life- mean kids at school, they want cookies for dinner, the t-shirt color isn't what they wanted. Many times there will be nothing for you to do to ease the pain. You need to find a way to be sensitive and attentive to their needs, but also show them that sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. You're set for a miserable existence if you can't let go.
When I have a heel stick in the hospital, I get the heel nice and warm with a warmer and wrap the baby up so he's swaddled with only his foot hanging out the bottom of the blanket. Tilt the head of the crib up (may not be an option in a doctors office but maybe something similar can be safely rigged up...maybe the exam table tilted a bit?) and let gravity work to get the blood to drop into my container pretty well. A binky or a gloved finger work really well for kiddo to suck on while I'm doing my heelstick. If parents want it done in the room, I have mom or dad be the one with the gloved finger. They get to be hands-on, they get to see what I'm doing, they get to do something that really helps their baby, I get what I need pretty quickly, and baby stays about as comfortable as we can make him. Everybody wins. Most of the time I can get whatever blood samples I need in 1-2min or less.
I didn't start out having that technique. The first blood draw I did on a baby took 20 minutes, which was too long for both of us. But I practiced and practiced and I got better. Now I'm one of the go-to people on my unit for a blood draw. I like doing them because I know I'm good at them and can get them done quickly. If only experienced people were allowed to do them, I would never have learned how.
OP, my son had to get a repeat PKU test at 3 weeks of age in the doctors office. I know what that feels like. It took forever. I cried, he cried, my milk let down, we were both a mess. But you know what? It was a trade off. I'd much rather have gotten that done and been reassured that it was normal than have a kid with the devastating consequences of neonatal hypothyroidism. He is now 9 years old and....he's fine.
In your case, jaundice is one of those things that, past a certain point, cannot be ignored. You have to screen and do something about it. Babies in the past died from brain damage due to untreated high bilirubin. Babies in the industrialized world don't die from this anymore...why? Because we stick them to check their bilirubin if we suspect an issue, and then we treat them. Give me a crying, screaming baby over a dead or brain-damaged baby every day of the week. That isn't meant to be crass, but it is meant to be realistic, because that's what will happen if we stop checking/treating bilirubin issues.
When there is a noninvasive, non-painful way to draw blood on a baby, I will be all over it. Until then, this is the best we've got and it beats the heck out of seeing the consequences if we don't do anything
Babies scream bloody murder when you take their temperature. Crying does not mean a baby is suffering. It IS a little prick. The prick itself takes a second. The baby is, as another poster said, more annoyed than anything else. They will typically stop crying as soon as you pick them up or give them a bottle.
I've seen my fair share of suffering children. Their suffering was caused by, oh, cancer, severe abuse/shaken baby syndrome and severe congenital malformations. Never by a simple heel stick.
And if you're still so angry about this 6 months after the fact that you feel the need to come on a nursing message board and yell at a bunch of nurses who never took care of your child, well then perhaps you need to speak to a professional who can help you work through this.
This is why "customer satisfaction" shouldn't have anything to do with "quality" measures.
A-MEN! Our satisfaction scores are in the toilet and it's because people like the OP are the ones who take the time to fill out the surveys and there is nothing we can do to make them happy, even when we provide excellent care.
AmyRN303, BSN, RN
732 Posts
BabyRN,I took it to mean when her daughter was born, not currently.