Wrong Breast Milk

I briefly worked w another nurse who says she gave the wrong breastmilk to a pt. She had to face questioning by a panel and nearly lost her job. That's all I got out of her, she didn't want to talk any more about it.

Wow, I hope that noone would lose their job over this. It was an honest mistake and the risk to the baby seems very minimal, if there is a risk at all. I saw on the CDC website though that it has to be treated as a body fluid exposure because the true risk cannot be determined.

My facility considers it "white blood". An exposure to untested blood would be a potential source of infection & is treated just like giving the patient the wrong blood.

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Hello all, I am in need of a little bit of help. have been a nurse for 13 years. worked in various specialties and now I'm trying to get into pediatric home care. the company is called Maxim healthcare, and they advised me that I will need to take a test. however I'm not sure how to s..tudy or if there are any study guides available. I am NOT a good test taker and I want to be prepared. is anyone can give me any tips it would be appreciated

When there were incidents of wrong breast milk in my hospital, the state would be known to drop in and do audits. Breast milk needs to be double checked. Before I left the hospital, they had recently started scanning breast milk.

Most of the cases of wrong breast milk being given probably involved an HIV negative mother which is likely why there haven't been any cases of HIV transmission due to breast milk errors reported. In developed countries, we tend to advise against women with HIV breast feeding. Regardless, it is a body fluid exposure and should be treated as such.

As far as losing one's job, I honestly don't think this is just an "honest mistake" that should be overlooked. There are policies for double checks in place for a reason. If a nurse doesn't follow policy and administers the wrong breast milk to a patient, there are consequences to follow.

Policy and procedure are there for a reason!! And if a parent goes the legal route you don't have a leg to stand on. We have caught a few near misses, especially with kids with the same last name and similar mom first name. A nurse on the peds floor was suspended without pay recently where I work. I can't wait for our scanners to be up and running!

Oh yeah, of course policies and procedures are created for a reason and I will always follow them because that's the only way to provide the best care to your patient and cover yourself. I was just curious if other hospitals did double checks like ours to prevent errors from happening. I am just the type of person that loves to research policies and procedures so that I can understand why they are the way the are-- this helps me to remember them better anyways so that I can always be sure to implement them in my practice. I understand that it would have to be treated as a body fluid exposure with all of the necessary tests involved because the true risk is not fully understood.