Postpartum Assessment

I utilized critical thinking skills when I provided care for my patients on the postpartum unit. I was assign a mother and her infant 24 hours post-delivery. Being that the infant was 24 hours old I did every four hour assessments on the mother and infant. I made sure I followed the acronym BUBBLE (breast, uterus, bowel, bladder, lochia, episiotomy) to assess the mother, as well as following the newborn assessment for her infant. I had no abnormal assessment findings. I made sure I reported the assessment to the RN I was working under, and documented in the patient’s record.

Core Competency: Caring

2. Give an two examples of how you functioned within the legal and ethical parameters of the student nurse role

1. I stayed in my legal parameters

Explain how you utilized the principles of teaching/learning to encourage health promotion and illness prevention with women, infants, children and families including acknowledgement of religious, cultural and spiritual influences on health and health promotion activities of the client.

My patient was not very religious, but for her it is cultural for males to be circumcised. Since my patient was a multigravida she was already very educated on caring for an infant. I made she I was assessing her knowledge of infant care when I provided some teaching for caring for her infant’s circumcision. I made sure she knew not to wipe away the yellow covering around the penis and not to give him a bath until the circumcision is healed.

Core Competency: Professional identity

5. Describe how you protected patient rights in all aspects of care (confidentiality, autonomy and privacy; including protection of rights with the use of technology).

I respected my patient’s rights through confidentiality. I had a primigravida mother who had a group of family members awaiting for her infants arrival. There had been some slight complications with the delivery and when the infant was born it had to be taking to the NICU. I know I could only disclose information to the patient’s mother and not the other family