Postpartum nursing is special because it concerns both a mother and her baby who both present with very different and distinct needs. The biggest maternal and neonatal health challenges include nutrition and breastfeeding, birth spacing, and immunizations. Postpartum care is most importantly about providing a supportive environment in which a woman and her baby can begin their new life together comfortably. This nursing specialty is important to the nursing profession because it’s the only unit that places both the woman and her baby at the center of care. Postpartum support is important to the community for many reasons, including an opportunity to provide individualized care that can make a lasting impact.
When a woman finds out she’s pregnant,
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They are often responsible for bathing babies, monitoring vital signs, assessing for normal uterine bleeding and involution, administering pain medication and antibiotics as needed, monitoring the post-operative recovery of women who had C-sections, removing catheters, and watching for red flags of postpartum depression. Another crucial role is education which can help parents cope with the stress of a child. For example, nurses may teach new moms how to breastfeed, burp or bathe their new baby. Postpartum nurses basically handle mother-baby unit patients’ physical and emotional needs until their hospital …show more content…
Their well-being determines the health of the next generation and can help predict future public health challenges for families, communities, and the health care system. The risk of maternal and infant mortality and pregnancy-related complications can be reduced by increasing access to quality preconception, prenatal, and inter-conception care (CDC, 2016). Healthy birth outcomes and early identification and treatment of developmental delays and disabilities and other health conditions among infants can prevent death or disability and enable children to reach their full potential. Understanding determinants of maternal, infant, and child health will help nurses know what questions to ask to better help their patients. These factors can include age, poverty, access to appropriate health care and preconception health status affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes. Environmental and social factors such as access to health care and early intervention services, educational, employment, and economic opportunities, social support, and availability of resources to meet daily needs influence maternal health and behaviors and health status (Braveman,
Nurses play a big role in supporting the parents while their child is in the NICU. Showing compassion and demonstrating caring actions when caring for the patient makes it more likely that the parents will trust the nurse and the information the nurse gives them regarding their child’s condition. This trust is important as it helps the parents feel confident in the decisions they are making about their child’s care. When the parents of an ill child in the NICU have decided to terminate treatment palliative care by the nurse and other healthcare providers comes into play. Palliative care is keeping the child comfortable by treating the symptoms and being there for the parents and child physically, emotionally, and spiritually (Eden & Callister, 2010).
The disparities may be attributed to the amount of prenatal care that pregnant women of different ethnicities receive. In 1996, 81.8% of all women in the nation received prenatal care in the first trimester--the m...
" One may think that most registered nurses do the same tasks in the medical field.
In the society we currently live in today, medical careers are a vital factor regarding the well-being of citizens in the United States. Neonatal nurses make up a very small part of this field, but still play a huge role. Our population depends on neonatal nurses, for the reason that they assist newborns, who were just brought into this world, in becoming stable and healthy. Evidently, in order to become a neonatal nurse, a particular education is required. In addition, with this career comes both a number of benefits and burdens. Overall, in our country, even in the world for that matter, neonatal nurses are needed and the demand for them will continue to grow in the future.
Neonatal nursing is a field of nursing designed especially for both newborns and infants up to 28 days old. The term neonatal comes from neo, "new", and natal, "pertaining to birth or origin”. Neonatal nurses are a vital part of the neonatal care team. These are trained professionals who concentrate on ensuring that the newborn infants under their care are able to survive whatever potential life threatening event they encounter. They treat infants that are born with a variety of life threatening issues that include instances of prematurity, congenital birth defects, surgery related problems, cardiac malformations, severe burns, or acute infection. Neonatal care in hospitals was always done by the nursing staff but it did not officially become a specialized medical field until well into 1960s. This was due to the numerous advancements in both medical care training and related technology that allowed for the improved treatment and survival rate of premature babies. According to the March of Dimes, one of every thirteen babies born in the United States annually suffers from low birth weight. This is a leading cause in 65% of infant deaths. Therefore, nurses play a very important role in providing round the clock care for these infants, those born with birth defects or other life threatening illness. In addition, these nurses also tend to healthy babies while their mothers recover from the birthing process. Prior to the advent of this specialized nursing field at risk newborn infants were mostly cared for by obstetricians and midwives who had limited resources to help them survive (Meeks 3).
Two-thirds of infants die during the first month of life due to low birth weight (Lia-Hoagberg et al, 1990). One reason for this outcome is primarily due to difficulties in accessing prenatal care. Prenatal health care encompasses the health of women in both pre and post childbearing years and provides the support for a healthy lifestyle for the mother and fetus and/or infant. This form of care plays an important role in the prevention of poor birth outcomes, such as prematurity, low birth weight and infant mortality, where education, risk assessment, treatment of complications, and monitoring of fetus development are vital (McKenzie, Pinger,& Kotecki, 2012). Although every woman is recommended to receive prenatal health care, low-income and disadvantaged minority women do not seek care due to structural and individual barriers.
Since neonatal nursing is my special interest and field, I chose to write about the health care options which are available to parents having children in different hospitals throughout the world. With the state of the art technological advances in the neonatal units, there are so many options available for the care of newborn babies. I reviewed the neonatal units in Australia, Saudi Arabia, New York, Tokyo, Ireland, and California, and I have learned what It takes to run a neonatal intensive care unit all around the world.
Neonatal nurses spend their career working with babies, those that are healthy and those that are not. Working with newborns is guaranteed to have its challenges, especially for those particular nurses who choose to work in the neonatal intensive care unit. The neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, is where the infants suffering from potentially fatal diseases/disorders are held. NICU nurses struggle with life and death situations each and everyday, which is sure to be accompanied by specific emotions such as moral distress. In the words of researcher Kain (2006), “moral distress is defined as uncomfortable, painful emotions that arise when institutional constraints prevent the nurse from performing nursing tasks that are deemed necessary and appropriate” (p. 388). In simpler words, Kain (2006) is saying that a nurse experiencing moral distress is undergoing painful emotions that are getting in the way of the nurse’s ability to perform essential tasks (p. 388). Heuer, L., Bengiamin, M., Downey, V., and Imler, N. (1996) pointed out that nurses caring for critically ill and dying infants often feel hopeless, incompetent, and disappointed, especially if the overall outcome for the infant is death (p. 1126). These negative feelings that NICU nurses often have are those that are associated with moral distress and can often lead to prevention of proper performance in necessary nursing duties.
Within this community the most significant social determinant of health is healthy childhood development. Healthy childhood development is key for this community because 16% of the neighbourhoods population is considered to be a child between the ages of 0-14 years (City of Toronto, 2011a). Healthy childhood development is influenced by other social determinants of health like housing, proper nutrition, and an adequate guardian income. Further, regulated childcare and education have a strong impact on childhood development (Bryant, Raphael, Schrecker, & Labonte, 2011). These conditions not only impact their immediate childhood health and development but the above determinants are the foundation for the childs future health as adult (Raphael, 2012). If the child is provided with adequate and safe housing, a nutritious food supply, and a pro...
Having a child can be the happiest moment of a person’s life. A sweet little baby usually gives new parents tremendous joy. That joy can be accompanied with anxiety about the baby and the responsibility the new parents are faced with. The anxiety, in most cases, fades and joy is what remains. For some new mothers, however, the joy is replaced with a condition known as postpartum depression. “Postpartum depression is a serious disorder that until recently was not discussed in public…Women did not recognize their symptoms as those of depression, nor did they discuss their thoughts and fears regarding their symptoms” (Wolf, 2010). As such, postpartum depression is now recognized as a disorder harmful to both mother and infant, but, with early detection, is highly treatable with the use of psychotherapy, antidepressants, breastfeeding, and other natural remedies, including exercise.
When a parent has a baby staying in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, they are worried and stressed about the health of their baby. This worriedness and stress can lead to the parents developing Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder. A parent is more likely to develop Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder if they experience a fear of the unknown and fear of death, quality of life, medical interventions in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and stories from other parent’s experiences with the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. A study founded that with parents who have babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit experience suffering in social relationships, this includes marital relationships. The article suggest childbirth educators should prepare parents for the possibility of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder in prenatal classes and teach the symptoms of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder, so parents can recognize if they start to show the symptoms of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder that they can receive the help they need.
There are more than 70% of premature babies that are born between 34 and 36 weeks gestation a year. When a baby is born early, or born with birth defects, the Neonatal Intensive Care unit is its first home. The nurse’s in the NICU have the difficult job of preparing baby’s and parents for a health life together. A baby who has been put into the NICU will stay there until it is healthy enough to go home.
Breastfeeding is best for mom too. Increased levels of oxytocin stimulate postpartum uterine contractions, reducing blood loss and encouraging uterine contractions. From 3 months to 12 months postpartum, breastfeeding increases the rate of weight loss in most nursing mothers. Breastfeeding has even been found to lessen the severity of postpartum depression by keeping the hormonal levels more balanced. Breastfeeding also reduces the mother’s risk for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and osteoporosis, (Shinskie and Lauwers, 2002). It is important that the lactation consultant collaborate with the mother shortly after delivery to eliminate frustration and prevent the abandonment of br...
A labor and delviery nurse has vast knowledge of the process and methods that are required for delivery and bring a new life into the world and is educated with the responsibilities of assiting the new born babies with their medical issues. Considering all the responsibilites needed to take on this career, such as assisting women with complications within the pregnancy, delivering a newborn and managing post birth issuses, the nurse must be professional in his or her work at all times. All people wishing to pursue the career of being a Labor and Delivery Nurse must also have good analytical skills, as part of there job to montior and analyze the mother and child (CollegeAtlas.org).
How the provision of information in the antenatal period can positively affect health and life style choices in the pregnant woman and her family.