The Birth of My Daughter
The moment to give birth to my daughter Anais came very quickly. My doctor, a young male wearing blue scrubs wheeled me to the delivery room with the assistance of a female nurse wearing green scrubs, and my husband, which was also wearing scrubs.
The hospital delivery room felt very cold and very sterile. The walls were painted white with gray tile covering one half of the walls, and there was a smell of soap in the air.
The delivery room was equipped with a gurney covered with white starchy linen, a large stainless steel lamp with a microscope sticking out of one side stood next to the gurney, a baby incubator that look like a large clear plastic rectangular box with two round holes on one side, and a table covered with very neatly placed stainless steel surgical instruments.
In the delivery room, were four people, a male anesthesiologist and three female nurses wearing green scrubs, facemasks, and gloves. The anesthesiologist was seated next to the head of the gurney with an air tank and IV, in the event I had to undergo a cesarean due to having developed gestational diabetes during my pregnancy.
One of the major problems a woman with gestational diabetes faces is a condition the baby may develop called "macrosomia." Macrosomia means "large body" and refers to a baby that is considerably larger than normal. All of the nutrients the fetus receives come directly from the mother's blood. If the mother’s blood has too much glucose (simple sugar), the pancreas of the fetus senses the high glucose levels and produces more insulin (a hormone regulating the glucose level in blood) in an attempt to use the glucose. The fetus converts the extra glucose to fat. Occasionally, the baby grows too large to be delivered through the vagina and a cesarean delivery becomes necessary.
On the other side of the gurney stood one of the nurses checking the baby incubator, while the other two were standing next to the table with the surgical instruments.
Immediately upon entering the delivery room, two of the nurses transferred me to the gurney in the delivery room, where the doctor checked me and said I had a ways to go but that I had already dilated to 7 centimeters (the amount the cervix has opened in preparation for childbirth).
Vanessa, who is looking at the babies lined up in the neonatal unit. A nurse then brings
The High Risk Obstetrical Unit is located on the fifth floor of the S hospital. This is a state of the art facility that provides care for women who have pregnancy complications and require impatient care. Upon entering Miss Z’s dimly lit semi-private suit I feel the mixture of different odours such as blood, urine, and food. It is a small medical unit consisted of multifunctional bed, cherry-coloured dresser, white leather chair, and bed side table. The central place in this suit is devoted to a big medical monitor that is attached to the wall.
In doing this project the literature drawn from is largely non-scholarly for the reason that I am prevailing upon the reader to think outside the box about birth. Most of the “scholarly” research that is available was written by doctors or nurses/nurse midwives who were trained in the medical model of birth. Since part of my premise is that the high rate of Cesarean sections is caused in part by viewing birth as a medical and therefore pathological event, and in part for its emergence as a capitalistic industry, it was then necessary to find literature written by people who have expertise in birthing though not from the traditional obstetrical/medical school approach.
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.
I'm having trouble coming up with that concise, compelling anecdote about the patient who inspired me to go into Obstetrics and Gynecology, because so many people have helped me realize that this is where I belong.
The event of childbirth is one that changes a person’s life. Women dream all their lives of holding their newborn child and raising them to be fine young men and women. Couples try, sometimes through many long and time-consuming methods, to conceive a child. And when that little bundle of life is born, nothing in the world is as wonderful.
The next time I walked into a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was as a fourth year medical student. This time not as a spectator, but as a medical professional expec...
Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes that occurs during pregnancy. Although it usually goes away after the baby is born, it does bring health risks for both the mother and baby. When you’re pregnant, pregnancy hormones make it harder for insulin to move glucose from your blood into the cells. If your body can’t produce enough insulin to overcome the effects of insulin resistance, you’ll develop gestational diabetes. (IHC, 2013)
The birth experience for this couple was an exciting and memorable event, just as Jerry J. Bigner (2002) stated that this "is a particularly memorable occasion for couples who are experiencing it for the first time," like in this case (p. 189). The couple said that the birth of their baby girl was the happiest day in their entire life. The type of delivery that they had chosen before the birth was the psychoprophylactic method or also known as the natural childbirth. Since their daughter was born at 7 months and was premature, it was easy for the couple to stick with this type of delivery. The couple said that the mother's water broke at 6:35am, they got to the hospital at around 7:00am, and the baby was born at 7:41am. The...
As an UConn graduate, I strive to practice UConn School of Nursing PRAXIS – professionalism, respect, accountability, excellence, integrity and service. Two weeks following the orientation on postpartum unit, I knew taking care of four mother-baby couplets overnight was not going to be an easy job at a level I trauma center, where we care for the sickest of the sick. After a thorough plan of care for each patient and tailoring it to their needs for the night, I felt more confident in my skills and time management. It wasn’t until I got a call from a 14 hour post-op c-section patient at 0455 complaining of dizziness, lightheaded, blurry vision and “feeling hot”, who an hour ago was walking to the bathroom, breastfeeding baby and eating with no complains of pain. I left my workstation behind to discover a pale, diaphoretic patient with low blood pressure. I froze. Screamed for resident down the hall. Rapid response team and more professionals were there in no time while I stood by my patient holding her hand, echoing the story to residents and attending MD I’ve told previously. After twenty minutes of stabilizing the patient and diagnosing at bedside with ultrasound and abdominal x-ray, the patient suffered internal hemorrhage from tubal ligation site. She was rushed to operating room. Speaking to her husband was even harder. I froze again. I sat on my knee, held his hand and cried with him. In
example, patients who are going in for major abdominal surgery, or even normal childbirth. Nurses
However, nurses in the maternity ward have expressed their deepest concerns about meeting the needs of first time mother on discharge education during their stay in the hospital. Some of the nurses’ concerns include the lack of time and the amount of information they are required to equip the first time mothers to care for their newborn. Mothers have also reported dissatisfaction with the discharge education provided by the hospital. One of which that causes their frustration was the inconsistent breast feeding information and the need for more information about newborn care which was not covered by the hospital. (Barbara L. Buchko C. H., National Center for Biotechnology Info...
Although students were not allowed in the recovery unit, I was able to talk to one of the recovery nurses. I learned that a nurse’s duty of care includes monitoring the patient’s vital signs and level of consciousness, and maintaining airway patency. Assessing pain and the effectiveness of pain management is also necessary. Once patients are transferred to the surgical ward, the goal is to assist in the recovery process, as well as providing referral details and education on care required when the patient returns home (Hamlin, 2010).
This week’s clinical experience has been unlike any other. I went onto the unit knowing that I needed to be more independent and found myself to be both scared and intimidated. However, having the patients I did made my first mother baby clinical an exciting experience. I was able to create connections between what I saw on the unit and the theory we learned in lectures. In addition, I was able to see tricks other nurses on the unit have when providing care, and where others went wrong. Being aware of this enabled me to see the areas of mother baby nursing I understood and areas I need to further research to become a better nurse.
I went to the operating room on March 23, 2016 for the Wilkes Community College Nursing Class of 2017 for observation. Another student and I were assigned to this unit from 7:30am-2:00pm. When we got their we changed into the operating room scrubs, placed a bonnet on our heads and placed booties over our shoes. I got to observe three different surgeries, two laparoscopic shoulder surgeries and one ankle surgery. While cleaning the surgical room for the next surgery, I got to communicate with the nurses and surgical team they explained the flow and equipment that was used in the operating room.