Outside It’s 1933, So I’m Hitting The Bar

🗣

During this pandemic friends, family, patients, nurses from other specialities have asked “How is everything going?”, “At least you are in Labor and Delivery!” “You are lucky to not take care of covid patients.”

Let me start off by saying pregnancy is something that worsens and even masks diseases, such as covid. The CDC released in November that “pregnant women are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant women. Additionally, pregnant women with COVID-19 might have an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes”.

There has been emergency deliveries for covid positive mothers because their respiratory status is rapidly declining affecting their baby (the baby relies on the mamas oxygenation to survive), or in situations where covid positive mothers are stable after delivery, then suddenly they aren’t. Now we take a trip to the ICU because the moms oxygen saturation’s are dropping fast-even on the maximum oxygen we can provide. These are usually otherwise healthy mothers that rapidly declining.

Labor and delivery is different. It’s hard to socially distance and put our self’s before our patients. When a patient comes through triage screaming in pain saying she needs to push, our first question is not “Any cough, fever, loss of taste or smell,?” It’s “Any complications with this pregnancy or with past ones? What baby is this for you? Any bleeding? Do you think your water broke? How many weeks are you? Allergies?” Everyone rushes into the room: nurses, doctors, & techs to set up. Warmer ready, IV placed, covid swab done, delivery cart set up, supplies gathered, consent signed...we do as much as we can in the first 5 minutes to get ready for the delivery. Whether the mom has covid or not is unknown to us at this point, we are more concerned about a healthy mom and baby.

We are right in a patients face when they are sitting for an epidural, we are helping the patients cope with labor pains, flipping patients into all positions to help their baby tolerate labor, holding a leg, making sure all hands are in deck when there is a hemorrhage or a code, and being there consoling patients after a loss of a baby.

With all this going on, we are trying to make this the best experience and a special day for the parents who are bringing a child into this uncertain world...

She tested positive for cocaine. So no vaccines, but cocaine is just fine. And was then incredulous that I had to drug test her newborn.

Her: “Oh, so you’re a labor and delivery nurse! That’s so nice! You got a nice easy nursing job!”

Me: “ummm... actually, not really. Most the time it’s pretty cool and rewarding.... but those rewards come with HARD work and challenges! Not only is it a lot of physically labor-moving women into multiple different positions while trying to keep a baby on the monitor so as to help them achieve a vaginal delivery... but it’s also an emotional career as you rush her back to the OR when her baby’s heart tones drop and don’t recover, or when she comes in full term to triage not feeling her baby move-tonrealize she’s lost the baby, or she begins uncontrollably bleeding and her and her child’s life are threatened! So... no, I don’t think ‘easy’ is exactly how I’d describe L&D nursing.”

Her: 🤯