Nursing Beyond Birth and Babies
I have been a perinatal nurse for more than two decades now. Many men and women tend to assume that everything that surrounds perinatal nursing is astounding and rewarding. For the majority of the times, they are, but there are such moments like the agony of maternity, the despair of childlessness or even the despair of death.
Having been assigned to triage, one fine day, it appeared just more active than usual. I had been assessing patient after patient. But by lunchtime, I had managed to clean all of the beds and decided to grab a fast lunch. As I was about to leave, a patient walked through the doors followed by her family members.
As I followed this very small patient on the triage mattress, I couldn't even tell that she was pregnant. Having a tensed voice she informed me her due data was tomorrow but she hadn't believed her baby move since the night before. Placing the baby track on her tiny pregnant belly, I heard nothing. Immediately, newborn specialist knew the baby was not any more alive inside her. However, I didn't want to give up. I moved the track around the tiny belly over and over again, just hoping that I would get some sign of a baby's heartbeat.
The mother understood. She held her husband's hands and began sobbing softly. In between sobs, she wished to see her mum who was waiting outside the triage area for her. As a nurse, I actually couldn't say anything to her. Rather, I held her closely and led her into the triage area and told them that the physician would be on his way shortly.
My heart pained for your parents who'd dropped her child, a grandma who's missing her first grand-child. The physician arrived and pulled the ultrasound device into the patient's bedside in order to picture the still and silent heart of her infant. This time, the finality of the situation sunk in as everyone can see on the monitor the baby's heart was no longer beating. Everybody cried once again. And the one thing that I was grateful for was in that moment the mother needed the help of her nearest and dearest around her and the remaining triage beds from the room was empty. It was not good to listen to the cries of a mother who'd lost her infant.
It is not a simple job for a nurse to help a patient having a full-term intrauterine foetal demise through labour. Whilst we know the area of pain that the individual and her family goes through, we as nurses are both emotionally and physically shattered. You can't offer you any comforting words to ease her pain or be able to supply any closure because of her. All that's left is your emptiness after undergoing every emotion and pain that comes with labouring towards bringing her baby into this world.
We walk a fine line as nurses. We keep mentioning that she doesn't need to go home from hospital with a lower-uterine transverse scar as a daily permanent reminder of what she went through during labor.
To the individual, we are only temporary guides through one of their most painful times in their lives. They would not remember everything we said or everything we did. They would never know we indulged to them, alone in an empty area where we would not be seen. And while we see this many occasions in our way of work, I can honestly say that I remember every single one of them.
Having been assigned to triage, one fine day, it appeared just more active than usual. I had been assessing patient after patient. But by lunchtime, I had managed to clean all of the beds and decided to grab a fast lunch. As I was about to leave, a patient walked through the doors followed by her family members.
As I followed this very small patient on the triage mattress, I couldn't even tell that she was pregnant. Having a tensed voice she informed me her due data was tomorrow but she hadn't believed her baby move since the night before. Placing the baby track on her tiny pregnant belly, I heard nothing. Immediately, newborn specialist knew the baby was not any more alive inside her. However, I didn't want to give up. I moved the track around the tiny belly over and over again, just hoping that I would get some sign of a baby's heartbeat.
The mother understood. She held her husband's hands and began sobbing softly. In between sobs, she wished to see her mum who was waiting outside the triage area for her. As a nurse, I actually couldn't say anything to her. Rather, I held her closely and led her into the triage area and told them that the physician would be on his way shortly.
My heart pained for your parents who'd dropped her child, a grandma who's missing her first grand-child. The physician arrived and pulled the ultrasound device into the patient's bedside in order to picture the still and silent heart of her infant. This time, the finality of the situation sunk in as everyone can see on the monitor the baby's heart was no longer beating. Everybody cried once again. And the one thing that I was grateful for was in that moment the mother needed the help of her nearest and dearest around her and the remaining triage beds from the room was empty. It was not good to listen to the cries of a mother who'd lost her infant.
It is not a simple job for a nurse to help a patient having a full-term intrauterine foetal demise through labour. Whilst we know the area of pain that the individual and her family goes through, we as nurses are both emotionally and physically shattered. You can't offer you any comforting words to ease her pain or be able to supply any closure because of her. All that's left is your emptiness after undergoing every emotion and pain that comes with labouring towards bringing her baby into this world.
We walk a fine line as nurses. We keep mentioning that she doesn't need to go home from hospital with a lower-uterine transverse scar as a daily permanent reminder of what she went through during labor.
To the individual, we are only temporary guides through one of their most painful times in their lives. They would not remember everything we said or everything we did. They would never know we indulged to them, alone in an empty area where we would not be seen. And while we see this many occasions in our way of work, I can honestly say that I remember every single one of them.
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