alas, there is no chocolate breastmilk...

Monday was my first day of Maternity Clinicals. The funniest part of the day was this cute little blond haired three year old whose mom had just had a little baby boy. She flung the door of the room wide open when she came in with her grandma and was just an adorably precocious little girl in pigtails! She informed us, "You know, it [the breast] only gives white milk, not chocolate!" She had such a serious look on her face that i tried really hard not to bust out laughing- it was really cute.

Anyways, i thought i would share my journal entry that i had to turn into my professor. it's a small little recap of my day. here goes:

Maternity Clinical Journal
Day One

Monday was our first day on the floor at Seton Main's Maternity Unit. I started the semester off with a rotation to the Mother/Baby unit. I think it was a really gentle introduction to maternity for me. I had been concerned with my emotional stability because of my somewhat traumatic personal maternal history. But our first day was really great, and I think things will go just fine. I was paired with Patty, who is a fantastic nurse, and we got to talk a lot about nursing, maternity, hospice, and everything in between. It turns out that her senior paper for nursing school is nearly identical to the topic I just chose for my concept analysis paper! It was really neat to connect with another nurse like that.

We started my shift by going through and checking on her two patients. The first one had a c-section so we were helping to manage her pain. She was hesitant at first to take the 'heavier' pain medicine because she said she didn't want to get addicted. Patty did a really good job of explaining to her that as long as her body needs it, she won't get addicted. She also explained that we need to keep her pain managed so that we can get her up so that she will recover quicker. I also got to watch her help the new mom with breastfeeding. She was teaching her that it is best to wait until her baby opens up his jaw really wide before latching so that he gets a bigger part of the breast, and not just the nipple. Patty was a wealth of information, and had such a great demeanor and easy rapport with the patients. One patient's husband made a comment asking if she could just stay for another 48 hours until they left!

Throughout my shift, I mostly followed my nurses, but I did get to feel a fundus (two of them, actually!) when my second nurse was doing her assessments at the beginning of her shift. The first fundus was a little boggy, so I massaged it and, sure enough, it tightened up again! I think that is one of those things that doesn't seem like it works until you see it. (or feel it, rather) Later in the evening I watched one newborn assessment and saw a little petichiae on one of the baby's faces. Other than that, there were no irregularities. I also held a newborn baby boy that was being given up for adoption. The mother had already left the hospital, but the adoption wouldn't be finalized until the end of the following day, so the baby was just being watched in the nursery. It made me kind of sad that he was just sleeping in his basket with no one holding him or even touching him. When my nurse left me in the nursery for a minute, I decided to pick up the little boy and give him a little human contact. I held him for a good five minutes, and I would like to think it might have given him a little comfort.

All in all, I really enjoyed my clinical day. I was impressed with how pleasant and encouraging most of the nurses were. Both of the women I worked with had years of experience, and were just so gentle and knowledgeable. To borrow a term from psych- you could really feel the difference in the milieu of the floor compared to other med/surg floors. It was a nice change, and I can see how it would be really great to work in maternity.

PS. The same cute little girl who told us that the breast gave white milk, not chocolate was also pretending to be a nurse and checking her mom. She kept rubbing her belly and inspecting her arm. Then she said, “now I'm going to check your booby stars,” and started to try to lift up her pajama top. The mom had inverted nipples (we had talked about it earlier because she was having a hard time breastfeeding) and I guess that 'booby stars' is the term their family uses to describe it. I thought it was really cute! (cuz the nipples did sort of look like little stars!)