Obstetrical Nursing / A Text-Book on the Nursing Care of the Expectant Mother, the Woman in Labor, the Young Mother and Her Baby

by Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom

But also must they all be watched throughout these transitional stages, in order that impending disaster may be apprehended and warded off. And that this watchfulness be intelligent, the nurse must of necessity know something of the normal physiological changes which occur during these momentous periods in the lives of her patients, lest she fail to detect evidence of abnormality, should it appear.

Since this invariable cleanliness and close watchfulness are needed by all patients, whether of high or low degree, and by those in the care of doctors with widely varied methods, the nurse must be able to make adaptations to each patient’s environment and temperament and to the doctor as well, if all of her patients are to be well and happily nursed. She must be clean, then, and watchful in her work, and adapt it to every conceivable condition. These features stand out clear and bold in the perspective. But to make these offices effective to their utmost, the nurse’s attitude and her care of her patient must be mellowed by an always deepening sympathy and understanding. She must endeavor, in each instance, to imagine the mental experience of the bewildered and timid expectant mother; of the terrified woman in labor and the discouraged young mother—these she must appreciate if she is to give of her best. And so, in the end, the character of the nurse’s work will be influenced, in fact almost determined, by her awareness of her patient’s needs, mental and physical, and the earnestness with which she tries to relieve them. More than this, the nurse whose skill is warmed by a sincere desire to give of her best will, by virtue of this very desire, learn something from each patient, and will be steadily enriched and broadened by her experiences. She will have more to give, and accordingly will derive increasing satisfaction from her service to each succeeding mother and baby that she takes into her care.

One word more. The maternity nurse almost inevitably becomes deeply attached to her baby patient, whether he is sick or well, and she is eager to protect him and safeguard him as long as possible. She may continue to serve him, even after he has passed from her trained hands, if she will teach his mother how to take care of him, should she be inexperienced, particularly if the young mother is to have full charge of her baby after the nurse leaves, or is to have only the assistance of a partly trained nursery maid. In such a case the nurse may often perform her most valuable and enduring service to the baby by gradually teaching his mother how to prepare the milk with cleanliness and accuracy, if he must be bottle-fed; how to give his bath deftly and comfortably, and impressing upon her the importance of fresh air and of regularity in the baby’s daily routine. All of these things, and also how to do the thousand and one other things that seem so trivial and yet mean so much to the baby’s immediate health and future well being.

The first day after the nurse leaves, and the first few after that are often very dark ones for the inexperienced young mother, and if she is alone they are likely to be filled with fear and misgivings. The nurse may rob these days of much of their discouragement by anticipating them; trying to imagine the young mother’s possible perplexities and then teaching her how to meet them. This teaching is perhaps not a part of the nurse’s professional obligation but it is one of the privileges, one of the gratifying by-paths of nursing that she may take for the sheer joy of it.

Not infrequently the young mother is so filled with awe over possessing anything so wonderful as her own baby that she is afraid to handle the exquisite little body; is fearful of harming it; and because of her timidity and inexperience she fails to give him the care that he needs, and that she wants to give. On the other hand, all too many young mothers have a blind confidence that the mere act of having a baby vests one, in some instinctive way, with the requisite knowledge and skill to care for it, and in this belief they are supported by a legion of women friends and relatives.

It would be difficult to imagine a single factor that works more destruction among babies than this one of ignorant motherhood. And the damage is equally great whether the ignorance arises from timidity or from overweening confidence.

“Is it not preposterous,” says Herbert Spencer, “that the fate of a new generation should be left to the chance of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers? To tens of thousands that are killed, add hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble constitutions, and millions that grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be, and you have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignorant of the laws of life.”

The nurse is in the most effective position possible, to help in dispelling maternal ignorance, during the long days of pleasant intimacy which she and the young mother spend together in devotion to the baby. And by helping the inexperienced young mother to give skilful care to her baby, with all of the gentleness and tenderness that a mother can lavish, the nurse will not only serve the baby; she also will awaken for many a young woman, an interest that will be ever fresh and absorbing, and point the way to unexpected joys and delights in her motherhood.

“Can there be any higher work than this?

Can any woman wish for a more womanly work?”