Making Good on Private Duty: Practical Hints to Graduate Nurses

by Harriet Camp Lounsbery

XI

SOME HINTS FOR THE OBSTETRICAL NURSE

THE BABY'S WARDROBE.

When a nurse goes to see a woman who wishes to engage her, some months hence, to care for her baby and herself, it is very nice to be able to give her, should she ask, a list of all the things she will need, both for her own comfort and the baby's.

The following is a good sensible wardrobe, and will be found ample, though many articles more or less fanciful will, most probably, be added by friends. The things enumerated below should last the baby until he is put into short clothes:

Slips, 10. Dresses, 8 to 10. Pinning blankets, 4. Flannel skirts, 4. White skirts, 5. Shirts, 4. Bands, plain flannel, 4. Bands, Jersey made, 4. Diapers first size, 17 inches square, 20. Diapers second size, 20 inches square, 30. Diapers third size, 26 inches square, 30. Knitted blankets, plain white, 2; if with any color, 4 to 6. Knitted sacques, 4 (two sizes). Little pillow (hair), 6 cases. Crib sheets, 6. Crib blankets, 2.

FOR BASKET.

Two small gold safety pins. Large safety pins, I box. Small safety pins, i box. Powder box and puff. Coudreay's powder. Small box of equal parts borax and powdered sugar. Old damask towels. One cake old white castile soap, or Colgate's nursery soap. One bottle unscented vaseline. As many sachets as you can get. Some few yards of the narrowest ribbon, pink and blue. Two old handkerchiefs. One lap protector. Brush and comb. Absorbent cotton.

FOR THE MOTHER.

All the old sheets in the house. Rubber sheet, double width. A square of rubber sheeting single width. An old comforter. [Footnote: When the Kelly pad is used for the delivery, the old comfortable, the blankets and the single width rubber sheet need not be provided.]Two or three old blankets. Fountain syringe. Paper basin. Towels ad libitum. Six or seven night dresses, three of them old. Undershirts, if worn in bed, 4 (large). Bandages, 6. Cheese cloth, 10 yards. Absorbent cotton, 2 lbs. A large flannel sacque, or a nightingale. Soft unbleached muslin, 2 or 3 yards. Colgate's fumigating wafers, I box. Bedpan, I.