Postpartum Nurse Puns

My damn incision had a mild infection. I’ve had no other symptoms whatsoever except where it opened some. I was put on antibiotics and given the ok to nurse while on them. Two days later, today, I randomly get a low grade fever. Called a nurse who said I probably should pump and dump. I am extremely upset about all of this but especially that I may not be cleared to nurse now. I’m scared to death of getting my newborn sick.

Hi Redditors I have a question, and I need some help/advice/anything. I’m male(18) and I’m about to graduate high school. Which means college is soon and the decision of what I want to define my life is closer. Now I don’t know everything and that’s exactly why I’m here. I know I want to go into nursing. Growing up I’ve taken care of family babies, elderly, and my dying great grandma. And I mean actually taking care of them changing, lifting, feeding, bathroom, talking to them etc. I love the feeling. And recently even just taking care of my mom after her surgery has furthered reconfirmed the love of the caring feeling. My Dad travels a lot and my brothers are polar opposites of me. But I think all of that and a series of personal factors have lead me to always being the mother hen of the family. I’m the organized and clean brother. I love caring for people,I love taking care and making sure they feel good emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I want this feeling to define my life. I know this isn’t anything compared to the actual jobs, and that’s why I’m here. I know what I’ve done growing up is just the surface. Right now I’m really into looking at jobs dealing with neonatal (I’m not sure what I’d actually list this under) point is I want to work and care for babies and the mother. Thus the question. And I ask because most of these jobs are female majority I guess is what I’d say. I just don’t know what jobs I’m allowed to or not as a male or if there is even a thing like that. I’m also really into hospice care and geriatric care(again not sure exactly). I’m curious and want to expand my horizons. I’m a carer by nature, and I want to use this ability to help define my life. The only thing that gets in my way is I deal with severe chronic pain, but I want to make nursing work so bad. I have the passion, I have the drive. I’m taking a gap year to figure out my health and if everything goes well, I plan to also job shadow a family friend that is also a nurse(not sure of what). Any help/advice or anything is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I need your advice. I currently have 2.5 years of experience in this specialty.I am looking to do travel nursing. How hard or easy was it to you to find different assignments in our specialty? Where did you go? How is the pay? Any comments or suggestions are appreciated!

I work with women every day after they’ve given birth. I’ve experienced SO MANY Fathers of Babies (FOBs) who are LVM. Even before discovering this sub, I felt like they were low value but couldn’t put my finger on why.

Maybe 1/10 FOBs are supportive and helpful to a mom who literally just grew another human inside of her and is now not only recovering, but doing the majority of the care for their newborn. It is almost NEVER 50/50, even if the FOB is helpful. They just simply don’t have the maternal intuition that women have after birth because of hormones - people can argue about this but there are so many studies and it’s nature/science.

The rest of the 9/10? They complain. About lack of sleep. About having to wait 6 weeks to have sex with the mom (this is such a common question and it disgusts me more every time). They ignore the mom and flirt with staff. They make inappropriate jokes. They sleep while the mom takes care of the baby. They talk about drama with their other baby mommas. They sit on their phone all day/night and ignore their newborn child. I’ve seen FOBs lay in bed ignoring their crying infant and expect the mom, who just had MAJOR SURGERY 24 hours ago (c-section), change the baby or feed it a bottle. The audacity.

1/10 of the helpful and supportive men category are actually high value. You can tell by how he treats the mom. He is encouraging, he NEVER complains about lack of sleep, he asks the mom how she is feeling throughout the day and how he can best support her. The couple is always married or engaged. He kisses her head and tells her she looks beautiful, and isn’t embarrassed to do it in front of family/staff. I’ve had an FOB go get Cheesecake Factory (40 min drive from my hospital) because the mom didn’t like the hospital food. It’s not “too much” to ask a man to go get you food that you enjoy after you just gave birth to a small human.

This is why I’m picky. This is why I’m willing to wait, even if my “biological clock” is ticking (which is obsolete now with medical advancements and adoption), and why I will not stop vetting and being picky until I find a partner who is the 1/100 I’ve described.

Edit: WOW thank you everyone for the awards!! I absolutely love all of the discussions from this post. Postpartum is not often talked about amongst women when it really should be!! Be safe out there ladies and never stop vetting!

Does anyone know of any high paying / crisis response Postpartum travel / contract nurse opportunities out there...short term or long term. I know it's given that post partum is not as high acuity where they would be paying the BIG bucks. But I thought there would be some type of baby boom going on by now to make contracts be a little more lucrative than what i've seen. Never see anything more than 2500 / week gross and that's even in California!

So we only allow one person to be the support person for moms and a mom yesterday had her sister smuggle her 8 year old in to see her in a duffel bag.

I am a hospital RN and work three 12-h shifts; I live in D.C. I am looking for ideas on how to get the most time off postpartum (paid or unpaid), as long as my benefits and health insurance don’t get lost. Thank you!

I’m currently in the process of trying to choose my unit for my senior capstone. I don’t know much about the mother-baby unit and I was wondering if I could get some insight! :)

I'm new to postpartum nursing (moving over from L&D) and I've heard that a lot of patients aren't as happy with their postpartum nursing as compared to their L&D nursing care. I know I'm not going to be able to give my patients nearly as much one-on-one attention in postpartum (given that I'll have 3-5 moms and their babies) so I'd like to maximize my time with them. If you liked your postpartum nurse, what things did she do that made you feel taken care of? If you hated your postpartum nurse, what things did they do that I can try to avoid?

Thanks for helping me out so I can better serve other moms and babies! Hope everyone's staying safe and sane in this weird season of life!

Hi! I finished my first year in July, and now that I’ve got that experience I’m looking for a change. I work at a great hospital with great staff and management, but I really don’t enjoy med/surg. I want to go into women’s health, hoping to start school in January for my WHNP. I’ve applied to a bunch of different positions, and I got a phone interview for a postpartum unit. I did my preceptorships on a mom/baby unit and absolutely loved it! So I’m hoping I will enjoy this environment. I’m just a little nervous about leaving the great staff and management that I work for now. Do any postpartum nurses have any good questions I should make sure to ask in my interview to get a feel of the unit? Or things related to this type of unit specifically I should find out before accepting an offer, if one is made! Thank you so much for any advice!

I'm an L&D nurse being cross trained to postpartum this week for a travel assignment. I'm mostly nervous about time management, clustering care overnight and breastfeeding. We can have max 4 couplets, or 3 couplets if one them is enhanced (fresh c-section, late preterm, mag etc). Although since I'm a traveler they'll probably always give me the worst assignments. Looking for any tips or advice. Thanks!!

So I had my second baby a week ago. He was over a month early but we are doing ok. For background, I had a really hard time breastfeeding my first. Every single feed I breastfed both breasts, then gave him a bottle of whatever little EBM I had, then a bottle of formula to fill his tummy, then I would pump until I was totally empty, and get maybe 20 ml.

Every. Single. Feed. 8-12 times a day. I pretty much did literally nothing else. It was a traumatizing experience.

I ate the cookies. Drank the tea. Took the supplements. Took the prescription medication. Did the skin to skin. And I still barely produced half of what he needed. I was DEVASTATED.

Anyway, with my second born at 35 weeks he couldn’t regulate his blood sugar. I tried breastfeeding again but, again, there’s just something wrong with me. I just can’t produce what he needs. So the doctor decided to prescribe formula.

What pissed right the fuck off was the postpartum nurse. She doesn’t tell me in advance she is bringing formula. She walks in with the formula while I’m in the bathroom. She hands it to my MOTHER IN LAW, and tells her to feed the baby. I was literally taking a piss. I was gone maybe 3 minutes total. I came out to my baby being fed formula by my mother in law. (I don’t blame MIL, she was just following the medical professional’s instruction, and stopped as soon as I said so)

I am furious that this nurse decided that I didn’t need to be present or consent to this. That she decided my mother in law was allowed to make these kinds of decisions.

I want to file a complaint, but my husband doesn’t think I should. He thinks putting that bad energy out there will hurt me in the long run. But I think this nurse desperately needs coaching on who is an appropriate person to make feeding decisions. What do you guys think? Am I justified, or am I just hormonal?

I have been a NICU nurse for about a year now and I still struggle with state screens (specifically getting big enough drops of blood from tiny babies). Does anyone have any tips or tricks for getting better at these? I have already asked around my unit, but some outside perspective may help!

Disclaimer: My thoughts and opinions do not influence those of my employer.

Been a nurse since 2016. Background in: women’s health nursing, emergency room, and PACU. Primarily in postpartum nursing so far. Ask me anything!

Hello bumps!

I've previously done 2 AMAs, one in 2014 and one in 2016 and they were very successful, so thought I'd come back for another round of Q&A!

I am an RN with experience in labour & delivery, high risk obstetrics (in-patient care for high risk pregnancy conditions and medically-complicated pregnancies) and post-partum care. I also have experience in gyne surgeries and abortion care. On this round, I also happen to be a few weeks shy of becoming a nurse practitioner!

Ask me anything about:

• Perinatal health
• Breastfeeding & pumping
• Newborn care & health issues
• What to expect during your hospital stay
• High risk pregnancies & pre-term birth
• Pregnancy loss and bereavement
• Being a nurse or NP?

and I will do my best to answer!

Obligatory note that nothing here constitutes medical advice, as I'm just a random human on the internet who does not know your medical history and cannot assess any medical issues! However, I am happy to provide general information and knowledge gained from my experience :)

Is your census abnormally high right now? I'm at Spectrum and we are constantly full, it's nothing like a normal winter with mandates home and closing units. Is there a bogo free delivery coupon out there?

Some things (like the fundal massages) just suck, I know. But I do try to educate moms and keep them in the loop with what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I'd love any suggestions you guys have or any stories you'd like to share about your postpartum experience. Thanks :)

I'm wanting to try to apply for a job on a postpartum floor. My current job as a surgical trauma PCU nurse is not for me. I've previously worked for a special care nursery and a pediatric clinic. I was wanting to know what to look for in a unit. What's the day to day of your job?

My partner and I are expecting our first child in August. Hooray! We are thinking about whether or not we should eat the cost of getting a postpartum doula or night nurse, and I come to you, dear Reddit, for advice.

Here are the factors: My husband has lots of experience with babies, I have none, so I'm going to feel real out of my depth. He has a rough time with even one night of insufficient sleep, and I manage ok but we have a commitment to fairness, and that in combination with my likely being a wreck afterwards because Giving Birth Is Hard TM means we're likely to still trade off night duties even when it's hard on him. Additionally, I'm fairly likely to have PPD given my history of mental health, and I'll be dealing with body dysphoria as I try to breastfeed as a genderqueer human (PS when referring to me in the comments, please try to use "they/them" pronouns).

We interviewed an experienced and recommended postpartum doula team yesterday and think they're AMAZING. They're also expensive. Like 10k-20k expensive for ~2.5 months of support. I don't begrudge them their rates as the work is hard and skilled. We can afford it, but at the expense of other things, including a months-later retirement for my partner, who would like to be a stay-at-home dad).

So, Redditors, is having this help worth the cost? Does it (like everything) depend on the baby's personality and context one is in? Has anyone had a kid and done it on their own once or more, and had help once or more (and if so, how did they compare)?

Thank you!

EDIT: he'll be able to be a SAHD starting when the kid is about 8, not during infancy.

I just needed to share this since I know a lot of people are in similar shoes, trying to go into L&D and/or postpartum.

I tried really hard to get into a L&D program out of college but was also trying to move home to southern California. It was hard and ultimately I took the first job available to me which was a psychiatric nurse position in a hospital. In the mean time I applied elsewhere. I ultimately got a job in a medical and telemetry unit at a better hospital (reputation wise and pay wise). I had a few options at this point. I could stay at my current hospital and I would be pretty much guaranteed to get a L&D position after working 2-3 years. Or I could go to the new job and be better paid (although in a specialty I really didn't want) and look for other L&D jobs in the meantime.

I took the chance and went to the new hospital. I ended up getting one year experience in psych, and I will have had about 10 and a half months in medical and telemetry experience when I join the postpartum and L&D training transition program at my current hospital. In the end my risky chance benefitted me as I am able to switch to L&D before I could have at my old hospital. I also will be moving to the new units with less than 2 years experience. I think this will greatly benefit me once I am on the unit as opposed to getting into the unit with no experience. I have experience feeling more confident with patients and doctors and trusting myself and also seeing what it looks like when things go wrong and how it feels when your patients have something go wrong or even die.

Sorry to post my long story but I wanted to let people know that it is possible to go from psych or medical floors to the floor of your dreams even in big cities (am in San Diego) and also for people who went to school away from home and therefore did not have connections in hospitals. I was really worried I would never get there and that I would be sticking in specialties I did not like for a long time (nothing wrong with them, they are just not my cup of tea). In terms of advice I would say try and keep showing how much you love your specialty. I think the thing that got me my job was that I am taking a class to be a lactation counselor, I was really able to show that this was my passion. Also make sure in interviews you have good example stories (this is also true for any new grad): find stories you have from nursing school or work that made you realize why you should be a

As a disclaimer, this is for my wife, not me, but she's not on Reddit so I told her I'd reach out here to see if I could get any insights for her.

As the title notes, my wife is an RN with about 2 yrs of experience in Telemetry / Medsurg, but her real passion is in L&D (it can be hard to get a job out of nursing school, so she took the first job opportunity that came her way..she wishes she would have just waited for an L&D job now). We just moved from southern California to Sacramento, so instead of just finding a new Telemetry position we decided she should wait it out for an L&D or Postpartum position.

She's been looking for the past four months and every position seems like it either requires at least one year of experience in the specific area (i.e. L&D or Postpartum...so her Telemetry experience doesn't help) or there have been a few positions that are specifically for new grad RN's (RN's with any experience at all can't apply).

She reach out to a friend of a friend at UC Davis who is in a management position in their L&D unit and he said my wife could reach out to him if any L&D/Postpartum jobs pop up on their website and he'd most likely be able to get her an interview. He even said the person running the Postpartum unit likes hiring nurses with MedSurg experience since there's a lot of overlap there. So that's our best bet right now, but there hasn't been any applicable jobs posted there for 2+ months. Still checking literally every day, of course.

Any advice I can give my wife?? She's tried applying for all the positions saying they require 1+ years of experience, but I think she just gets auto-rejected when she selects that she has less than a year of experience.

One other thing to note: she did a lot of her nursing school clinicals in L&D and over the last 6 months she's been doing a bunch of certifications needed for L&D/postpartum positions. I'm sorry I don't have all the technical knowledge to list all the certifications she's gotten, but she said she has every certification listed in the "Qualifications" section of nearly every L&D/Postpartum RN job. The ONLY qualification she's missing is the 1+ yrs of experience.

She's an incredible nurse..her director and fellow RN's at her hospital in Southern California begged her to stay and are all willing to be references. So in addition to any advice you can offer, if any of you have any leads for an L&D/Postpartum RN position in the Sacramento

My wife is an RN who has been working in Tele for the past two years, but her real passion is in L&D. This was her main focus in nursing school, but she ultimately ended up taking a Tele job out of school.

She's been doing a bunch of different certifications (e.g. fetal heart monitoring, and a bunch of others I cant remember) to get as qualified as possible for an L&D position. She just finished up her last certification she wanted to do so she's ready to apply.

Problem is that a lot of hospitals just don't hire L&D or even Postpartum nurses if they don't have prior experience in those areas. As noted, my wife has two years of experience, but in Tele, so she's not a brand new nurse.

Anyone know of which hospitals my wife should target? She'll be applying to jobs in/around Sacramento.

Thanks so much!

I’m a pediatric traveler but I get floated to postpartum all the time at my current assignment. And I was thinking how they are doing a secret sisters gift exchange for Christmas, and that there’s literally no male staff anywhere and that’s why it’s secret sisters. That was a carry on sentence sorry I’m delirious and don’t feel like editing myself. But yeah so do male nurses in that field exist?! I’ve never heard of one.

Today I was offered a position in postpartum at my city's best birthing center. I have some NICU experience and with that comes a tiny bit of L&D experience. I currently work in an office so going back to the floor will be a huge change. I dont have much postpartum experience other than my own personal stay after having my son.

So tell me, what do you like about your job? What do you dislike? What are your job duties?

Tell me about your job. Ive been in cardiac for six years, currently working recovery for our cath and EP lab. I have a very laid back job and love my coworkers so part of me wants to ride it out forever. However, Ive always had a desire to work in post partum and lately have been thinking more and more about it. What do you like about your job? Dislike?

Here’s a list I compiled of 6-letter C names for girls. (Some of them are 5 or 7 though) I thought some of you would enjoy the list.

The older sister is named Bianca

Claire

Corrie

Callie

Charis

Carlie

Carmen

Connie

Camila

Camryn

Cassie

Colbie

Carrie

Chanel

Chloe

Celia

Cecily

Clover

Corina

Clarke

Charity

Cecilia

(first time mom here) So, I've been watching TONS of Call the Midwife to ease my fears of the actual childbirth - and am amazed at the midwifery care they provide! In addition to having read recent, US-authored research about the benefits of additional postpartum care for mothers & babies, I found myself looking for a way to get my own postpartum home visits!

It looks like my health insurance covers skilled nursing in-home with prior authorization - has anyone else looked into this? Postpartum doulas are another option, though no insurance coverage (and since I'll be hitting my annual out-of-pocket maximum, I'd prefer that). Or any second+ mothers have experience with postpartum home care in the US? Thanks!

I currently have 2.5 years of experience in this specialty.I am looking to do travel nursing. How hard or easy was it to you to find different assignments in our specialty? How is the pay? Where did you go? Any comments or suggestions are appreciated!