Is It Time to Relax Food Restrictions on Women in Labor?

Three years ago, I went into labor in the middle of the night, 10 days before my expected due date. Things ramped up fast, and by the time I got to the hospital an hour later, I was almost ready to have the baby. However, when my son’s heart rate suddenly dropped and wouldn’t recover with medication, I was told I had to have an emergency C-section immediately.

As I hadn’t planned on surgery, or labor, that night, I had eaten a full three-course meal earlier in the evening. The nurses asked me if I had eaten, and I had to admit yes, and then some! I did feel nauseous as the procedure began, but luckily the wonderful anesthesiologist quickly helped, when I told him how I felt, with some miracle medication in my IV. The surgery proceeded without incident.

Nil by mouth? New research questions a tradition.

It was with interest, then, that I read AJN’s March original research CE feature, “An Investigation into the Safety of Oral Intake During Labor.” In this article, the authors compared maternal and neonatal outcomes among laboring women permitted ad lib oral intake with those permitted nothing by mouth except for ice chips. Restriction of oral intake in laboring women has traditionally been, as AJN’s […]

2018-03-02T08:27:46-05:00March 2nd, 2018|nursing research, patient experience|1 Comment
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Just Breathe: A Nurse’s Tough Love Proves Crucial During One Mother’s Labor

Photo by chintermeyer, via Flickr. Photo by chintermeyer, via Flickr.

By Amy Collins, AJN managing editor

The pain jolted me from my sleep. It was 1:30 in the morning. The sensation was stronger than anything I’d ever felt, and I grabbed my phone to start my contraction timer. I had read loads on labor and childbirth, and everything suggested I was in for the long haul. But my timer was showing the contractions were already only five minutes apart. I spoke with the hospital’s on-call physician, who told me to relax and spend as much time as possible at home so I could be more comfortable.

But within minutes, the pain had increased to a level where it was difficult to talk. The contractions were now three minutes apart and my water had broken. My husband and I decided to go to the hospital.

I’d like to say I was strong and handled the pain of labor well, but I was quickly losing control and succumbing to anxiety. By the time we got to the maternity unit, I was sobbing. The labor nurse assigned to me introduced herself as Jean. She was older and seemed seasoned, with a stern, no-nonsense attitude. She brought me to a delivery room and gave me a gown. Before labor started, my plan had been to see […]

2016-11-21T13:01:25-05:00March 2nd, 2016|nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|0 Comments
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We Call You ‘Wheat Head’ – An Unexpected Crosscultural Encounter

I entered the wall-less, thatch-roofed waiting area of the clinic with my right hand in a ball of bandages, taped to my chest. The airy space was almost empty, without nurses or even a receptionist. The only other person in the little space, sitting very elegantly on one of the narrow wooden benches, was a woman in traditional West African dress who was quite pregnant.

NovemberReflectionsThe November Reflections essay in AJN is called “Surprise!” Its opening paragraph is above. This is one of our occasional Reflections essays by a writer who is not a nurse. In this case, the author Thomas Turman’s easy, self-deprecating tone, and the matter-of-fact manner in which his unexpected patient faces a situation that might induce a certain panic in many people from wealthier countries, feels just right. […]

2016-11-21T13:06:07-05:00November 8th, 2013|career, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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