Pregnancy and COVID: What We Now Know

Meagan Garibay, RN, BSN, CIC, an infection preventionist at Comanche County Memorial Hospital in Lawton, Oklahoma, received the COVID vaccine in December 2020, when she was 35 weeks pregnant. Photo courtesy of WAVE 3 News.

Few aspects of pregnancy and birth have been unaffected by the COVID pandemic. In the past year, pregnant people and their health care providers have had to alter everything from the way they assess risk to the manner in which care is accessed.

Although little information about pregnancy and COVID was available early in the pandemic, emerging evidence is providing a clearer picture. As a result, in the past year recommendations have shifted—sometimes radically so—for both women and their health care providers. Based on the latest available research, this month in AJN Reports we cover what we now know about COVID and maternal health, including guidance about risk and vaccination.

Higher risks for pregnant people with COVID.

As the articles explains, research suggests pregnant people who have COVID are at higher risk […]

2021-06-03T08:43:24-04:00June 3rd, 2021|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Public health|0 Comments
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Writing as Another Tool for Coping as a Nurse

“I recall wondering where this process had been all my life. Of course, it had always been there. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that writing could be such an effective tool for examining, reflecting, processing, and learning.”

‘Like a girl playing dress-up in a nurse uniform.’

by hannah olinger/unsplash

At age 19, I graduated with an associate’s degree in nursing, passed my boards, and went to work in a regional hospital near my college, in the city where I grew up. My geographical radius was as puny as the range of my life experience. I feigned excitement about the new job, but I was overwhelmed. I knew I needed more of everything: experience, education, tools for coping. Eventually, I discovered one of the missing tools was writing.

I entered every shift with anxiety, certain I would walk in on a patient or situation I was ill-equipped to handle. At night, I tossed with worry. When sleep came, dreams became nightmares of IVs running dry and patients coding.

I had only myself to blame. As a teen, I wasn’t ready to decide what to do with my life. I knew nursing was a noble profession, and my parents nudged me toward a program that was economical, efficient, and allowed me to live at home. At […]

2021-06-01T09:48:47-04:00June 1st, 2021|Nursing, nursing career, nursing stories, writing|0 Comments
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Caring for Caregivers—We Need More Than Self-Care and Resilience

Mural painted by critical care unit staff to honor patients who contracted COVID-19. The stars represent those who succumbed to the illness and the flowers those who were discharged from the hospital. Mural by the MedStar Montgomery ICU Team; photo by Cherri Walrath.

Self-care is not a panacea.

Since the start of the pandemic, AJN has received many manuscripts and queries related to self-care and resilience to prevent burnout. It’s not surprising, given that this has been a harrowing year for nurses.

But while self-care and resilience are important, and such articles are needed, all the self-care in the world can’t fully address the root of the problem—the systemic issues that lead to burnout. At some point health care administration needs to step in and become part of the solution and offer staff the help they need.

A CE feature in our May issue, “Providing Care for Caregivers During COVID-19,” highlights one hospital system’s efforts to do just that. The Care for the Caregiver program, which existed prior to the pandemic, was created to support ‘second victims,’ defined by the Center for Patient Safety as “healthcare providers who are involved in an unanticipated adverse patient event, medical error and/or a patient related injury and become victimized in the sense that the provider is traumatized […]

2021-05-27T09:19:17-04:00May 27th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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AJN June Issue: Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy, Preventing Nonventilator Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia, More

“In addition to vaccine hesitancy, there is the question of access. The pandemic has shone a bright spotlight on disparities in access to both vaccines and health care.”—editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her editorial, “Moving Forward Together”

The June issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.

Original Research: Oral Care as Prevention for Nonventilator Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia: A Four-Unit Cluster Randomized Study

The authors examined the effectiveness of a universal, standardized oral care protocol in preventing nonventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia in the acute care setting.

CE: Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

The authors discuss the growing interest in psychedelic therapies—such as LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin—for the treatment of mental health disorders, including trauma, depression, and addiction, as well as the potential role of nursing in this emerging field.

Question of Practice: Preventing Shoulder Injury Related to Vaccine Administration

How vaccinators can avoid this potential complication of improper needle placement by using appropriate injection technique.
[…]

2021-05-24T09:39:31-04:00May 24th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Built for This: One NP’s Revitalized Practice

March 30, 2020, was the first day working at this clinic; it was the same day I was supposed to be returning from my honeymoon in Panama.

That’s from our May Reflections essay, “Built for This,” which is free for the rest of May (along with the entire issue, in honor of Nurses Month). Written by Janey Kottler, a family nurse practitioner and clinical instructor, the essay is about volunteering at a clinic on Chicago’s West Side, which was hard-hit by Covid-19. There she encountered families placed under impossible pressure and risk by the need to keep their jobs during the pandemic.

I think about the single mother and her two children I treated recently. The mother is an essential worker at a grocery store and utilizes her neighbor for childcare during work hours. The family’s neighbors are elderly: the wife stays at home while her husband is an essential worker, working on a factory line. They were grateful to have an income throughout the pandemic until her husband fell ill after COVID exposure at work. He has now inadvertently exposed his wife and the children she babysits.

[…]

2021-05-17T12:42:41-04:00May 17th, 2021|Nursing, nursing career, nursing stories|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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