Learning Task #3 – Nursing Updates (Labor/Delivery/Placenta Pravia)

I. Summary

This Nursing Update entitled “Interim Guidelines on COVID-19 Management

of Pregnant Women, Women About to Give Birth, and Newborns” was released by
the Department of Health last year when the pandemic broke out. The specific
update that I focused on is the “Management of the Newborn after Delivery to First
Six (6) Hours”. In this update, if the mother has no exposure and has no
symptoms, IPC measures must be maintained both for the healthcare team and
the mother. Secondly, the EINC plan must be discussed together with the
corresponding precautions related to COVID-19 and the nurses must then proceed
with the implementation and sequence of the four core steps of the essential
newborn care protocol with the early initiation of breastfeeding within at least 60
minutes after birth. On the contrary, of the mother is a contact, suspect, probable
or confirmed COVID-19 case, the first thing to be done must be to alert the
neonatal care unit staff to prepare a transport incubator and the COVID-19
isolation room or area for newborns and deliver the baby following IPC and COVID-
19-aligned EINC protocols with due consideration of informed choice and mother’s
preference. Lastly, nurses must administer components of routine newborn care
after the newborn’s first full breastfeeding, monitor baby’s vital signs, condition
and watch out for respiratory distress syndrome, signs of neonatal sepsis or
pneumonia. If RT-PCR swab testing is feasible, specimens from the upper
respiratory tract must be collected for COVID-19 testing while observing strict IPC
measures.

II. Reflection

I believe that birth is a metaphor for life: difficult, but glorious. On that note,
I consider child delivery as one of the most meaningful duties that a nurse could
help in fulfilling. My future job, as a nurse, is to serve as an anchor: to keep
everybody safe and not let them lose their grounding. Labor and delivery is already
challenging on normal situations but on this set-up, in the middle of a pandemic,
where our lives has shifted drastically and even protocols on handling child birth
have also been modified, the duty of nurses has become at least ten times heavier
now. This challenge requires nurses and other medical practitioners to gather
more strength and motivation to perform the job well and to strictly follow and
comply with the nursing updates released by the World Health Organization
through our national government and the Department of Health so that everyone
would be kept safe in the entire process.