St.

Scholastica’s College Tacloban

Maharlika Highway, Brgy. Campetic, Palo, Leyte

Course/Section: BSN-2A
Subject: NCM-107

Group Members:
1. Macale, Dolyn Mae B.
2. Maramba, Kristine Joy A.
3. Margallo, Emmanuel G.
4. Martija, Audrey P.
5. Montes, Helen L.
6. Pagay, Mary Therese S.
7. Palacio, Alyssa V.
8. Pescos, Joshua P.
9. Potoy, May M.
10. Tupas, Kristine Nicole T.

Summary and Reflection:

The journal article aimed to describe the roles and responsibilities of maternal and child
health nurses and the uniqueness in their specialty. The results of the study reveal that the roles
of maternal and child health nurses are embedded in the concepts of primary health care, which
are delivered under the framework of universal service delivery, which is becoming increasingly
complex. Moreover, the results show that the role of maternal and child health nurses varies
with the common goal of promoting and maintaining optimal family health. They help families
learn to become healthy by helping them understand the range of emotional, physical, mental,
and cultural experiences they encounter during health and illness. They help people and their
families cope with illness, deal with it, and if necessary live with it so that other parts of their
lives can continue.
 The birth of a child is one of the most significant events in a mother’s life, and it involves
both emotional and physical preparation. For first-time mothers, nine months is a short period to
learn important facts about keeping a newborn or a child healthy before, during, and after birth.
In this case, the nurse assists the mother in learning how to preserve the health of her child
during this time. A nurse plays a variety of roles in maternal and child health services.
Professional preparation, level of responsibility, sociocultural influences, and personal views and
ideas about health and family planning are all elements or factors that influence the role
description of a mother and child health nurse. Moreover, maternal and child health nurses
provide advice and guidance to parents regarding child-rearing practices and preventing potential
problems and they also help families understand their children by answering questions regarding
growth and development.

In conclusion, maternal and child health nurses provide information, support, and
guidance including parenting, development and learning, child health, family health and
wellbeing, safety, immunization, breastfeeding, nutrition, and family planning. Maternal and
child health nurses provide individual care and monitoring, identify health and development
concerns, as well as delivering educational programs that help parents or mothers build
supportive social networks and assist children from birth to school age with their growth and
development and act as an advocate for all family members.

The study is relevant to the following various sectors:

The Nursing Science

Nursing science is all about the development of theories and practical concepts for
enhancing how healthcare workers provide care and manage conditions. It facilitates the
development of new techniques in improving health through research and discovery with the
major objective of developing knowledge to plan the most effective health care. To this, the
article points out that maternal and child health nurses are crucial for the development of the
health care system. Nurses in all healthcare fields are trained to handle a wide range of roles,
duties, responsibilities, and activities encompassing the broad scope of nursing practice. The
nursing practice aims to provide comprehensive assessment, develop a plan, implement, and
evaluate outcomes while providing quality and ethical goal-directed actions and, most
importantly, holistic care to the client and family. In that context, the journal article is significant
to the nursing science as it emphasizes the highest quality care given by the nurse to the mother
and growing child while maintaining competence and the current knowledge base in their areas
of practice. In addition, the journal article also highlights the consistent quality of nursing
services across settings and within settings. This study is relevant as a nursing science because
through this, nurses in general can learn from the recent studies done in which it has the potential
and nurses in general can learn from the recent studies done in which it has the potential to
expand their scope of practice, opportunities for professional development and encouragement to
undertake further developments.

The Nursing Practice

The roles and responsibilities that a nurse must possess and be able to practice, utilize and
ensure that the child and mother have a good health acquired through professional nursing
actions like making sure the child is immunized, and well taken care of, and the mother is taught
and promoted to properly nourish one’s child. The variety of roles, functions, responsibilities,
and practices that nurses are educated and authorized to perform is viewed as the scope of
nursing practice.

The goal of nursing practice is to assist clients in achieving and maintaining optimal
health to maximize the quality of life throughout their lives. In connection with the journal
article, the author stated, “Maternal and child health nurses deliver services to positively
influence the growth and development of children in the early years. Health promotion and early
intervention are key components of the role, with services focused heavily on child growth and
development and maternal mental health.” Maternal and child health nurses adopt a holistic
approach to care with their practice, addressing the biological, psychological, and social, and
needs of the mother and assist the growth and development of the child.

The article clearly created an impact to the continuous development of how we can
improve the nursing practice to better serve our clients most especially the maternal-child sector.
These are the foundation of a family and a community that is why we need more research or
studies regarding this sector. The study is pivoted on providing factual data which aims to help
nurses to give quality care and service to mothers and their children by contributing to their
holistic health, therefore, contributing to the development of nursing practice and serves as an
important tool for the continual development of a relevant body of knowledge.

The Nursing Profession

The article elevates the nursing profession a notch higher. As we explain how intricate
the job of a maternal and child health nurse or a nurse in general, it only proves that our
profession requires not just any other person but a person with competent knowledge, skills, and
attitude. Nursing is a healthcare profession dedicated to assisting individuals, families, and
communities in achieving, maintaining, or regaining optimal health and quality of life. Nursing is
a unique profession for the reason that it focuses on caring for the patient.

Maternal and child health nurses play an equally important role in the lives of their
patients. They give each client consistent care to the mother and child, answer questions,
administers medications and treatments, and assist with medical procedures. Their experiences in
dealing with different situations on a daily basis help the nurses become better caregivers.
Therefore, every nurse is capable of demonstrating care in their respective environments.

The study is beneficial to the nursing profession as it provides information from nursing
investigations that help define the unique role of nursing as a profession and will contribute to
the growth of the nursing profession as a whole.

The Community

When the uniquely challenging task of raising children is supported within the
community, it benefits families and society as a whole. Given that communities are made up of
diverse families, it would stand to reason those who care for children and provide opportunities
for both parents and children to connect to others are stronger and higher functioning. The
community can greatly improve the emotional, mental, and physical well-being of new parents
by showing up and compensating for situations where they may fall behind. Community
involvement is beneficial in all areas of life. According to Fraser (2016), community
involvement from pregnancy to the birth of the child is instrumental. The community in which
the pregnant mother is can influence her decision-making about seeking quality healthcare
services for her and her child. Children grow emotionally, intellectually, and physically through
both their relationships and through their community. For children, community involvement and
engagement produce long-term benefits in their lives. It gives them a sense of belonging and is
crucial to the building of their identity.

The special bond between a parent and a child is one of the strongest and most genuine
bonds anyone can have in their lifetime, but with the source of community things would be easy
both for the child and the parents. The healthy involvement of community in the family life will
helps ensure that the child can perform better socially and academically.

Since the community has a great influence on the mother and the child, the study will be
beneficial to the community as the results of the study also provide useful information for the
community to build a harmonious relationship with the child to nurture his holistic development,
and help the community foster a positive space and environment for the mother and child as
well. Communities can better understand how we can apply better care to patients and the proper
ways on how to deal with certain nursing problems and how to act on them. Moreover, the article
is relevant to the community as it talks about one of only few important members of every
community, and that is again, the mother and child. The mother and child are the most
vulnerable members in every community. It is important to give emphasis on how to properly
take good care of these members of the community so we could ensure a healthy functioning
society.

The Student Nurse

As new studies are made that aims to understand a much more deeper meaning in
delivering care to clients; this study supports how we can deliver quality improvement initiatives,
such as caring for our client as a whole to have a good patient health outcome or to improve
patient care. In contrast as more study is being conducted, we can fairly conclude on what
aspects we can improve to teach upcoming student nurses.

The influence of student nurses in the development of nursing practice has been
recognized, and valuing student nurses not only helps a learning organization grow but also
allows mentors to reflect on their abilities. Maternal and child health nurses were once student
nurses, they have been studying for exams, completing clinical hours, going to class, and
managing other responsibilities to become effective and efficient nurses and to provide quality
care and service to patients. The study is relevant to student nurses of today, it will give them
background knowledge on the roles of maternal and health nurses and their responsibilities. It
will guide student nurses to possess strong clinical and critical thinking skills and have the
analytical ability to solve problems and make decisions when it comes to the care of mothers and
children.

In addition, the relevance of the article to student nurses aims to guide and hone
knowledges for future purposes. In that case, enabling student nurses to picture the situation that
a maternal and child health nurses’ goals and responsibilities, and this phase helps them reflect
their current and future performances. The relevancy of this study will add more knowledge
toward future students, regarding the roles and responsibilities of maternal and child nursing and
learning more in guiding nursing students all in handling the patient, and presenting a high
standard quality in care.

Nursing theories utilized in the article

The nursing theory that was best utilized in this article in my opinion was Joyce
Travelbee’s human to human relationship model. The theory/model is all about the interpersonal
aspects of nursing, focusing especially on the relationship between the nurse and the patient. It is
very important that the nurse is able to establish great relationship to its patients as it would help
them in providing efficient care and deliver their expertise to clients with ease. In the article, it
was emphasized multiple times how important it is to have a deep understanding about maternal-
child relationship and how are they separately to ensure efficiency in handling this sector. That is
why, mastering the interpersonal aspects of nursing would be of great help for maternal and child
health nurses or nurses in general.

Moreover, another theory that was best utilized in the article is the Maternal Role
Attainment Theory by Ramona T. Mercer. This theory was developed to serve as a framework
for nurses to provide appropriate health care interventions for mothers in order for them to
develop a strong maternal identity as nurses are the health professionals having the most
sustained and intense interaction with women in the maternity cycle.

This theory also serves as guidelines for nurses in assessing the infant and its
environment, is used to identify the purpose of the baby, and providing assistance with education
and support. The concepts theorized by Mercer have been used by nursing in multiple obstetrical
textbooks and her theory is extremely practice-oriented. The theoretical framework for Maternal
Role Attainment has proved to be useful, practical, and valuable to nursing. Her work is
repeatedly used in research, practice, and education. It is also readily applicable to any discipline
that works with mothers and children.

Relevance of the article and its utilization to evidence-based practice

The study also examined the impact of incorporating maternal and child health nurses'
clinical expertise and expert opinion in promoting and maintaining optimal family health.
Maternal and child health nurses work to improve the health delivery system through advocacy,
education, and research. They accomplish this by discovering and testing solutions through
applied research and by developing, implementing, and/or evaluating health programs.

After everything that has been said in the article, it all boils down to the conclusion that
there should be uniformity and consistency in practice for our maternal and child health nurses in
delivering care for our maternal-child sector. This article would definitely be of help to nursing
professionals, especially to the maternity and child health nurses if the roles and responsibilities
are clarified, understood, and utilized.

In totality, the study is beneficial for an effective evidence-based practice for the reason
that it can pave the way for producing better bases of a new theory in learning. The study draws
on the most up-to-date research on the safety and efficacy of specific practices to help guide
maternity care decisions and to achieve optimal outcomes in mothers and newborns.
 Journal Article Reference:

Fraser, S., Grant, J., Mannix, T. (2016). Maternal Child and Family Health Nurses: Delivering a
Unique Nursing Specialty. https:// DOI 10.1007/s10995-016-2081-2