Postnatal placement-tips

Hi all,

I'm off into the hospital next week for my first postnatal/antenatal ward placement and was just wondering if any of you lovelies could suggest what would be extra useful to revise/read up on beforehand? Have just completed community placement but this will be my first hospital one-very exciting but nervous!

Thank you! xxx

Your community placement will be a great help and you will be comfortable doing antenatal/postnatal checks. Just try and read as you go along, take your handover sheet home and look up what you didn't understand.
Hope you enjoy it, I'm on antenatal/postnatal at the moment and some shifts have been way too busy and understaffed to be enjoyable so I hope you have a better time. You may find yourself being used as a spare pair of hands a lot - answering the door, making beds, answering call bells, doing obs, etc, which is all good experience too x x x

Have a read over breastfeeding technique and troubleshooting as students are quite often asked to assist new mums who might be having issues.

If you have a spare minute or two on the ward, spend it looking around and finding out where things are kept etc, it comes in really helpful and also gets you used to the equipment used on the ward.

I agree, definatly look up breastfeeding advice as well as about hand/mechanical expressing if you dont already know about this. Also have a look at the types of drugs used in the postpartum period and if you can, the safeguarding procedures in your trust. Hope this helps

Never make promises -the one thing every Mum asks is what time am I going home or when am I going home! I agree with what the others have said above.

You'll find that each midwife will document and advise differently so be prepared for a mentor who does things differently to what you might have done with your community mentor.

I borrowed the Essentials Postnatal book from the library which I found was a nice easy read before I started community/postnatal.

Good luck x

http://www.studentmidwife.net/stude...nts-and-electives-8/64496-postnatal-ward.html