Being the Change

I love the quote from Gandhi:
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Because I've chosen to take the "Change the system from within" route of gentle birth advocacy, the change will be slow in coming. I am aware of that.

When midwifery services are few and far between and when the existing ones that are available to the communities around us are facing challenges and some are closing, it is at times disheartening.

My part of birth change will be especially slow in coming. It took me four years to complete one step in my path in becoming an RN. Now gaining experience and respect from my co-workers is my focus before I can move on to other levels.

Because most of my time so far has focused mainly on learning the ropes of the new hospital and becoming proficient at clinical tasks, I haven't made many strides forward in promoting gentle birth and peaceful postpartums. However, for the first time - just this past week, I felt like I was able to be of some help to a woman in a real way.

The secretary couldn't find the nurse assigned to this particular mom and just announced to those of us who happened to be in the nursing station that mom in Room # such - n - such was asking for a nurse to bring a bottle into her. Since I was up to date on my charting and my patient's needs were already met, I said I could do that.

Not knowing anything about this patient, I walked into her room and asked her what type of formula her baby needed. That's when she broke down. She continued to cry and tell me how she couldn't get her baby to latch on and that the doctor just came in and told her her baby's bilirubin levels were too high, necessitating bili-blanket therapy.

(If you aren't familiar with hyperbilirubinemia, it is basically jaundice because of excess broken down RBC's in the infant's system. It is usually benign and clears up as the baby takes in adequate protein - from milk - which binds to the unconjugated bilirubin and aids in its excretion from the body).

At the core of the jaundice problem is milk intake. This combined with the first time mom's inability to get her newborn to latch was all this poor woman needed to push her over the edge. She needed kind, support from an experienced mother - in this case a mother who also happened to be a nurse.

So, we worked on the problem together. And, after many tricks and tries, we got a successful nursing session out of the couplet! I made it a point to tell her several good things I observed that would contribute to their successful nursing relationship. Like her having good "nursing nipples" and the baby being big and able to suck strongly.

She left later that afternoon with her nursing relationship growing with a good foundation.

I was blessed to have been around when she called out to the nursing station that day. What a rewarding experience among the challenges of orientation....a time when I feel all I'm doing is learning - it was nice to be able to do some teaching and helping, too.