When a Friend's Baby Dies: Empowering Nurses to Balance Professional and Personal Care

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Title: When a Friend's Baby Dies: Empowering Nurses to Balance Professional and Personal Care

Ryman Hall B4 (Gaylord Opryland)
Lesley Tepner, BSN, RNC , Labor & Delivery, Christiana Care Health System, Newark, DE
Kim L. C. Petrella, RN , Labor and Delivery, Christiana Care Health Services, Newark, DE
Melanie Chichester, BSN, RNC-OB , Labor & Delivery, Christiana Care Health System, Newark, DE

Discipline: Childbearing (CB), Newborn Care (N), Professional Issues (PI), Women’s Health (WH)

Learning Objectives:
  1. To empower nurses to identify their own grief and enable them to use their feelings and empathy toward the care of their friend.
  2. Identify ways to use stories/lessons learned as an educational mentoring tool.
  3. Identify possible barriers to caring for someone you know who is experiencing a loss.
Submission Description:
Background: Several co-workers were sharing stories, each one of them having recently cared for a friend with a fetal demise. There was realization that there were lessons learned during their experiences that fellow nurses could benefit from hearing.  Each of these nurses questioned if they should/could take care of these patients. Ultimately, each of them found that it was the right thing, not only for them but for their friends. Further, the nurses have found that sharing their story with fellow nurses has not only provided education but has been therapeutic for them in coping with their own grief. 

Case: The first nurse was called at home by close family friends with the news of a 28 week fetal demise, and was asked to come to the hospital. Her presence as their nurse was requested by the patient.  She cared for them during her shift, and then stayed over into the following shift as a support person until their daughter was born still.

The second nurse arrived at work and was assigned a patient with a term demise. During report the nurse realized that she knew the patient through a church group.  The patient and her family did not object to having a friend care for them, saying that she was a “blessing” to them.  She stayed with them for her 12 hour shift and was able to provide care and support during her next shift after their son was born. 

The third nurse dropped off her son at daycare and was told that her son’s teacher had not felt the baby move and no heart beat was detected.  Upon admission to Labor and Delivery, the teacher asked for the nurse, who then cared for her through labor to delivery of a stillborn daughter.

Conclusion: It is always difficult to care for a patient with a fetal demise but when the nurse knows the patient on a personal level it adds a layer of complexity and emotion to the situation.   Because of this the nurse should evaluate their effectiveness and ability to provide quality clinical care to their friend. The privacy rights of the patient must also be considered and they should be given the opportunity to request another nurse if they are uncomfortable being cared for by a person who knows them.

Keywords: Perinatal loss, Peer support, Grief, Storytelling, Boundaries

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