Ashley Powers, BSN, RNC-OB, arrived for a recent shift at Chester County Hospital and went straight into the operating room. Powers has been working as a registered nurse in the hospital’s Labor and Delivery Department for nearly five years. On this day, the couple in the operating room immediately recognized her; she helped deliver their first baby.
Later, the mother confided in Powers that she struggled with breastfeeding her first baby. And now she was feeling the weight of expectation and the judgement she believed would be levied by certain family members and friends if she didn’t breastfeed her second baby.
Soon after the mother and her baby were discharged, Powers sent her a hand-written thank-you card. In it, she assured the mother that whatever she decided was best for her and her family was the right decision. She shouldn’t feel pressured by what society, or those close to her, said was normal. "And I told her to call me if she ever needed someone to talk to," Powers says.
Days later, a gift basket was delivered. It was addressed to the entire department, but it also included a note specifically for Powers. "She thanked me for alleviating some of her guilt," Powers says. "I was really happy to see she’d taken my words to heart."
'The impression they make on us, too'
The episode was not an isolated occurrence. Toward the end of 2020, the department’s nurses, about 65 in all, began sending hand-written thank-you cards to every mother following their delivery. Powers came up with the idea. She says it quickly gained widespread support among her peers and supervisors.
"I think the nurses get a lot of satisfaction from writing these cards," Annette Pappas, MSN, RNC-OB, the department's clinical manager, says. "It’s a privilege for us to be a part of our patients' child-birth experience, and the nurses play such an integral role in it. That's why they're often remembered well down the road. But we wanted to make sure our mothers were aware of the impression they make on us, too."
The cards are meant to serve a couple of functions, Powers says. First, they're a simple expression of gratitude for choosing Chester County Hospital when there are a number of delivery options in the region. But even more, they're acknowledging that everyone who was involved in the profound experience that just unfolded was changed by it. And that's important because it's a sentiment rarely shared – until now.
“Labor and Delivery is a unique environment where you can spend a couple hours with a patient or days or weeks,” Powers says. "During that time, the nurses and patients form very intimate relationships because having a baby is a life-changing experience. Then it ends abruptly when the mother and her baby are discharged."
With the integration of COVID-19 safety protocols, the nurses in the department were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to connect with their patients as they always had. But the thank-you cards, Powers says, have become a prime example of the many new ways the nurses are forging those bonds.
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