Third Week & my first placement experience

So third week was great, I went in early for our biology lecture for an extra optional session as I'm really struggling to fit in studying at all when at home? By the time I get home, eat something, get the kids to bed it's nearly 9pm- and I need SOME rest time.? How the hell do people do it?

So we did temperature, pulse, respiration in our clinical skills session... learnt more female bits andbobs for biology, had a meeting with a lady from the RCM but I'm already subscribed so wasn't all that helpful for me.

Today, the start of our 4th week was our trust induction. Didn't start until the afternoon but I spoke to my mentor at the weekend who asked me to come in at 9am. When I got there she decided to take me for some postnatal visits in the community as a taster. She apologised for it being 'boring routine stuff' but I'm NEW it's ALL exciting to me!!!!

So the first family baby was 5 days old I believe. We did the heel prick test, baby was NOT impressed as expected lol. The parents were exhausted, bless them and hadn't slept at all that night. Mum tried to get baby to breast but she just got frantic and kept pulling away - really reminded me of my first attempts at breastfeeding actually. Baby had only lost a tiny amount of weight and was being mix fed, but mum really wanted to breastfeed - so was given some advice, and planning on going to breastfeeding drop in place during the week. She mentioned a lactation consultant that had given her friend advice, but the advice was very strange, and she was advised not to hire her lol.

The second baby was just to weigh her. The mother was arabic and couldn't understand us, and we couldn't understand her. The baby was fine and gaining weight - but it was a very interesting visit!

The third baby was just another weigh in, mentor offered me to weigh her but I chickened out and now feel annoyed with myself. The family were Indian and there were quite a few of them, and then the father started bringing us Indian sweet food and it would have been offensive to say no, so we took it with us when we left. Very strange, oily and sweet.

Driving to the next house and we got a call for an urgant visit, luckily just down the road. Went in and it was a baby who had lost 20% of birthweight at last visit, 15 days old. Mother refused to bring her to the hospital. Determined to breastfeed but not latching whatsoever, mouth just hanging open at the breast. Mum was 'finger feeding' and I completely forgot to ask my mentor what that means, note to self: must look it up. Luckily baby had gained a little weight though and mum was referred to a specialised about tongue tie.

Last visit before I had to get back to the hospital for my trust induction, a flying visit to a portugese lady who once again didn't speak much English. They lived in a tiny flat above a shop, with the parents double bed, the school age daughters single bed, an older babies cot and the newborns moses basket all in one bedroom. Weighed baby and she was fine, gaining weight. Slightly constipated - apparently due to formula?

So what did I learn this morning?

• That there are a LOT of baby girls in our community area lol
• Apparently there's a girls name that happens to be really popular right now
• Mixed feeding is a lot more common than I thought, all the mums were mixed feeding apart from one (the finger feeding lady) who was seriously determined to breastfeed.
• In roads apart some flats are bigger than my house, and some are smaller than my living room.
• There are a LOT of different cultures and languages in our community area, apparently we often won't be able to understand people and have to gesture with our hands etc.

I was then dropped back to the hospital for our induction, we got our NHS trust badges, tour round the maternity units, birth centres etc. The rooms were amazing, the views from the rooms were to die for. Guess I can't go into much detail about the facilities and amazingness without giving away the hospital.

Left about 7am and got home about 6.30pm today so longest day yet and only saw my little boys for less than an hour, so today was really hard for me.