I'm in a delivery with terminal bradycardia and yucky decels. Nursery nurse is standing by and I have my labor nurse at the bedside with me. The patient, who speaks no English, is pushing well and delivery will occur before I can get a doc there to vacuum. The head is crowning, the nurse asks me if I will cut an epis to hasten delivery (and this isn't the retard moment). I say no and instead do minimal Ritgen's maneuver.
Head delivers with loop of cord hanging out.
The head is big.
The patient is very small.
I tell the nurse to pull the emergency call light to get some extra help. She then prepares to do suprapubic pressure and McRoberts all by herself as I can tell it will be a tight fit.
Over the intercom "Can I help you?"
Huh? The normal response when the emergency call light goes off is no one answers it...cause nurses are busy rushing into the room.
I say "We need help in here"
"Who would you like?"
Please shoot me now. What the f*** is going on?
I say "nurses"
No one ever comes. So I am totally pissed off and wondering what the hell happened. Fortunately the nurse and I managed the shoulder dystocia, which was mild, and had a good outcome.
Turns out that someone on the postpartum unit answered the call light and never bothered to call back to L&D to let them know or check if there was a problem.
Lovely. Postpartum was told not to answer L&D call lights ever again.
Oh, the patient delivered over an intact perineum - 8 pound baby and her first as well.
4 comments:
OMG, that is scary! Glad all turned out well!
All we have to do is yell "shoulders!!" and everyone comes running.
Postpartum probably wouldn't know what that meant. And considering I told them I needed help NOW and they never called back to L&D to tell them...I doubt L&D would have got that message either! Grrr.
Our postpartum people don't "get it" when we have an emergency and call for help. We are supposed to be creating some kind of OB code that means "get your ass over here" - something that can be comprehended in some way...
I have called for help in several serious emergencies and no one came.
At least there is no link between our emergency call lights and postpartum - it's just in our L&D hallway and people always come running :)
Glad it turned out fine for you
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