Nurses who want to help parents with their decision making or who ...

[imowrer]

Nurses who want to help parents with their decision making or who may be required to be involved in seeking consent for autopsies, should be aware that:
 
  1. autopsies not specifically covered by insurance or done under the jurisdiction of the medical examiner's office can be very expensive.
  2. they must be done within a few hours after delivery.
  3. in our litigious society, more autopsies are being performed than in the past.
  4. most parents who refused the examination regretted it later.

Question 2

When using IA for FHR, nurses should be aware that:
 
  1. they can only be expected to cover two or three patients when IA is the primary method of fetal assessment.
  2. it is best to use the descriptive terms associated with EFM when documenting results.
  3. if they can't find a heartbeat right away a shift must be made to electronic moni-toring.
  4. ultrasound can be used to find the fetal heartbeat and reassure the mother if there was initial difficulty.

[Liddy]

Answer to Question 1

1
1. Correct. Autopsies can cost more than 3,000.
2. Incorrect. There is no rush to perform an autopsy unless there was evidence of contagious disease or maternal infection at the time of death.
3. Incorrect. The rate of autopsies is declining, in part for fear of litigation by the medical facility that errors by the staff might be revealed.
4. Incorrect. Less than 15 who refused the autopsy regretted it later.

Answer to Question 2

4
1. Incorrect. When used as the primary method of fetal assessment, auscultation requires a one-to-one nurse/patient ratio.
2. Incorrect. Documentation should use only terms that can be numerically defined; the usual visual descriptions of EFM are inappropriate.
3. Incorrect. It often takes time to locate fetal heartbeats. Mothers can be assured verbally and by the ultrasound pictures if that device is used to help locate the heartbeat.
4. Correct. It often takes time to locate fetal heartbeats. Mothers can be assured verbally and by the ultrasound pictures if that device is used to help locate the heartbeat.