The period of postpartum generally starts immediately after the child is born and ends after the mother returns to a state of pre-pregnancy. During this phase or postpartum state the mother together with the family members experience some major adaptations and changes to their environments. Care given to mother during this period by nurses serves the main purpose of assessing the adapting ability of a mother to psychological and physiological changes that occur during this period. This period normally lasts between 6-8 weeks after birth. Education concerning the changes in this stage are very crucial and thus it is the duty and responsibility of nurses to educate mothers on postpartum expectations, while also address all issues …show more content…
The strategies are mentioned below: One is nurses shift work where the number of hours that a nurse is able to work comfortably and without reaching a point of stress is very significant towards ensuring that quality healthcare is given to mothers and babies during the postpartum stage. The length of the nurses shifts and the type of shifts either being days, nights, mornings, evenings or a combination of all is particularly of importance as this influences the nurses working state. A nurse work life survey that was conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) examined from a random sample nurses worked an additional 55 minutes on top of the 12 hour shift during each shift which left them feeling tired, stressed out and overly aggressive. This combination of after effects are extremely negative to a mother in the postpartum stage because this might result in the nurse being negligent to the mother’s condition or even aggressive due to lack of patience and stress which may in turn mean that the kind of care given by such a nurse will be bad. Thus the length of work to be done by each nurse should be to a level where it does not lead to either fatigue or stress (Kane, Shamliyan, Mueller, Duval & Wilt, …show more content…
The benefit of using agency nurses who are contracted on a regular basis benefits both the hospital and patients because agency nurses minimize overtime for hospital nurses and they also provide cover in situations where there is a shortage of nurses either due to absenteeism, leaves or vacations or during weekends thus means that nurses are allowed time to rest and recover from a long and strenuous week of work. This improves the quality of care given to patients and postpartum mothers and also ensures that nurses are able to rotate in the execution of their duties. The third strategy is to use internationally educated nurses that mainly provide added support during shortage cases of nurses because of higher pools of patients streaming into hospitals and also from rising demands for hospital staffing (Kane, Shamliyan, Mueller, Duval & Wilt,