When fatigue was constantly brought up as an issue locally an administrator
used senior nursing students to run formal focus sessions at our postpartum
groups. The comments were very enlightening and well documented so they
could be presented to the staff. The overwhelming cause of fatigue and
stress was visitors, both their own and those of their roommates. (We have
an old facility without private rooms.) The fatigue was NOT due to self
care or infant care. The parents themselves drew up some very stringent
visiting rules and asked that they be posted outside the ward. The rules
have been revisited in the groups over the months, obviously with different
parents as the groups constantly change, and are strongly supported.  With
the reduction in time spent in hospital it appears that everyone who used
to visit during the 5 to 7 day stay still tries to visit in hospital! Signs
are also given to moms to post on the room doors if they don't want ANYONE
but their support person. It isn't perfect but it has helped
significantly.  The staff were right about the fatigue but did not
correctly identify the cause.
The focus groups were wonderfully useful, the results 'one upped' the staff
:) and have led to a stronger, more consistent procedure to get ongoing
documentable feedback from parents.
Almost all of the suggestions have been easily instituted and virtually free.

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html