New DVDs are being used to show parents how to look after their newborn babies, writes EOIN BURKE-KENNEDY
CARING FOR a newborn baby can be a daunting prospect for first-time parents and many understandably feel pitched in at the deep end with little or no practical experience.
The pressure on Irish maternity services also means that women tend to be discharged within a day or two of giving birth and often return home with limited back-up support.
In an attempt to bridge the gap, the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) and healthcare systems company Oneview have produced an early parenting guide that can be viewed on the hospital’s newly installed system of bedside consoles.
The guide, which can also be taken home in DVD format, contains visual demonstrations of a range of skills from bathing newborns to breastfeeding as well as how to secure infants properly in a car seat and how to place them in safe sleeping positions.
However, the hospital authorities are keen to point out that the guide is not an attempt to replace the interaction between midwives and mothers; it is designed as a back-up to reinforce existing postnatal care especially for early-discharge patients.
Community midwife manager at the NMH, Margaret Hanahoe, says there is greater emphasis placed on antenatal, labour and delivery care within maternity services in Ireland.
The result is that there is a limited amount of resources and staff devoted to postnatal education.
“Although some hospitals offer home services, in the majority of circumstances women are returning home with little or no back-up,” she says.
“We’ve found that leaflets are often of little value when it comes to imparting early parenting skills and, in some cases, there is also a language barrier to overcome.”
Visual demonstrations from experienced nurses are an indispensable part of the learning curve for new mothers and the DVD guide is a useful tool, says Hanahoe.
Because the educational guide is available at the bedside, patients can access the information at their own pace and in their own time which facilitates those too weak or tired to attend the practical demonstrations.
A similar DVD guide for antenatal patients, which advises on how best to manage pregnancy and assesses the best pain relief options, has also been produced.
The bedside consoles, which were supplied to Holles Street by Oneview, have now been installed in all seven postnatal and antenatal wards.
The consoles are primarily entertainment systems, offering a range of television and internet services on a pay-as-you-go basis.
But the hospital also plans to use them to disseminate further health information and to develop patient satisfaction surveys.
Director of midwifery and nursing at the hospital, Mary Brosnan, says the bedside systems offer women “instant communication with family and friends” and are useful for patients.
She says the hospital wants to tailor its services to a younger generation who are used to getting their information from the internet and television and the systems are “a natural fit”.
Both the educational DVDs are being made available at community health centres across the State or can be ordered (free) from the website www.welldonemum.ie or on tel: 01-294 2347.