Hi everyone, in this video we're going to talk about the role of the labor nurse or the obstetric nurse.

And by the end of this video, you'll be able to discuss the responsibilities of the obstetric nurse,

describe the amount of time that nurses can spend providing labor support, and discuss the barriers to nurses providing supportive care.

The obstetric nurse has a wide array of responsibilities.

They include the admission assessment of the birthing person,

monitoring and assessing the mother and baby,

administering medications, including managing the IV and any medications going through the IV or the epidural.

And of course, lots of documentation.

The nurse is also supposed to assess and treat labor pain, communicate with the physician.

Many nurses see one of their important roles as to be managing the second stage of labor or the pushing phase.

Now, you know, I don't like the word, quote, manage, but that's often what they view as their

role. And then finally, implementing the doctors or midwife's orders. I've always been

curious about what women or birthing families expect from their labor nurse. Unfortunately, the only study I could really find on this

came out quite a while ago, but there was one research study on pregnant people's expectations.

In this study, the women assumed that about half of the nurse's time would be spent giving direct

supportive care of them, and a little less than half would be spent doing direct supportive care of them and a little less than half would be spent

doing direct clinical care activities. And then they thought about 5% of their time would be spent

doing documentation. In another study, there was a systematic review that looked at 17 qualitative

studies or interview research studies with pregnant people that took place between

the years 1990 and 2001. So again, this research is dated, but this is what we have.

Prenatally, pregnant women expected that their labor nurse would help them be comfortable,

assist them with labor coping techniques, stay with them continuously, keep them informed, and answer their

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