15 Things to Know Before Your Next Obstetrical Call

There’s something about the patient in labor that makes my palms sweat. I’m not alone. Most of us EMS folks get a little anxious at the idea of delivering a baby. Obstetrical calls can go very right and they can go very wrong. The stakes are high. Here are a few things to consider before you run your next obstetrical call. At full term, pregnant females have a heart rate 10-15 beats per minute faster than when they were prepartum. (Psst…Before they were pregnant.) They also have 25%-30% higher stroke volume and 30%-50% higher cardiac output. Pregnant females will tolerate significant blood loss before they become symptomatic. Once they are symptomatic, they will decompensate rapidly. The official obstetrical term for the mother’s water breaking is “rupture of membranes”. It can be documented with the abbreviation ROM. Unlike the Glasgow Coma Score, you can’t just guess that a healthy baby gets an automatic 10 on the APGAR score. Most healthy babies are born with a score between 8 and 10. In some regions of the United States very few babies are ever scored a 10 at birth. You won’t remember the APGAR score when you’re holding a newborn baby in your hands. Write it on your OB kit. All things considered, moms tends to be the best judge of when labor is eminent. In your EMT class we drilled on the idea that mom should be laid on her left side. More recent research has indicated that getting mom on her side is the important part. Whether s...
Source: The EMT Spot - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs