Family-Centred Maternal and Newborn Care - Essay Example

such should serve as a guide to the doctor. Moreover, family-centered care requires that health professionals cater to the needs of individual patients. This means refraining from generalizing but treating each patient separately from others. My experience in a charity ward of a private hospital is far from being family-centered. There was a struggling mother who had her check up for the first time and pap smear attended by a nurse. Lying on the bed, the mother was shaking and complaining of the pain she was feeling caused by the speculum. Despite her plea to take away the speculum because she could not handle the pain, the nurse insisted to proceed with the pap smear, saying that the procedure would take only a while and that such procedure is not really painful. This scenario evidently shows the inability of the nurse to provide family-centered care to the mother. Instead of insisting what she wanted, the nurse must have stopped what she was doing, talked calmly to the mother, and explained the benefit of the procedure. In the first place, she should have informed the mother what she would do before inserting the speculum. That way, the mother could have prepared herself for the pain, thus avoiding panic. Moreover, the nurse should have not insisted that the procedure was not painful because she was not in the mother’s situation. Nurses should respect the feelings of the patient and refrain from dismissing patients’ complaints. Family-centered maternal care for expectant mothers especially those who are first timers should be considerate of the patient’s background. Nurses should assist first-time mothers with carefulness, inform them of what to expect during their pregnancy, and provide them all the necessary information on services they can avail from a