MCN

• Comprehensive preconception and prenatal care is essential in ensuring healthy outcome for mother and child.
• The primary goal of both maternal and child health nursing is the promotion and maintenance of optimal family health.
• Maternal and child health nursing extends from preconception to menopause with an expansive array of health issues and health care and health care providers.
• A certified nurse-midwife (CNM) is an individual educated in the two disciplines of nursing and midwifery and licensed according to the requirements of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) who plays an important role in assisting women with pregnancy and childbearing.
• Nurse-midwives play a large role in making birth an unforgettable family event as well as helping to ensure a healthy outcome for both mother and child.
• Either independently or in association with a physician, the nurse-midwife assumes full responsibility for the care and management of women with uncomplicated pregnancies.
• The use of nursing process, nursing research, and nursing theory in the provision of quality care is discussed.
• The standards of nursing practice and the varied roles assumed by nurses in maternal and child health nursing are also explored.
• After the successful completion of the module, you should be able to identify the specific goals and philosophy of maternal and child health nursing.
• Describe the evolution, scope, standards, and professional roles for nurses in maternal and child health nursing.
• Describe family-centered care and ways that maternal and child health nursing could be made more family centered.
• Define common statistical terms used in the field, such as infant and maternal mortality.
• Use critical thinking to identify areas of care that could benefit from additional research or application of evidence-based practice.
• Goals and philosophies of maternal and child nursing include the promotion and maintenance of optimal family health to ensure cycles of optimal childbearing and childrearing.
• Healthy pregnancy will lead to a healthy newborn who will grow up to become healthy children who will comprise the healthy family.
• The scope of practice of a maternal and child health nurse includes preconceptual health care, care of women during three trimesters of pregnancy and the puerperium, and continued health supervision and support for families as children reach maturity and plan for their own families.
• The cycle of optimal childbearing and childrearing includes preconceptual health care, care of women during three trimesters of pregnancy and the puerperium, and continued health supervision and support for families as children reach maturity and plan for their own families.
• Discuss the interplay of nursing process, evidence-based practice, and nursing theory as they relate to the future of maternal and child health nursing practice.
• The goals of maternal and child health nursing care are necessarily broad because the scope of practice is so broad.
• The primary goal of maternal and child health nursing care can be stated simply as the promotion and maintenance of optimal family health to ensure cycles of optimal childbearing and childrearing.
• The range of practice of a maternal and child health nurse includes preconceptual health care, care of women during three trimesters of pregnancy and the puerperium, and continued health supervision and support for families as children reach maturity and plan for their own families.
• Major philosophical assumptions about maternal and child health nursing are that the health of each stage of the individual impacts the next stage and the health of the family to which the individual belongs.
• Integrate knowledge of trends in maternal and child health care with the nursing process to achieve quality maternal and child health nursing care.
• Some examples of current questions that warrant nursing investigation in the area of maternal and child health nursing include the following: What is the most effective stimulus to encourage women to come for prenatal care or parents to bring children for health maintenance care? How much self-care should young children be expected (or encouraged) to provide during an illness? What is the effect of market-driven health care on the quality of maternal-child nursing care? What active measures can nurses take to reduce the incidence of child or intimate partner abuse? How can nurses best help fa
• Nursing research, the controlled investigation of problems that have implications for nursing practice, provides evidence for practice and justification for implementing activities for outcome achievement, ultimately resulting in improved and cost-effective patient care.
• Nursing theory offers helpful ways to view clients so that nursing activities can best meet client needs, for example, by seeing a pregnant woman not simply as a physical form but as a dynamic force with important psychosocial needs, or by viewing children as extensions or active members of a family as well as independent beings.
• One of the requirements of a profession (together with other critical determinants, such as member-set standards, monitoring of practice quality, and participation in research) is that the concentration of a discipline’s knowledge flows from a base of established theory.
• The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews is a good source for discovering evidence-based practices as the organization consistently reviews, evaluates, and reports the strength of health-related research.
• Evidence-based practice requires ongoing research to substantiate current actions as well as to provide guidelines for future actions.
• Nursing theorists address how nurses should be viewed or what the goals of nursing care should be.
• FNPs take the health and pregnancy history, perform physical and obstetric examinations, order appropriate diagnostic and laboratory tests, and plan continued care throughout the pregnancy and for the family afterward.
• Family nurse practitioners (FNPs) are advanced-practice nurses who provide health care not only to women and children but also to the family as a whole.
• In conjunction with a physician, an FNP can provide prenatal care for a woman with an uncomplicated pregnancy.
• Maternal and child health nursing plays a large role in helping women remain well so they can enter a pregnancy in good health and maintain their health throughout life.
• Describe the framework for maternal and child health nursing care.
• In the role of a PNP, a nurse interviews parents as part of an extensive health history and performs a physical assessment of the child with the parents, administers any immunizations needed, offers necessary anticipatory guidance (based on the plan of care), and arranges a return appointment for the next well-child checkup.
• Client advocacy in nursing involves safeguarding and advancing the interests of clients and their families.
• NNPs may work in level 1, 2, or 3 newborn nurseries, neonatal follow-up clinics, or physician groups.
• CBR is affected by the fertility, marriage pattern, and practices of the place, sex, and age composition of a population, and birth registration.
• The responsibilities of a NNP include managing and caring for newborns in intensive care units, conducting normal newborn assessments and physical examinations, and providing high-risk follow-up discharge planning.