Assignment: Labor Stimulation

Assignment: Labor Stimulation
Assignment: Labor Stimulation
Describe an evidence-based protocol for labor stimulation (augmentation and induction) and the nursing care management essential for the safe and compassionate implementation of the protocol.
Nursing had, during this era, virtually no social standing or organization. Even Catholic sisters of the religious orders throughout Europe “came to a complete standstill” professionally because of the intolerance of society (Donahue, 1985, p. 231). Charles Dickens, in Martin Chuzzlewit (1844), created the enduring characters of Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig. Sairey Gamp was a visiting nurse based on an actual hired attendant whom Dickens had met in a friend’s home. Sairey Gamp was hired to care for sick family members but was instead cruel to her clients, stole from them, and ate their rations; she was an alcoholic and has been immortalized forever as a reminder of the world in which Florence Nightingale came of age (Donahue, 1985). The first hospital in the Americas, the Hospital de la Purísima Concepción, was founded some time before 1524 by Hernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico. The first hospital in the continental United States was erected in Manhattan in 1658 for the care of sick soldiers and slaves. In 1717, a hospital for infectious diseases was built in Boston; the first hospital established by a private gift was the Charity Hospital in New Orleans. A sailor, Jean Louis, donated the endowment for the hospital’s founding
(Bullough & Bullough, 1978). During the 1600s and 1700s, colonial hospitals with little resemblance to modern
hospitals were often used to house the poor and downtrodden. Hospitals called “pesthouses” were created to care for clients with contagious diseases; their primary purpose was to protect the public at large rather than to treat and care for the clients. Contagious diseases were rampant during the early years of the American colonies, often being spread by the large number of immigrants who brought these diseases with them on their long journey to America. Medicine was not as developed as in Europe, and nursing remained in the hands of the uneducated. By 1720, average life expectancy at birth was only around 35 years. Plagues were a constant nightmare, with outbreaks of smallpox and yellow fever. In 1751, the first true hospital in the new colonies, Pennsylvania Hospital, was erected in Philadelphia on the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin (Kalisch & Kalisch, 1986).