#11 Why Our Job Matters

You’re reviewing me?

I was reviewing… That doesn’t sound right. No, I was reviewing our content for one of our calls and during the call, I remember listening to the class like, gosh this is so good. Oh, that’s so good. This is so good.

Which class?

Trauma.

Oh, yeah.

I wanted to ask you a question that you can explain to everybody.

Okay, I don’t know what’s coming everyone.

You will know where I’m going. I think you’ll know where I’m going. I want you to explain to the listeners why their job is so important.

Oh.

And I want you to think of the three S’s and the big A.

Oh my God, this is challenging. Okay, this is an insider scoop here. Justine thinks that I can just pull things out of my ass constantly.

She can.

Okay. I don’t know entirely where you’re going with this. Okay, why is our job so important in-

In the big picture. You talk about it all the time.

Okay. I don’t know if this is where you want me to go with this, but I’m going to just wing it everyone. So first of all, giving birth is… And you’ve probably heard portions of this in other places. But to summarize giving birth is a marker on the timeline of birthing people’s lives. If you’ve given birth you remember the day, you remember the smells potentially, you remember how you felt, you remember maybe some of the discomfort, maybe you don’t. So with that being a marker on the timeline of your life, it’s not just any other day and for us it might feel like any other day. But for the birthing person and their family they will remember this day for the rest of their life. Now, on the same scale… Okay, I think I know where you’re going with this. Birth is also very unique in the way that it’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life. But there’s this strange opportunity for trauma along the way. So in relation to the trauma class that we teach and that is also for sale on the site.

Standalone, that it’s one thing to go through your wedding day or something right? And your wedding day is happy, you’ll remember it, you’ve been anticipating it, potentially maybe not and you remember things, you have pictures of it. But there’s really no risk other than just the inherent risk of existing. Mind you, transfer that same idea to your birth yes it’s one of those same exciting days, you take some pictures you’ll remember it forever. But also there is actual potential threat to your body and the health and safety of your baby.

One of the things Krysta mentioned in this class that you’re talking about is how we’re primed to be more susceptible to trauma because our hormones. I forgot about the part when I was reviewing of the… With oxytocin, our bodies are priming a baby to be able to attach to us. On the opposite side our bodies are being more primed to attach to people and their actions towards us.

Totally. Yep. You’re more… First of all, I’m going to call that just vulnerable. That you’re more vulnerable to and also susceptible in a positive way, we can use it for positive for attachment purposes. So there’s the whole hormonal cascade for the birth, there’s actual risk and trauma. I say traumas in the eye of the beholder and what that means is that what’s traumatic for me might be different. You may have the exact same experience and it not be traumatic for you. So we need to believe the birthing person or whoever we’re talking to that if it was traumatic for them that’s their experience, we don’t get to define trauma. But trauma, if we think about what trauma is that there’s many times an actual or potential threat to the body. That is one of the precursors to trauma and it’s whether it’s imagined or not there’s some sort of threat or potential for a threat. So all of a sudden you transfer that into birth, your hormones are primed like you talked about.

You are looking to attach, you are potentially needing help, there’s potential feelings of helplessness and then there’s a dependency on your care team for the safety of yourself and your baby. It sets that circumstance up for trauma. That birth is very different than say a wedding day or any other main huge life event that will land on your timeline. So there’s that and then going back to that this is the most important day of their life potentially. This is completely life changing. If you look at the number of stressors that can happen in our lives giving birth and becoming a parent is number six of 198 most stressful life events.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Where did you just pull that out?

That was a class that I put together for somebody else.

So there you go. So why I have that assumption that you can do this.

Yeah, I can.

She had no idea this was the topic.

But I’m pulling from the depths of the vault of my brain and I like to learn and so somehow some of that comes out and other times it totally doesn’t. So with that being said it’s super stressful, it’s also really happy, it’s also very hormonal. It’s also potential for bonding and then we walk in the room and we have a hard thing happening outside of work or we’re being bullied on the job or we’re super tired. It’s night shift and we didn’t sleep all day because our kid was screaming or fill in the blank and all of a sudden we bring our energy into the room, our attitude and we know this. Think about your parent, okay. I used to joke growing up that you could look at your parent and say I need to ask for permission for this. I’m going to look at them and I’ll know which parent to go to because you just know-

Or not now, now is not the time.

Yeah. Now you’re like I’m going to wait on that one and you just have this intuition because of the energy that they’re bringing into the space and the energy we bring into this space that is so transformational. Also mind do has so much potential for trauma, but also has so much potential for growth, for setting them up for their parenting experience. This is their first/ushering into being parents which parenting to me is… And I’ll get to this because I think this is where you’re having me go. That parenting is to me one of if not the most important job anybody ever does. Because that child and how they’re parented, how their brain develops particularly in the first year and then five years of life sets them up for their future of their life and how they interact with the world and how they interact with your children and how they interact in the workplace and how they treat your parents as nurses that they grow up to be, etc. So this experience of birth sets them up for parenting, it sets them up to potentially bond or not.

There’s a psychologist, Daniel Siegel and he’s written a ton of books on the Brain and there’s this mindset book that I’m actually partially through. I have a secret about me, I have a really hard time finishing books. I’m way better at audio books and podcasts but that’s another day. He wrote The Whole-Brain Child with Tina Bryson and if you’re a parent Whole Brain Child, Whole Brain Discipline. I love that because it’s a brain science perspective on raising children and the importance of those first years. Then if you get into the whole attachment theory stuff and then if you get into the whole attachment theory stuff. That one of the quotes that I’ll never forget, I don’t remember if it was on a podcast or on a… Actually it was on a podcast and actually I’m going to link this podcast episode here in the show notes for us. Because this was one of the most revolutionary podcasts I’ve ever listened to when it comes to parenting.

But the statement was that developing an establishing secure attachment is the most important and transformational, most impactful thing that a parent can do with a child to lead to life success. So life success fill in the blank. They are contributing to society, they’re not getting into trouble. They leave your home and don’t live with you for the rest of their lives and etc and fill in the blank whatever you want. So that secure attachment is so important and that secure attachment you just hit the nail on the head when you talked about attachment related to trauma. That there is potential, an exponentially different potential for attachment through the birthing experience with their partner, with you and then also with their baby. That sets them up to continue to build on that to establish secure attachment into the future for their child. So here’s the connection that I have made in the last year or so and started saying. The work that you do at the bedside, how you help them feel, how you encourage them, how they feel through their birthing experience.

Whether they’re bonded, seen, safe and soothed, Christa teaches us in that class and I think that is a Daniel Siegel as well. All of that contributes to leading to secure attachment for their child, which leads them to being a more, “Healthy.” However you define it person, adult into the future and therefore leads to me what we do having impact on literally the future of the world. I know I’ve said that in some of our classes. I’ve said that and we will talk about this in Cancun for sure. But I think it’s so easy for us to walk in the room and say like, I’m tired or I’ll just do the bare minimum whether you’re thinking it or not and like I did my best or whatever and I think we need to do our best. I think that we all need to be so incredibly introspective and incredibly selfish in a positive way on caring for our souls, our hearts, our minds, our emotions, our bodies leading into that space.

Because what we do, how we make them feel, the words that we choose, this is why we talk so strongly about this here at Bundle Birth all the time and why to me we can manage an emergency and we can talk about that. We talk about that in mentorship with classes on that, there’s lots of other people teaching on that. But how they are made to feel, the words we choose, how we communicate, how we bond, giving them autonomy over their body. All of these themes that you hear around here truly to me could not be any more important than anything else. Obviously keep them alive, step one. So keep them alive actually I take that back. Keep them alive and then help them feel seen, safe and soothed, help them recover from hard experiences. That doesn’t mean you can prevent hard things from happening or their preferences from not going exactly as they want. But you can take your energy, use your power for good in the room to set them up for a better experience.

Where they walk away feeling whole, complete, like they were heard and that they are bonded to their partner if they have one and then also their baby which changes our world. Is that where you were going with that?

That’s where I was going. She was a little bit nervous about it and I was like it’s a softball question for you you’re going to nail it.

I don’t know.

Home run.

Yeah. But, I mean what if I have something else to say later?

Well, we can have a part two. So we hear all this and I think it could be overwhelming. I know I was overwhelmed the first time I really realized this of how much our job matters.

I know. This came to me I think prior to teaching at AWHONN in Minnesota.

Really?

It’s been a fresh connection, but I read Whole-Brain Child years ago, I’m not a parent yet. Then with all the brain science stuff that I’m learning for Cancun and putting it all together and neuro… I mean there’s so much of this but making those connections, I’m like oh my God, what?

So what do we do? Especially when the nurse is listening, a lot of them are understaffed, overworked, stressed.

I’ve been thinking about that. We’ve been talking about this off the record all the time. Because we’re hearing your stories of feeling tired and wanting to give your best or feeling like you’re watching the coworkers around you that are struggling or aren’t very nice or you’re seeing care that’s subpar or flat out unacceptable. All this stuff, and our hearts go out to you and we’re constantly brainstorming. How do we help? How do we get them there and how do we support you in being your best? I think recently… How did this come up? I was reading something on racism in healthcare, maybe watched a documentary and I was sort of like to oversimplify it to be honest and let me be very clear. I come from a white upper class background living in the United States, that alone is a privilege. I also grew up overseas so I have some perspective on that. But I mean, I stand in a place of privilege for myself and I know this is oversimplifying it and especially related to the race and bias and prejudice conversation.

That’s not entirely where we’re going with this but I think it applies to that. I think it applies to how we treat our patients and then also this burnout stuff and I just had this epiphany one day where I was just like, maybe there’s a new challenge. So maybe now’s the time when this begins-

 I know.

We’ve had #teamunderwear. We need like a saying, so maybe if you have an idea send us a DM and we’ll label it something. Because I have been doing a lot of mindset work and I think that we forget how much power we have in our choices that I can choose today to be different. I can choose today to… I chose one afternoon to be a plant mom. I’m staring at all my beautiful plants and some of them that need some pruning and I decided that I’m going to learn about plants and I’m going to have some plants in my house and that feels fun and all of a sudden, guess what? Now I am, and I have beautiful flourishing having baby plants in my house. It’s as simple as that but that we get to decide who we are. We get to decide I’m going to be in shape and I’m going to apply myself to be in a place where I’m going to work out three to five times a week and I’m going to get in shape.

That is a choice that we have and so as totally simple as this may sound I wonder if the answer is simple. We over complicate things sometimes and so here’s my challenge. That prior to you that you come on your unit, you get your assignment, you see who your patient/patients are and… Is that you?

Prior when getting your assignment.

Let’s be honest you have a job, you likely have benefits, you have a hospital team as much as you might be bummed about how staffing is right now. But you have help, you have resources, you get gloves, there are places in the world where you get one set of gloves for the entire shift. Okay? And we’ve experienced a little bit of this in the United States thanks to the pandemic. Of a smidgen of what certain places have to experience and they function that way, we just don’t have medication, we just don’t have supply. So all of this, let’s really choose gratitude on our way in and recognize the little smidgen of little things that we have instead of focusing on what we don’t. Come into the unit you get report and depending on how stressed out the nurse going off is, you might just need to walk in and get report but then step outside the room and or if you have time or you have a moment prior to getting reported. I’d probably suggest doing it before report.

But either way, that prior to walking in and presenting yourself and engaging with their birth experience that you take a moment to just pause and maybe the ritual is you put your hand on a doorframe or you plant yourself. I don’t know, I feel like there could be a symbol that becomes a ritual with the idea that I am going to give what I have not all of yourself to these patients. I feel like that’s totally unrealistic and when somebody asks me of that I’m like hold on. Because also if you’re being introspective, if you’re caring for your soul, if you’re identifying I have very little to give. First of all, my challenge to you is how do you fill your cup outside of work? And you’ll hear us say this a million times, you’ve probably heard it before. But if you don’t have anything to give that has to be taken care of because that will affect your patient care. But in that ritual it is I am going to give what I have and I am going to apply myself in the best way I know how.

Regardless how uncomfortable I feel in the circumstance, regardless how different they look from me. Regardless how they may have different views about birth, they may have different preferences. They may have really weird relationship dynamics that maybe you don’t agree with. That I don’t know why but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe the best in them and give my best of my brain to this patient today. That seems like okay, yeah Sarah, almost churchy along the way and I get it shake that off. But also just imagine every single provider pausing before the door and saying I’m going to give my best to this patient. I’m not going to ignore them, I’m going to validate their feelings. I’m going to look them in the eye and say you are capable and we are right here with you. How different their experience would be regardless if it’s hard and this is what I want you to hear from us. Well, what if there’s an emergency? What if it was a C-section? They really didn’t want one.

What if something happens with their baby? To us and everything we’ve learned about trauma. That piece actually doesn’t matter as much as their perception of subjective distress or the other positive side of that is how they were made to feel. They need to feel heard, they need to feel not alone. They need to feel some element of control when they know they can’t control everything and so just imagine a world where every provider gave that to each patient. I really believe we wouldn’t have the disparities in healthcare that we do but unfortunately we do carry our belief systems. We do judge, we do choose to focus on the negative even of like oh there isn’t this, oh there isn’t that and guess what? Even you bringing that energy alone affects the birth space and can contribute to poor outcomes and poor satisfaction in people’s birth experiences leading to trauma, affecting their babies, and potentially affecting their attachment. No pressure, changing our world. So that’s my soapbox for the day, thank you for getting me on a rant. I hope you found that helpful.

I knew it was going to be a good one.

Again no pressure, this is such a grace filled environment. But also not only do we want to bring that grace and that understanding and that love for you and for your job and for your life outside of work. But we also want to bring some challenge that like to me I’m bored and I’m complacent when I am not being challenged in my life. So use this as your little self-accountability to pause at the door, decide on your ritual and I think hand on the doorframe is kind of the easiest thing I think about. That prior to walking in pause, put a hand on the dorm frame and it’s sort of like an alert to your team. They may ask you, what are you doing? And then you can explain, “I’m doing this little ritual thing that Bundle Birth Nurses said that seems really silly but it’s helping me apply myself and give my best to each patient and choose not to write their story. Choose to engage with them in the best way you know how.”

Thanks for spending your time with us here today on this episode of Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses. If you like what you heard it helps us if you subscribe, rate, leave a raving review and share this episode with a friend. If you want more from us head to bundlebirthnurses.com or follow us on Instagram. Now, it’s your time to take what you learned today and apply it to your life. Giving honorable trauma informed care to every single patient you care for, we’ll see you next time.