Cultural Differences When Caring For Postpartum Pa

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Part 1: Clinical Narrative and Clinical Question

How do nurses respect cultural differences when caring for postpartum patients?

For the past two clinical weekends, I was assigned to care for the postpartum patients and their newborns. On the first day of the morning shift, I took care of a 19 year old patient named, Mrs. Smith. She had a vaginal delivery, delivering a healthy baby boy, Jacob at 36.5 weeks of gestation. Around eight of the morning, I took Mrs. Smith vital signs and noticed that Mrs. Smith was breast-feeding her baby in bed. Mrs. Smith asked if I could teach her about the sitz bath, to decrease the perineal discomfort after her shower. As I acknowledged her request, before leaving the room she said “Would you bring me a cup of ice water?” On the way of getting ice water for her, I was thinking about the postpartum care I received when I had a child in Thailand; which is different than what I am providing to the patients here in the US. Back home, I was not allowed to drink cold water nor to shower for few days after delivery. In spite of the fact that the US has diverse cultures, as a nursing student, I had to learn and adapt to different types of cultures. In order to provide the care that is suitable for the patients from various backgrounds, I learned the type of support they receive from the family, newborn care, diets, and other special practices. In Thai culture, the postpartum period is noted for traditional practices related to rest period. After delivering a baby, Thai women are advised to rest, relax, and limit outside activities until their first postpartum visit. As a result of this, the woman’s mother or her mother in law, and her relatives relieve the new mother of her household chores so that she can rest. As caring for Mrs. Smith, I noticed her support was from her husband and her own mother who came to visit her that

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