Prenancy

RE: Prenancy

Liz Barton — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 13:57:10 GMT

Very best wishes to you both! Once you have conceived it takes about a week for the embryo to implant, so this is actually a period of low risk for the developing embryo. 1 week - 12 weeks is the period of greatest risk as most organogenesis occurs during this time. You're supposed to even avoid home cleaning agents etc. It's a tricky time as you may be trying to keep your pregnancy quiet at this time of greatest risk of miscarriage, while maximally protecting yourself. Have one or two trusted people at work who you can tell and who will look out for you, without making it too obvious why! I've written a series of articles for VBJ around such issues; search for Mum's the Word on their website. Hope that helps!

RE: Prenancy

Leah Zykin — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 10:27:24 GMT

I avoided masked anaesthetics as soon as I found out I was pregnant at 1-2 weeks. I continued to do tubed all the way through, but as someone else mentioned, be careful after extubation due to exhaled gases, I stayed to monitor but made sure there was good ventilation.

I told my team within a few days of finding out. We’re a small team so it would have been hard to pass off jobs without making it obvious anyway. I did preface it with its very early days and anything can happen but it made life so much easier if they all knew (before I had chance to tell my vet, she asked me to have a sniff of a tube on the anaesthetic we were doing as she thought some iso might be leaking-I think my face told her everything and she got the student nurse who was shadowing me to do it) It also meant people knew not to top up iso until I left the room, I wasn’t booked boisterious large dogs, xycortal injections got booked with the other nurse, masked anaesthetics only booked on two nurse days etc. We were a two clinic practice so I sent an email to tell the rest of the staff after my first scan.

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask any questions xx

Apologies if there are any mistakes in the post-for some reason my autocorrect goes crazy on this site and I don’t always catch them all

RE: Prenancy

James Colver Cert. Ed, RVN — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 00:25:51 GMT

Don't overlook recovering patients in their kennels - after they have been disconnected and we are sat in front of them waiting to extubate them we are subject to a fair amount of exposure.

RE: Prenancy

ChrisRossiter — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 17:32:26 GMT

I have previously done Health and safety risk assessments for pregnant co-workers.

I feel if you inform management they should take the same approach.

It's against protocol/law/H&S or something along those lines, to allow you to be around gaseous anaesthesia when pregnant, And as you are trying, tomorrow could be day 1 of pregnancy. So the same rules should apply to you.

Basically. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid. If never let a colleague near an untubed anaesthetic if they were pregnant or trying. There is risk enough via leaky circuits, loose e.t. tubes, dodgy scavenging, refilling is etc.

Hope I make some sense.

RE: Prenancy

Ems — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 16:13:46 GMT

My advice would be to avoid being involved with these procedures if you are trying to conceive, are there other nurses that can take over these duties for you? I have never been pregnant but I did spend a few months trying to conceive and I avoided this completely as well as bone cement/radiographs etc. I’m lucky in that I work in a large hospital so I was able to ask other nurses to take over from me.