NURS 114 WCU Birth Story Project

Associate Degree in NursingNURS 114C – MATERNITY CLINICAL
BIRTH STORY PROJECT
Guidelines and Requirements
PURPOSE:
To enable the student to use therapeutic communication and listening skills to elicit a woman’s history
of her labor and birth. To enable the student to analyze a patient’s reported history using nursing
process and medical perspective. To enable the student the opportunity for self-reflection.
OBJECTIVES:
The student will:
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Identify a postpartum woman who agrees to tell her birth story.
Make undistracted time to sit with the woman and listen.
Use active listening, open ended questions, and therapeutic communication to elicit the
woman’s labor and birth story.
Avoid writing during the interview.
Thank the woman for her time and contribution.
Directly following the interview, sit and write the story to the best of your ability while it is
fresh in your mind.
That evening, revise and edit the birth story for fluency, flow, spelling, and grammar. Birth
story should be written from the first person perspective. This is the mother’s voice of her
experience.
From the nursing perspective, analyze and explain the labor and birth. Fill in the gaps. What
was the woman feeling at each point in the story? What were her expectations? Did she
have lack of understanding? Who were her supports? Did they meet her expectations? Did
she experience trust, joy, fear or disappointment? State all nursing diagnoses (minimum 3)
and priority nursing interventions would you expect to implement during the unfolding of
this story? When? Why? If you were her nurse, what would you have done differently?
Using your resources, complete a medical analysis of this woman’s birth story. Describe in
medical language the progress of the story from start to finish and explain in detail each
medical intervention, indications, risks, benefits (You may use a table for this purpose). This
section should read like the medical notes in a patient chart.
Write a reflective journal entry on this assignment. What did you expect going in? What did
you find? What did you learn? Can you identify places in the story where the nurse and/or
American Career College | BIRTH STORY PROJECT (Updated 02/2020)
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doctor had a n impact on the outcome? In what way? How do you feel about this labor and
birth? What impact will this have on your nursing practice? This is your voice. What did you
learn?
METHOD:
1.
There are 4 sections and the paper should be clearly labeled.
a. Birth s Birth Story – First person mother’s voice
b. Nursing Analysis – Demonstration of understanding of nursing priorities and actions
related to patient’s experience – use of nursing diagnoses and terminology –
organization
c. Medical Analysis – demonstration of understanding of medical procedures and
interventions – completeness – correct use of medical terminology – organization
d. Journal Entry
2.
Include a cover sheet with your name, the pt’s initials, date collected, name of course. Due
Date: Saturday of Week 4/Week 9 @2359. Please submit your completed birth story via
Blackboard on or before this date. Papers will not be accepted in any other format. No
credit will be given for late papers. In the unlikely event that you have not had a
postpartum day in clinical by that time, please email your clinical instructor with a proposal
for an alternative due date. Please be sure to cc: your lead faculty. Feel free to turn in your
project earlier than the due date if possible.
GRADING RUBRIC:
1. See grading rubric file within the assessment folder on Blackboard.
2. Attach the grading rubric to your final submission.
NOTE: Outside resources need to be cited using APA format. Must be appropriate references.
Must include in-text citations. The last section of the paper should be a reference list, with APAstyle references. The citations should include information from other sources of research studies:
ACOG, Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, Journal of Human Lactation, JOGNN, MCN: The
American Maternal/Child Nursing, Midwifery, Nursing for Women’s Health, etc. References more
than 5 years old will not be accepted.
Adapted with permission from:
Shealy, S. (2014). Birth story project [Class project]. School of Nursing, Mount Saint Mary’s University,
Los Angeles, CA.
American Career College | BIRTH STORY PROJECT (Updated 02/2020)
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