Hurting Babies :(

This week in clinical I got to do a full assessment on a newborn (fifteen minutes old to be exact) She was a cute little thing, third girl in the family. Since they didn't agree on the names yet (I think big sisters are in on this...they're five and three I believe) She was called by her last name for now. I started calling her periwinkle because that's sort of what her last name sounded like (I actually can't remember her real last name, nor would I put it here if I could...) She was nine pounds, perfect little thing (well big)

Something every baby gets when she's born is a 1mg shot of vitamin K. This helps with blood clotting factors and other stuff that escapes my brain at the moment (mental note...look up what else this is for). Since I was doing the assessment I also got to give the needle. It was IM (intramuscular) but of course periwinkle is just a little tot so I had to give it with a teburculin needle...this is about the size of an insulin needle but its in ml's not units. The needle is given in the vastis lateralis which is the middle/inner third of baby's leg. you measure up and down from the knee and greater trochanter, and then the middle third of that again. I felt kind of bad giving the little one this injetion....she gave me this kind of "why would you do that" cry. But it's good for her and she probably doesn't remember it now.

I have a really cute picture of louie but blogger won't let me put it up at the moment so I'm going to do it the old way...it'll be above this entry. This is what I saw when I looked over a few minutes ago.

On onther news, I was voted vice president for the nursing society. I'm really excited for this especially since it means I'll be president next year. Only drawback is I have to mc the end of year banquet...yikes!