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For over 110 years, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York has provided compassionate and expert care to mothers and children throughout New York City. In fact, VNSNY began in 1893 when Lillian Wald, our founder, provided care to a sick immigrant mother in the woman's tenement apartment.
Maternity, Newborn & Pediatrics provides care to pregnant women who have prenatal or medically-related complications, new mothers, and babies and children up to 18 years of age. Services include nursing, therapy and social work. The daily census leans slightly higher to the pediatrics side.
Typical complications for pregnant women include diabetes, high blood pressure, pre-term labor, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS. After delivery, cases might involve wound care for a C-section, complications from the delivery or problems with bonding.
Common reasons babies are referred to home care are birth trauma, underlying medical conditions, and prematurity. It's not uncommon, to take babies as small as 4 1/2 pounds home. We have babies who were born at one pound.
Pediatric patients represent a spectrum of cases from asthma, the most common diagnosis, to children with very rare diseases. The population has changed from healthy mothers and babies. Now VNSNY is seeing some really sick children and a real variety of problems. Nothing is predictable.
The length of time patients receive services can also vary widely. Some we see only once. Some we see for 17 years.
When we open a case, we may have one identified patient, but our focus may include a parent or other children. When a mother is ill, the whole family is impacted. For example, is she able to provide care to the rest of the family? When a child is ill, the whole family is also impacted. And sometimes the child's care is very complicated. As you might imagine, when the patient is a child, the nurses do a lot of educating, helping the family to adhere to the doctor's plan. The emphasis is on teaching family members to take care of the child's needs. Children don't live by themselves. Someone is there providing the care and we support them.
Feeding tubes differentiate the care between child and adult patients. While adults generally have gastrostomy (stomach tubes), we actually have a number of children with nasal-gastric feeding tubes. These children will need supplemental feedings.
Maternity, Newborn & Pediatrics includes five nursing teams, four patient service managers (all with either pediatric or maternal/child health experience) two clinical nurse specialists for children with complicated medical conditions, a manager of support services, and an education field manager.
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