Role with MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing rapidly brings research to patient bedside

Nurses who want to keep up with the latest research but don’t have the time to sift through it all have a dependable and experienced partner who can do it for them: the MGH Institute’s Dr. Sam Bernstein. 

The assistant professor of nursing is teaching obstetrics nurses through her position as the maternity nursing expert for MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing. In this role, the former Massachusetts General Hospital nurse and current researcher compiles the most recent nursing research on any given topic, then distills it into “news you can use” for nurses working by the bedside. 

In the November/December edition, Bernstein published an article on the Elective Induction of Labor, which cited the ARRIVE trial (A Randomized Trial of Induction Versus Expectant Management) research that found it’s safe to induce labor with women who have never given birth and that doing so reduces the risk of a cesarean birth, assuming the woman is undergoing a low-risk pregnancy and is at least 39 weeks along. 

“This finding was contrary to the general belief in maternity care,” writes Bernstein in the article. “The prior belief, based on observational studies, was that induction of labor increased the risk of cesareans.”

With the increase in elective induced labor, Bernstein also let nurses know what conversation topics should include, how “failed induction” should be defined, the ethical aspects of decision-making, and how “shared decision-making practices promote true patient autonomy.” 

Prior to this article, Bernstein published the Effect of Climate Events on Birth Outcomes. Here, she looked at how climate change can lead to increased risks of preeclampsia, low birthweight, preterm birth, and an increase in spontaneous abortion. 

“Nurses can help patients to mitigate some of the effects of climate change on birth outcomes,” Bernstein wrote in an article that outlined topics such as diminished air quality, heat waves, wildfires, and hurricanes and how they all can affect a mother’s pregnancy. 

“One of the things that I think nurses do really, really well is that we help our patients plan for things that could happen,” said Bernstein. “So, with pregnant moms who live in areas prone to hurricanes, nurses need to have conversations about, ‘How are you planning for this season? Do you have bags packed? How are you going to get out of the area prior to hurricanes happening?’ With heat waves, we need to make sure that all our pregnant patients are aware of where cooling centers are. Diminished air quality means nurses need to talk to patients about where they spend their time, and what is the air quality like in the buildings that they're in?”

As a nurse scientist, Bernstein sees her role as taking the science that's available and helping bedside nurses apply it to the bedside.

“When you look at the sources that I use to pull the information together, there's no way that every bedside nurse who works in obstetrics has the time to find all those articles, read them themselves, and then figure out what the takeaways are for practice,” said Bernstein. “The purpose of these articles is look at the most up-to-date information that's available, and distill it for bedside nurses, so that they can take it immediately to the bedside, instead of spending all sorts of time on trying to gather that data by themselves.”

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