Factors Affecting Labor, Fetal Position, Fetal Station – Maternity Nursing | @LevelUpRN
Hi, I'm Meris, and in this video, I'm going to be
talking to you about the factors affecting labor along with the fetal position and fetal
station. I'm going to be following along using our maternity flashcards. These are available
on our website, leveluprn.com, if you want to grab a set for yourself, but if you already have
a set, I would invite you to follow along with me. Okay, let's get started. So first up, we are
talking about the factors affecting labor, and you will see on the back of the card that we
have a cool chicken hint here to help you remember these different factors.
We say there's three peas
and a pod. So the three peas here are going to be the passageway, the powers, and the passenger.
So the passageway is just the birth canal, right? It's about the anatomy. Is a patient's pelvis
tilted? How is the cervix? That sort of the thing. All of those anatomical considerations can change
are a patient's ability to birth a baby vaginally or can change what needs to happen during labor.
Then we have the powers, and the powers refer to the contractions. How strong are the contractions?
How effectively are they affecting the cervix? All of those things. Again, if we have ineffective
change to the cervix, then we're not going to have an adequate passageway and we're not going to
be able to give birth, right? So when we talk about the powers, we're talking about how
the contractions are affecting the cervix. And then you'll see here that for passenger we're
talking about the fetus, and there's a whole lot of information on here.
I'll let you read it for
yourself; we're going to talk about a bunch of it. But there's one thing that I really want to pull
out of here, and this is going to be the fetal position and fetal station. We're going to talk
about it with the next cards because we have nice illustrations for you. But I do want to talk about
them because it it gets a little bit confusing. So when we talk about fetal position, we are
using three letters to describe it.
So this is actually going to be this drawing right here.
Sorry, I couldn't remember which side it was on. This is the drawing that you'll see in the next
card. I think it is beautiful, and I think that it is one of the best illustrations that exist to
talk about how the fetus is actually positioned. So when we have these three letters, the first
letter is either L or R, so it's saying left or right, and then the middle is going to be
saying what part of the baby are we talking about, right? So we can be talking about occiput, meaning
the back of the head.
We can be talking about mentum, meaning the chin. We could also have
things like scapula, which we would say SC. We could have sacrum, which would be just an S.
So what part of the body are we talking about is presenting in the pelvis. And then the last
abbreviation in that three letters is going to describe where it is. So this is going to
be either anterior, posterior, or transverse. So let me give you an example. If we say that
the baby is LOA, that means that the baby is positioned so that the occiput, the middle
there, is left for the patient, for the mother, and anterior. So if you look at the next card
– and you can actually see this illustration, and I'll bring it in close for you and
hopefully it will focus here – If you see that, you can see what I'm talking about, about how the
baby is positioned. And in this instance here, we are talking all about the occiput. So it
gets a little bit confusing because we could have mental presentation. We could have the
scapula presenting. But for this illustration, we're talking just about the occiput.
So what is
the optimal positioning for this fetus? Well, the optimal is going to be LOA, left occiput anterior.
That is what we would prefer to have a really well-facilitated birth. So I remember this as
LOA is okay. That's how I remembered it. It's not on our card or anything, but that's kind of
the easiest way to remember it. But if I had to choose, then I would say ROA would be second best.
What we don't want is a P at the end there.
We don't want the occiput, the baby's back of their
head, to be facing posterior of mom, meaning the back of the baby's head is facing mom's back,
because this is that sunny side up delivery. And with that sunny side up delivery, we can
have a lot of pain, a lot of complications there. So LOA is okay. That's going to be the
best way for that baby to be born.
And so, again, I really want you to take the time to look at this
illustration in-depth. I love this illustration so much that I have it on my wall. I just think
it is really, really good at sort of explaining what all of these mean. Of course, only
talking about the occiput presentation. Now, lastly, we're going to talk about fetal
station. So when we talk about station, it basically just means how far has the head or
presenting part descended into the pelvis. So station zero means at the level of the ischial
spines. Anything higher up than that is going to have a negative number. Anything lower, like
closer to the vaginal opening, is going to have a positive number. You can remember this because
plus four is on the floor. So if you can remember plus four on the floor, then you can remember
that the positive station means that the baby is exiting closer to the exit of the pelvis.
Now, here is a really nice illustration.
Again, I just think that the illustrations in this
deck are beautiful and so helpful. So you can see here that we have a baby in the pelvis
and we're demonstrating where the baby is and then what each station is. So currently
this baby is at negative three station. That's not really an optimal station for delivery. I'm
not thinking this baby's coming out imminently, right? Now. If I had plus three, I'm thinking,
"This baby is about to enter the world." So just important to remember, positive numbers mean
closer to the exit of the pelvis, closer to being in the vagina, right? So plus four on the floor.
Okay. So let's test your knowledge. If I said that you checked the patient and they
were presenting ROP, what does that mean? Next question, what is the optimal presentation
for the fetus for a well-facilitated birth? And last question, if I have a baby who is at
the level of the ischial spines, what station are they at? All right.
I hope that review is
helpful, and I really hope I get to see you in the next one. Thanks so much and happy studying.
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