The B.A.B.Y. Book: Best Advice for Baby & You provides expectant mothers with important information about physical and mental postpartum care. While most books focus on pregnancy, yours offers insight into the post-delivery period. Why was this an important book for you to write?

As a night shift postpartum nurse, I found time was limited in teaching and instructing parents on both mom and baby’s care. I usually had most of the time taken up by evening visitors and then after they were gone for the night the moms wanted to try and sleep. When I did teach my patients, in much detail, they would be so appreciative I took the time to explain things to them. They would tell me “… my other nurses didn’t tell me that! Thank you for explaining that to me. That now makes sense.” I heard this time and time again from them, which got me thinking, “How much teaching and information did patients miss out on because they weren’t educated thoroughly by their other nurses…OB physician…lactation consultant…anesthesiologist…etc.”

So, I talked to my nurse manager, who was our prior system nursing educator for maternity before she became our unit manager, about how patients were losing out on valuable information during their hospital stay. It concerned me they were not given valuable and detailed information from hospital staff about their care. She challenged me to do something about it, so I came up with the idea of putting everything in book form which would allow the patient to have all the information they needed at hand.

I set about researching to see if there were books already written that covered everything I would be covering. To my surprise, there was not one comprehensive book out there on the subject of maternal and neonatal post-delivery care. I believe that revelation sealed my fate to author such a book. So I published the 1st Edition in 2018 and then updated the 2nd Edition in 2023. Even when I published the 2nd Edition I researched books available to the public again— and there still was not a book like mine out there.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book that you think other books for pregnancy and newborns gloss over or skip completely?

Wow! To be honest, practically everything pertaining to postpartum care from right after delivery up until the patients are discharged. I was a very detail-oriented nurse when explaining a topic to a patient. When I had patients thanking me for explaining something to them in detail so they understood the “why” behind what was done or “how” a procedure was completed— I knew then it was important to give every bit of information to the patient in a book. That way nothing was missed and they had the information to make informed choices about their family’s care.

Some healthcare workers don’t necessarily teach, some don’t like to. They just want to perform their duties as quickly as possible and be on with their day. Telling the patient to do this or not do that without giving the “why” along with the “what”, “when”, or “how” is not educating. This robs the patient of important information they need, so they can make informed choices and decide what is best for them and their family.

Two huge points were discussed in the book: P.O.S.T. B.I.R.T.H., which goes over everything a mom needs to be aware of or look out for after they are discharged from the hospital and postpartum depression, which I went over in the Q&A section at the end of ‘Mother’s Care’. Both are critical areas I feel are not addressed in detail with the mothers during their hospital stay. Therefore, I feel it has contributed to the postpartum mortality crisis here in the United States. We should not be losing patients to postpartum complications or suicide during that 1st year post-delivery. Yet our death rates are the highest of all similar wealthy countries in the world, and it’s increasing at a steady rate. Chronic health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease plus advanced maternal age when starting a family also contribute to the mortality rate. Women need to be educated thoroughly on these factors so those numbers will start decreasing. If contributing factors are preventable or at least mothers can get needed medical attention immediately, these numbers can begin decreasing.

A third topic, which is very problematic today, is pain management. The opioid crisis in the U.S. is rampant, and why is that? Maybe because no one sat down with patients when given a narcotic for pain relief and educated them on the proper way to take pain medicine to avoid this becoming an issue. I know I have personally been handed prescriptions like this from my physicians and the only instruction I got was what the prescription bottle said— and nothing more. Yes, there are a lot of people getting a hold of prescription medication without prescriptions and getting addicted that way, but not educating patients on the correct way to take it is, I believe, negligent. Fentanyl is a huge crisis right now, and people are dying from just one dose, they’re so potent it could kill an elephant. When I was still working at the hospital, I gave a presentation on properly medicating patients to the nursing staff in the maternity unit and spearheaded a campaign for hysterectomy patients to have their PCA pumps already set up with them right after surgery and before they were admitted to our unit. These two things helped to better patient outcomes in our unit and increase patient satisfaction— and education was the key to this success.

And— that was just about the mothers. The “Baby’s Care” section went over even more information than the mothers.

Post-delivery, many confusing medical terms are used to explain what is happening to mom and baby. How did you approach presenting the information in a way that would be understood by those not in the medical field?

The best way I found to incorporate medical terms for a layman to understand was to put an explanation of what it was in parentheses right next to the medical term or procedure. That way the patient was given the actual medical term with the explanation. For instance, generic medications with their brand name in parentheses, or I explained something in a little more detail at the end of a section and put it in parentheses. Or— I devoted an entire section going over a specific topic. I specifically wrote the book as if I were at the bedside still and I was teaching the information to the patient. I was that layman once— before I became a nurse at 32. I remember asking questions or asking for a more detailed explanation. So, I put myself in their shoes when I wrote the book, which helped pave the way to educating more patients than I ever could at the bedside.

The whole patient education process should revolve around making sure the patient understands what you are talking about. If they can’t understand because the topic has been glossed over or they can’t understand what is being told to them then patients cannot make the informed decisions needed regarding their care. My postpartum book is comprehensive— 367 pages filled with educational material for the parents to help guide them from delivery to discharge. Future editions will expand the book even further. At least the patients who read my book and take it with them to the hospital can make informed decisions— and have the needed information if their healthcare team doesn’t teach them or have time for much of it.

What is one thing that you hope readers take away from The B.A.B.Y. Book: Best Advice for Baby & You?

I hope that this book helps to educate parents on what to expect after the delivery of their baby. What mothers need to know about taking care of themselves for the first few days, what parents need to know about caring for and feeding their baby, and what to expect over the next couple of days during their hospital stay. Since most parents have not been patients in the hospital, to be in the hospital for the delivery of their child/children can be a very anxiety-provoking time. Not only does mom need care but so do their baby/babies. This makes it twice as scary for parents. This guide goes over everything they can expect to happen with them, how to navigate those first few days, and how to handle a few things more after they are discharged.

With the nursing shortage ever-growing, patient education will no doubt be put on the back burner and you, the parents, will suffer because of it. This guide will help bridge that educational gap and help them have a great, anxiety-reducing start to their new life together as a family.

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