Naval Hospital Pensacola holds Postpartum Hemorrhage Fair

Photo By Jason Bortz | Lt. Ian Porter, a resident with Naval Hospital Pensacola’s Family Medicine Residency Program, attempts to bounce a pingpong ball into buckets of “fake” blood at the hospital’s semiannual Postpartum Hemorrhage Fair May 7. Postpartum hemorrhages can occur with a woman after delivering a child and can be serious. The fair was created to teach NHP staff how to accurately identify a postpartum hemorrhage.  

PENSACOLA, FL, UNITED STATES

05.07.2015

Story by Jason Bortz 

NMRTC Pensacola

PENSACOLA, Fla. - While tossing pingpong balls into buckets with “fake” blood may seem like an odd form of training for some, it was actually a challenging exercise to teach Naval Hospital Pensacola staff how to accurately identify a postpartum hemorrhage.

The exercise was part of NHP’s semiannual Postpartum Hemorrhage Fair that was held May 7 at the hospital.

The fair was organized by Lt. Cmdr. Tracie Snider, perinatal advisory board chair, and the staff of Labor and Delivery.

“We conducted this training to educate staff who deliver babies on postpartum hemorrhage,” said Snider, who has delivered almost 1,000 babies in her career. “The staff needs to be able to assess postpartum hemorrhages and know the procedures to treat a patient having one.”

Postpartum hemorrhages can occur after delivery and can be serious. Blood loss is normal during pregnancy, but a postpartum hemorrhage is an accumulative blood loss of 1,000 milliliters or more. According to Snider, induced labors, large babies or multiple babies such as twins can increase the risk of a postpartum hemorrhage, but properly recognizing a postpartum hemorrhage and reacting quickly significantly reduce the risks to the patient.

“Postpartum hemorrhages can be very serious, but properly recognizing them is the key,” said Snider. “Recognizing a true postpartum hemorrhage is not always easy, it takes experience and practice.”

The difficulty of accurately measuring the amount of blood loss was demonstrated with the ping pong balls at the Postpartum Hemorrhage Fair. Eight buckets were filled with red liquid representing blood loss after a delivery with amounts from 100 ml to 1,000 ml. Staff members bounced the balls into the buckets and had to guess the amount of blood in each one. The exercise accurately portrayed how a provider would judge the blood loss following a real birth.

“It was harder than I thought to guess the amount of blood,” said Hospitalman 2nd Class Gibbi Johnson, a corpsman with NHP’S Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic, “but I feel more confident after the training.”

The difficulty with diagnosing a postpartum hemorrhage is that it is often a judgement call made by the staff after the delivery. Training such as this builds the confidence of the staff and helps them accurately identify a true postpartum hemorrhage.

“The best way to properly identify a postpartum hemorrhage is by visually looking at the amount of blood loss following a delivery,” said Snider. “There are other signs as well such an increased heart rate, a drop in blood pressure or a reduction in urine output, but observing the blood loss is still the best method.”

A recent change by the National Perinatal Information Center on the amount of blood loss that is a true postpartum hemorrhage increased the significance of the training. In the past, 500 ml of blood loss was considered a postpartum hemorrhage, but that standard has now been raised to 1,000 ml. The Postpartum Hemorrhage Fair helped ensure all staff is aware of the new guidelines to prevent false postpartum hemorrhage diagnoses.

“One thousand milliliters of blood seems like a lot of blood, and it would be for the average person,” said Snider, “but a pregnant woman can lose a lot more blood because she carries a higher amount of blood than a normal person.”

To wrap up the fair, the hospital held a code purple drill to test the hospital staff. A code purple is an obstetrics emergency. The hospital used one of its life-like training mannequins to simulate the emergency. In the scenario, the heart rate dropped on the baby causing the staff to expedite delivery with a vacuum assist, which resulted in a shoulder dystocia and a postpartum hemorrhage. The staff had to react quickly and according to Snider, followed procedures exactly as they should have.

“We have a very well trained staff at Naval Hospital Pensacola,” said Snider, “and we all work well together. We don’t have a lot of postpartum hemorrhages here, but our staff is fully prepared to handle them when we do. I have full confidence in our staff, and I tell my patients that all the time.”

• Date Taken: 05.07.2015
• Date Posted: 05.14.2015 14:39
• Story ID: 163320
• Location: PENSACOLA, FL, US