Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Blog Thread 4; Live Free or Blog Hard - 'cos we all like blogging
Barmymoo:
I was not wearing gloves, and the only procedure I followed was washing my hands afterwards. I don't have any open wounds or cuts on my hands and it's a lot harder to collect blood in a tiny vial with gloves on, so I tend not to bother. Obviously if I knew the woman had some kind of blood-borne disease, I would wear gloves but otherwise I'm quite cavalier about it.
BeoPuppy:
But do you know that she does not have anything bloodborne?
Barmymoo:
We test all women for various blood-related ailments at booking and again at 28 weeks of pregnancy. For a needle-stick injury I would obviously follow the procedures which can involve prophylactic treatment for an exciting array of diseases. Anyway, I was taking blood for a five-day old baby rather than an adult, so the risks are a little lower - not completely eliminated but lower.
GarandMarine:
That is and is not helping my perception of midwives at all. Good that you guys do the checks but any time I see a medical professional not wearing gloves outside of holding someone's guts in at the bottom of some shitty whadi in the middle of Fuckthatistan it strikes me as sketchy for some reason.
Barmymoo:
I always wear gloves when not doing so could cause harm to the person I'm caring for - for instance, I would never, ever do a VE or catch a baby without ideally sterile and certainly some kind of gloves on. But when I'm weighing up a very small risk to myself against the inconvenience caused by a loss of dexterity and additionally the waste of resources by using disposable gloves, I tend to decide to risk it. If I knew the person was a drug user, or had a known history of serious illness, or was at a high risk of a blood-borne illness (a recent arrival from a country with very high HIV rates, for instance) then that'd affect my weighting of the risks.
Dunno. I've known for a while that I tend to not bother with using protection for things that would only harm me and are unlikely to do so. I don't wear a cycle helmet, I've not always insisted on condoms, I walk alone at night unarmed. Sometimes that's for my mere convenience, but in the case of PPE at work it's because I feel that wearing an apron, goggles and gloves (the "recommended" gear for a birth) would create a massive psychological barrier for the woman and unnecessarily medicalise the environment. Happily, it's mostly left to our own judgement.
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