Tips for pregnant shift workers?

Hi everyone,

As some of you know, I am a shift working nurse. At the moment I am 9.5 weeks, and have night shifts for the rest of the week.

My morning sickness isn't too bad, but it's the all day nausea that is really getting me down. I usually get quite nauseated after night shift anyways, but because of my all day nausea I am not eating the right foods and find that at the moment I just really feel terrible and I don't want to go to work!!

I guess I'm just venting, and also asking if anyone else is a shif worker and any tips they might have for me? I was thinking about talking to my OB when I see him and see if he can write me a note to reduce my night shift hours ... but i won't see him for another three weeks.

Please help!

Hi Kylie - I too am a shift working nurse and this is my second pregnancy dealing with shifts and the stuff that accompanies pregnancy.

Tips - eat small amounts often. It means being really organised to take stuff with you but fruit salad, crackers etc (or whatever you can tolerate) is good.

Get as much sleep as you can. I usually get more sleep on night shift than I do on days but I am lucky - I can sleep standing up almost!!!

Not much else at this point but maybe talk to your manager about different shift times or limiting the number of nights you do until you reach the second trimester and then get your OB to limit your nights (or stop them) in the third trimester. Good luck!!

The only suggestion re: m/s I have and worked for me are sea bands. They go on your wrists and have magnets which go on acupressure points. I hope that you find something to help you and have faith that for most this part will be over soon and you will feel so much better :hug:

Hi Kylie,

I am also a shiftworking midwife (although on maternity leave). I asked my doctor for a letter to reduce my night duty hours. Before that though, I used to take in lots of snacks to eat through the night, oh and ginger beer! That seemed to help alot.

Hi I'm also a nurse. During my preg I spoke to the nurse doing the rosters about night shifts and didn't have to do any. The staff were very supportive too in making sure I didn't get a too heavy load of patients, sending me to first meal break, little things like that.
Are you permanant night shift or rotate? If you feel you can't cope for the rest of this week of nights maybe just pop into your GP and get him/her to give you a certificate.

Hi Princess Kylie, I'm a paramedic and was doing night shift every week, i found this the hardest thing. As the other ladies have said, eating frequent small meals and snacks, lots of fluid and lots of sleep during the day, just forget everything else and focus on you. Maybe you could speak to your manager (hopefully you have a more supportive manager - i was a nurse and our manager was pretty inflexible when it came to night shift unless you had medical reasons), as shellbell3 said maybe you could see your GP for a certificate but then definitely mention it to you OB when you see him. I'm not doing night shift now as i'm on alternative duties due to the physical nature of paramedic work and I feel SO much better. Good luck with it all, it will get better.

Thanks girls, I didn't want to ask for special consideration but I had to leave early yesterday morning, and that's no help to anyone. I will have a chat to my boss!

Thanks