Nursing Care for Pregnant Women with Mental Health Complications

Running head: NURSING
NURSING
Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

1
NURSING
Pregnancy is a symbol of fertility. It helps a girl to attain a maturity of a woman and to
become responsibility for self and for the baby. Getting pregnant is a right of every-women
unless or until a woman is suffering from certain sexually transmitted diseases or the couple is
having certain transmissible genetic disorders (Liao et al. 2015). Being a nursing professional, it
is my duty to provide holistic care to my patients while staying culturally and ethically
competent to a diverse group of professionals. However, when I am asked to care for an
expecting mother who is suffering from severe mental illness or having certain cognitive
disabilities, my professional liabilities face conflict with my personal or private self.
I think that a mother who is suffering from complex mental health diseases is not healthy
enough to bear a child as her mental anomalies will create a barrier towards normal physical and
psychological development of the infant. This belief or understanding create gap in my holistic
care approach. According to the study conducted by Hindmarsh, Llewellyn and Emerson (2015)
stated that infants of the mother who are suffering from intellectual disabilities experience social
disadvantage and at the same time pass through developmental delays. The condition becomes
worse when the woman is a single mother. Ranning et al. (2015) revealed in this cohort study
that mothers with mental illness provide disrupted care giving to their wards causing
complications in the developmental process.
My professional self however, instructs me come out from my stringent thought-process
and indulge in giving holistic care approach to the pregnant women. My senior colleagues and
recommended me to overcome this professionals versus personal dilemma by giving me
references to several scientific articles published in reference to pregnant among women with
mental health complications.