Ob nurses are the unsung heroes of labor and delivery! They work long hours, sometimes with minimal breaks. Your nurse wants you to have a happy and healthy baby and they want you to have an experience you can look back on and feel positive about. If you imagine a triangle and at one point of the triangle is you as the birthing family, the second point is your ob/midwife and the third point is the facility you’re birthing at your nurse is the person in the center of the triangle juggling everyone’s needs. Nurse’s deserve so much more appreciation than what they receive during the annual “Nurse’s Week” where their facility offers them a buffet lunch.
I asked some savvy labor and delivery nurses what they enjoyed receiving as a thank you from their patients. Here are some great tips they passed on as well as some links for great ideas I found. A simple search gave me dozens and dozens of ideas!
Some of the tips the nurses I asked offered were making sure that if you’re bringing food that all the shifts are covered. So often day shift gets food early and night shift gets very little. Some facilities have policies about staff accepting food that’s in a patient’s room due to infection control so packaging and delivering to the nurse’s station in some facilities is preferred.
Most of the nurses also said that a simple thank you/birth announcement is the most appreciated thing they receive. Another nurse said she loves receiving pictures from the birth that include her in them.
Some of the favorites those nurses listed were: Clicker pens, chapstick/hand creams, gum, candles, fun socks, hair ties, coffees/fancy creamers, sharpies, flowers.
Favorite food gifts were: pizza, fancy chocolates, tacos, fruit trays, breakfast sandwiches and sushi. A few nurses did say that they eat a lot of junk food especially on night shift that they always love it when someone brings healthy foods.
Here were some of the amazing finds I discovered by doing a Google Search and a Pinterest Search.
Wrap up some small candy bars with doctor/nurse themed wrappers.
These adorable Thank You cards for a handwritten note.
I love these!
The next two pictures go together and I love this idea too!
This is just one of the many ideas on the attached link!
I've been incredibly blessed over the years to work with so many fantastic labor and delivery nurses over the last 14 years and I appreciate them more than words can say!