I was doing my maternity rotation and a classmate and I had a pt that only spoke a little bit of English and there was a “huge” language barrier. She was asking us “How will I know when my baby is getting enough milk?” I responded with: “Well, you will know if he has 6-8 wet diapers per/day.” I asked her if she understood (knowing that there was a language barrier) she said yes and then proceeded to tell her husband: “I need to get some more diapers to put on my breasts.” !!!! I don’t know where she got that one, but it was hard for us not to laugh!









November 25th, 2008 at 3:33 am
That was really cute; when you have pts of different cultures using different languages it is really hard to convey the needed information. One thing that has been helpful in my practice is when I have Hispanic pts is to learn key words like cold, pain, ice, bathroom, and water. Then I try to take them an evening snack and offer them juice more often.