How I stopped being a Sympathetic Vomitter.

As a mother, I cleaned up my fair share of vomit,etc. But when I became a nurse, I found some body functions troublesome. I never minded if women urinated while pushing. Or even if they had a bowel movement. It never bothered me to change their pads after delivery..blood never got to me either. But vomit.....I was always fighting with myself not to grab an emesis basin and join the patient. This story is about how I was cured of this malady.


I was working night shift(6:30pm-7:am) at a community hospital that averaged 80 deliveries/month. (1999)This particular night we were "blitzing"....meaning we had a full house...babies, babies everywhere! I had just finished recovering my last labor patient @ 1:30am when one of the nurses asked me to break her.


As luck would have it,her patient was ready to push. (She had an epidural, no pain, but could feel the pressure of the baby's head) After she pushed for 1 contraction she yelled: "I'm going to vomit!" Frantically I looked around for an emesis basin or a cylinder....None in sight! In a flash her partner handed her THE BEDPAN! She started gagging, and proceeded to spew fluid and moan something that reminded me of The Exorcist. Quickly,I ran to the stocked closet in the room, grabbed a cylinder,and handed it to her boyfriend. Instead of giving it to her, he took it and started to vomit into it. For a moment I was stunned! Two people vomitting at the same time! And I never felt the urge to join them! I cleaned everything up and NEVER gagged. It was then and there I got over my urge to join a patient, their family, or friends in this activity.