`It's all about teaching'.Byline: PEOPLE By Matt Cooper Matt Cooper may refer to:
Nurse Michele Clasen-Copely is on the floor of a home in east Springfield, eye-level with 2-month-old Serae Davis and pouring out a steady stream of encouraging words. She's teaching the baby to raise herself off her tummy, to use the muscles she'll need later to crawl. But just as important, the nurse is imparting a subtle lesson to mother Christina Stone, 28, watching nearby. "I was teaching Mom," Clasen-Copely says later. "What I'm trying to do is get the parents really interested and motivated to observe their baby's development and be a part of stimulating it. It's basically teaching parenting skills." This is the life of a Lane County public health nurse: Enter the homes of new moms and dads, win their trust, then teach them how to care for their precious new family member. Clasen-Copely has done it almost 16 years. The nurse and her four colleagues run three programs for maternal and child health, all of them free and catering to parents and parents-to-be of any income level: One serves women pregnant for the first time, many of whom are in their teens or 20s; another focuses on babies who may develop slowly due to premature birth premature birth Birth less than 37 weeks after conception. Infants born as early as 23–24 weeks may survive but many face lifelong disabilities (e.g., cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness). or other factors; a third, babies with birth defects birth defects, abnormalities in physical or mental structure or function that are present at birth. They range from minor to seriously deforming or life-threatening. A major defect of some type occurs in approximately 3% of all births. including spina bifida and heart disease. The nurses work with 35 to 45 clients at a time, guiding parents through matters as fundamental as breast-feeding breast-feeding /breast-feed·ing/ (brest´fed?ing) nursing; the feeding of an infant at the mother's breast. , as challenging as drug abuse or the management of seizures, and as complicated as negotiating the maze of support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services . It's intimate and intense, Clasen-Copely says. But you could almost say she was born to take care of babies. She was 4 when she decided to be a nurse. Even then, her affinity for babies kept grown-ups on their toes; on one occasion, for example, she got a mind to hold the baby of her mother's friend. "I'd go grab them off the bed and get yelled at," Clasen-Copely says, laughing. "I was going to hold that baby. Thank God they caught me - the baby was as big as I was." The defining moment arrived when she was 10: A beloved cousin, Wendy, died at 3 years old after enduring a paralyzing nervous-system disorder that left her unable even to hold her head up; Michele, sobbing at the funeral, was told to stifle her emotions. "I was made to feel ashamed," she says. "I took from it that I wanted to work with babies and these issues, these family issues, these feelings - the grief, the loss, the happiness. It came from my feelings related to Wendy." She married a Eugene man, Michael Copely, and moved here. She worked at a nursing home and in hospitals, then joined county public health in 1990. Today, Clasen-Copely is a direct, take-charge type - surprising traits, perhaps, in someone who is also quick to hug. At 48, she has a seemingly endless reserve of the drive needed to continually care for others. Clasen-Copely buzzes with energy. As she explains nursing and medicine, her words pour out in rivers and her thoughts lead to thoughts that lead to thoughts. She sometimes waves her arms or stamps her feet for emphasis. "Public health is about teaching parents how to advocate for their baby's needs, both developmentally and medically, and teaching parenting skills," Clasen-Copely says. "It's all about supportive teaching." While a new mother concentrates on the needs of her baby, the nurse is there to care for them both. A client's newborn has large cataracts Cataracts Definition A cataract is a cloudiness or opacity in the normally transparent crystalline lens of the eye. This cloudiness can cause a decrease in vision and may lead to eventual blindness. in both eyes. While counseling the mother, Clasen-Copely discovers that the woman has a health problem that needs immediate attention; the woman gets checked out - and has hernia hernia, protrusion of an internal organ or part of an organ through the wall of a body cavity. The hernia is enclosed by a sac formed by the lining of the cavity. It results from a weakness or rupture in the wall, usually where there is already a natural weakness. surgery days later. Another woman has a 2-month-old with possible hearing problems. Clasen-Copely tries to help find support services, including transportation from rural Lane County to a pediatrician pe·di·a·tri·cian or pe·di·at·rist n. A specialist in pediatrics. in town. A third suffers from depression after giving birth by Caesarean section caesarean section: see cesarean section. . The nurse helps her manage her own mental and physical health, while teaching her to breast-feed breast-feed v. To feed a baby mother's milk from the breast; suckle. and care for her child, born prematurely. On any given day, Clasen-Copely may run the full range of emotions, celebrating giddy first successes at one stop, then driving across the county to console - and counsel - a mother who has lost her child to sudden infant death syndrome sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or crib death, sudden, unexpected, and unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant under one year of age (usually between two weeks and eight months old). . She recalled a mother who lost a baby at 4 months to SIDS SIDS sudden infant death syndrome. SIDS abbr. sudden infant death syndrome SIDS, n See syndrome, sudden infant death. . She helped the woman through the loss and left her with a doll - something to hold, she says, because women miss the baby smell, the touch, "like you wouldn't believe." A couple years later, the woman and her husband sent the nurse a Christmas picture-postcard, with their new baby. "I was so delighted," Clasen-Copely says. "I was delighted to see they were pulling their lives together and they had another beautiful baby to love and hug. I was touched - touched that I must have meant something for her to remember me later on." MICHELE CLASEN-COPELY Occupation: Nurse, Lane County Public Health Age: 48 Hometown: Coon Rapids Coon Rapids, city (1990 pop. 52,978), Anoka co., SE Minn., on the Mississippi River; inc. 1952. It is a suburb of Minneapolis–St. Paul. Transportation equipment, fabricated metal products, and medical equipment are produced. , Minn. Family: Husband Michael; daughters Angela, 26, and Amber, 22; stepson step·son n. A spouse's son by a previous union. stepson Noun a son of one's husband or wife by an earlier relationship Noun 1. Doug, 39 Quote: "Women need to talk about their emotions. Women tend to need to talk and talk and talk and talk, and men do. A lot of times it's a stress on a relationship." For more information: Call 682-4041 for more about Lane County maternal-child health programs. |
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