Nursing diagnosis and obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal nursing: breastfeeding as an example

Nursing diagnosis is steadily gaining acceptance as the tool to use to communicate nursing's contribution to health care. Historically, however, obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal (OGN) nurses have had difficulty applying the primarily problem-based diagnoses to a primarily well population. Two nursing diagnoses addressing breastfeeding have been accepted by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association. The development and use of these diagnoses are discussed in this article. In addition, OGN nurses are challenged to develop other diagnoses that work within the OGN specialties.