[babywearingdoula]

Hi! I'm going to school for nursing starting next month with the hopes of being in L and D but I've got lots of questions! Hopefully someone will have time to answer them for me!

When looking for jobs for RN's in L&D I see they require an RN or BLS. What does BLS stand for?

Is L&D hard to get into? I see lots of nursing jobs for other specialties but the L&D jobs all require previous L&D experience....

Where do you learn how to do all the stuff only a L&D nurse would do? In nursing school? Like cervix checks...that sort of thing.

Is it recommend you work for an OB or on a Med/Surg floor first for experience?

Thanks!

[EricEnfermero]

Welcome to the site! BLS stands for Basic Life Support - it's the CPR class for healthcare providers. If you're not seeing many L&D opportunities, you might look at hospitals that offer new grad internships. That can be a great way to break into a specialty without having to "do your time" in med-surg.

[RN1989]

You don't need to work for a doctor before going into L&D. Most L&D nurses will tell you that you should just go straight into it as a specialty. I will tell you my experience has been that having a med-surg base will help you in L&D tremendously. When I worked it, the L&D nurses had some difficulties dealing with moms who weren't healthy. Today, many more people are getting pregnant who are older and/or have multiple medical problems that have nothing to do with pregnancy. The L&D nurses who had never done any other kind of nursing had some difficulty caring for these more complex patients and often looked to me for assistance on those non-pregnancy issues. Personally, I would recommend a year of med-surg to get comfortable with all the medical problems out there so that you know what is abnormal and what is not. That will help you tremendously when you have to take care of a pregnant woman who has other health issues.

[crissrn27]

Hi, babywearingdoula Welcome!

Personally, I would recommend some time as a med-surg nurse, or other area that will provide time management skills. It helped me to have that down before going into L and D.

Most of the "hands-on" stuff in L and D, you are not going to learn in nursing school. Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but most nsg schools don't allow cervix check, etc, for students. Mine didn't.

[Elvish]

Nope. I think cervical checks are one of those on-the-job training things. And in my state at least, it's a category II nursing task which means you can only do it after having received some sort of special training by someone in that field/unit. Same deal with pulling epidurals.

[Calzonan RN]

Congratulations on getting into nursing school, that's quite an accomplishment. I can tell you a little about my experience. After my second semester of nursing school I became an 'extern' at a local hospital. While externing I was able to perform cervical checks (with an RN present of course), but only if the patients membranes were intact and usually only if she had an epidural. My school also allowed SVE's with the same restrictions. Externing was an invaluable experience. I was able to follow a nurse and become familiar with an L&D nurses schedule and routine, while still in school. I also was able to practice my skills. Because I externed I was offered a job as soon as I graduated, in a field that doesn't hire new grad nurses. I feel very fortunate to be able to work in the area that I want to work in, and feel comfortable going into a specialty area as a new grad nurse. I just finished nursing school this week, and am starting my new job on Sunday!! i considered working in Med-Surg for a year first to gain more experience with high acuity patients, but L&D is a hard field to get into and I didn't want to take a chance on not being able to get a job after a year of Med-Surg.
Good luck in nursing school!!
Keli

[joeb1]

My 2 cents here is that if a place is willing to take a new grad, go for it. I myself started in peds working for a year and a half(with several nursery pulls) before, as one anesthesiologist put it, i moved closer to the source of my peds pts as an l/d nurse.