"Know it all"? or perform one role?

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

I have noticed that it seems as though many hospitals are different regarding the set up of their L&D units. I did a rotation at a hospital where the nurses performed all roles; they had antepartum, postpartum, and new babies all on the same shift...while other hospitals have antepartum/labor and deliver nurses, nursery/nicu nurses, and postpartum nurses as separate roles.

Which way is your hospital set up and are you:

1. rural (communities having less than 20,000 residents or fewer than 99 persons per square mile)

2. Urban (non rural and having a higher population density more than 99 persons per square mile; cities with a population of at least 20,000 but less than 50,000)

3. Metropolitan (densely populated county with more than 1 million inhabitants)

this is for a school paper so I will be grateful if you can answer! thanks in advance

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Your gap is too wide. You left out community hospitals, (of which there are MANY) that fit none of your categories. Mine is one of them; as a matter of fact I worked in 4 such places.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

PS where I have worked, we did it all, LDRP and Newborn. I like it this way.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.
Your gap is too wide. You left out community hospitals, (of which there are MANY) that fit none of your categories. Mine is one of them; as a matter of fact I worked in 4 such places.

Well then, maybe people could say what the population is of the area their hospital is at and which type of L&D unit you work in....I just got the definitions from a text book for basic population differences...but feel free to be more specific! :up:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I live in a fair sized city near a major metropolitan area that has more than 1 million residents in it. This city has about 50k residents, however we serve a 4 county area, as the places around it are quite rural with few hospitals nearby. We see about 750 births a year and also are a GYN surgical floor.

Does that help?

I think it would help you to know also, how many births/year occur in each hospital. Generally,the larger and busier the facility, the more likely it will have separate L/D, Antepartum/triage and Postpartum/Mother-baby units, as well as level 2+ or 3 NICU. The smaller community hospitals tend to have LDRP or L/D and PP on one floor, as well as care for GYN and clean female surgical patients, making it absolutely necessary to be cross-trained in all areas as an RN.

Good luck.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in OB, lactation.

Our town proper has about 10-11,000 residents but our community hospital serves a tri-county area of about 165,000 population. We have around 1000-1200 deliveries a year.

We have recently split our LDRP into an LDR and separate Postpartum.

However, the L&D nurses also have to know postpartum because we keep our mag sulfate patients and sometimes have to keep postpartum patients for other reasons. We also take care of antepartum patients with OB and non OB issues.

We don't have separate nursery nurses, we just take turns being baby catcher nurse. No NICU, if we have a sick or premature baby we have to stabilize them and transfer to a NICU (like the 32 week, 7cm, repeat section, abruption that walked in the other day). Mildly sick babies we do keep, so we have to know that too.

Hope that helps.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment