Are more babies born at night?

SmilingBluEyes · Jun 9, 2005

NO, this is not true, where I work------ particularly due to many inductions of labor (done during the day of course) and rising csection rate. More babies are born during the day due to these factors. And I am sure the doctors don't mind this at all (grin).

baby&mommynurse · Jun 9, 2005

Babies come whenever they want to! But some nurses may say that there are more deliveries during a full moon. I find there's no difference. We can get around 20 babies delivering on just a 12 hour day shift! And anytime can be very busy if there is less staff.

Currently we are making the transition to mother/baby couplet care, so our post partum nurse/patient ratio is 1:6 and our newborn nurse/well baby ration is 1:8. When we go to couplet care, it'll be 1 nurse to 4 couplets... that's according to Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations.

imenid37 · Jun 9, 2005

Less at night and on weekends due to scheduled c/s, inductions, etc. Good luck w/ you new job!

mstigerlily · Jun 9, 2005

Nights can be super busy in L&D of course but I think in general because of scheduled inductions and c-sections there might tend to be fewer deliveries at nights and weekends.

I have found that our postpartum floor is actually MORE busy at night. Moms have visitors/family all day and just mess around watching TV, etc, not everyone holding the baby, etc, physicians coming in to check baby and mom, etc. Then at night, mom is exhausted, babies are starving and clusterfeeding. I have a lot of 2am meltdowns with teary exhausted moms and a lot of babies seem to go bad in the quiet of the middle of the night when everyone else is sleeping. Our ratios are 1:8, meaning we can have 4 mom/baby couplets. Occasionally I have gyn patients or a mom whose baby is in the L2 nursery so I don't have the full load.

Melissa

Hi,
First off I want to say that I always learn so much from everyone who posts here. I am in the middle of a nursing career transition and hope to post here as an OB nurse myself someday:)
Now my question(s): I am interviewing for an L&D position and it will be on weekend nights (two 12 hr shifts). I'd always heard an old wives tale that more babies are born at night. From your experience, is this true? Are nights very busy in L&D because of deliveries or less staff? Is starting on nights tough for someone with no L&D experience (I am coming in from LTC). How crazy are twelve hour shifts in L&D? (The orientation is from 12 to 16 weeks learning OR, postpartum and L&D). How many couplets do you care for in postpartum?
Thanks for any replies!

NurseNora, BSN, RN · Jun 10, 2005

Hi,
First off I want to say that I always learn so much from everyone who posts here. I am in the middle of a nursing career transition and hope to post here as an OB nurse myself someday:)
Now my question(s): I am interviewing for an L&D position and it will be on weekend nights (two 12 hr shifts). I'd always heard an old wives tale that more babies are born at night. From your experience, is this true? Are nights very busy in L&D because of deliveries or less staff? Is starting on nights tough for someone with no L&D experience (I am coming in from LTC). How crazy are twelve hour shifts in L&D? (The orientation is from 12 to 16 weeks learning OR, postpartum and L&D). How many couplets do you care for in postpartum?
Thanks for any replies!

Now that so many inductions and C/S are scheduled, more babies are born during the daytime. But in the old days...

While working with Moms at risk for preterm labor, I remember the 24 hour contraction monitoring showed that 9-10 pm was the time of greast uterine activity. So, perhaps in the old days, labor was more likely to start about that time, resulting in more nighttime babies.

In my experience, most nursed new to OB start out on the night shift. It's scary, but that's were the least experienced nurses seem to be. By the time you feel comefortable with what you're doing, you'll have enough seniority to be able to bid for one of the rare day positions that open up.

I hope you'll be doing your orientation on both days and nights. In one place I worked, the orientation started out with 8 hour shifts, then moved to 12 hours towards the end. I felt this was helpful because the orientee was put into the learning environment 5 days a week and had less time to forget between days at work.

I personally prefer 12 hour shifts because I have a life and only working 3 days a week gives me more time to live it than working 5 days a week. Especially on night shift.

AWHONN has standards for acceptable patient care loads. I believe up to 6 couplets per nurse is acceptable. In my hospital, we usually have 4 or 5.

Good luck in your new area, hope you like it as much as I do. It'll will take you longer than you think it ought to to feel comefortable as a labor nurse. Be patient with yourself.

rpbear · Jun 10, 2005

Our triage gets very busy in the evening, mainly because people are off of work the office is closed so they will come to us for everything. We get a lot of people coming in at night that are in VERY active labor, they don't want to come in in the middle of the night so they wait it out at home as long as possible and show up to us at 6-8 cm demanding an epidural as soon as they hit the door. This makes nights very busy because of staffing. I don't however think that more babies are born at night because of inductions, scheduled c-sections etc.

JaneyW · Jun 11, 2005

Do none of you do inductions at night?? I have had that at two different hospitals. We do 5am and 5pm inductions. I used to work at a place that did midnight cytotec and cervidil on multips.

SmilingBluEyes · Jun 11, 2005

as rule the majority of indx are done during the DAY not night. We do initiate cytotec indx at roughly 2100, however. most of them deliver during the hours of dayshift.

palesarah · Jun 11, 2005

as a rule, we don't do inductions at night. They are usually started during the day (we use misoprostyl/cytotec as our usual cervical ripening agent). They come in in the AM, get their doses q4 hours or so, if they aren't kicking in on their own by 9 or 10pm we let them sleep usually and restart or consider pit in the AM, as long as the pt's condition warrants it.

We may be changing our practice a bit this summer, having our inductions come in late afternoon after pts have been discharged and beds opened up (expecting a very busy July) , placing a couple doses in the evening, sleeping, then going for round 2 in the AM. See if that changes anything...

sbic56, BSN, RN · Jun 11, 2005

Hi,
First off I want to say that I always learn so much from everyone who posts here. I am in the middle of a nursing career transition and hope to post here as an OB nurse myself someday:)
Now my question(s): I am interviewing for an L&D position and it will be on weekend nights (two 12 hr shifts). I'd always heard an old wives tale that more babies are born at night. From your experience, is this true? Are nights very busy in L&D because of deliveries or less staff? Is starting on nights tough for someone with no L&D experience (I am coming in from LTC). How crazy are twelve hour shifts in L&D? (The orientation is from 12 to 16 weeks learning OR, postpartum and L&D). How many couplets do you care for in postpartum?
Thanks for any replies!

If they had their own way, more babies would be born at night. Before the docs started forcing them out, I can remember having the edge, number wise, as far as delivering babies on the night shift. I miss those days of low intervention...mainly why I do OB on a per diem basis now.

Mystery5 · Jun 11, 2005

I have 6 children, 1 was born at sunrise, 2 just after 12 noon, 2 just after midnight, and Daniel, I'm trying to remember, I think it was sometime in the evening. They were all natural home deliveries, no drugs.:)