Best route to get into mother/baby

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Hello everyone! I am a relatively new grad and the only reason I went to nursing school was to do mother/baby or labor & delivery. I have not been successful in getting an internship in either of those fields. I have two job offers right now and I want to pick the one that will help me achieve my goals.

Job #1 is med surg, full time, 12 hour day shifts at a large teaching hospital. I don't want to do med surg but a foot in the door is valuable to me, of course.

Job #2 is an RN birth assistant at a birthing center. The position is strictly on call, you sign up for the shifts that you're available for and if you get called in it's $350 for about 6 hours of work. You also have the option to do the follow up home visit within 48 hours for an extra $100. They do about 20 births a month.

I don't need to work full time right now, I have two little ones at home and another on the way. I think I'm leaning toward the birth center job but want to make sure that will still be appealing to recruiters and managers when I'm ready to apply for internships in women's health again. Any thoughts?

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Specializes in NICU, RNC.

If you don't need to work full-time, then job #2 for sure! Congrats!

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More information needed. Will the birth center have enough orientation and training for a new nurse? If you work on call, do you have the kind of childcare that is flexible enough to get at a moment's notice? Is an RN birth assistant the same role as L &D? If the birth center does around 20 cases a month, will there be enough work for you to develop skills?

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Thanks for your reply. I will be training with the midwives (all certified with their doctorates), who will show me everything I need to know to assist them properly. I will never be alone with the patient, the midwife calls in the nurse when the mother is getting close to delivery (about 7 cm) and the nurse assists her, monitors heart tones, helps assess the baby, and cleans up. It is a crapshoot as far as how often I will get to work. I can sign up for as many shifts as I want, it just depends who goes into labor when. I will be doing nights. My kids both go to preschool so I can work it to be on call the nights before their school days, or on weekends. Hope this helps!

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

Moved to the OB/GYN Nursing forum for more responses.

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Newnurse085, can you tell me about your experience going to school and starting nursing career with two little ones? I have a 3.5 year old and an 8 month old I am with full time. Planning to finish prerequisites this year, not sure when to apply though for the ABSN. I'm in LA. Any advice on starting with kids would be much appreciated.

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Specializes in Oncology, Med-Surg, Nursery.

I always wanted to be in the OB area also. More so on the baby side of it, but Mother/Baby works also. I can honestly say that I found my time on Med-Surg to be invaluable. When you know, you know....I get that. Some people aren't willing to deviate from their plan at all and that is understandable. However, if I am offering up my opinion, then I have to say I don't regret one moment of my Med-Surg experience. I learned so much and that knowledge has been useful even now that I am where I always wanted to be.

Good luck!

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I started nursing school when my son was one, and attended an evening and weekend program so that I could stay home with him. We had class one night a week and clinicals on the weekends. I got pregnant during my second year of school and had my daughter right after finishing. It was doable but I don't know about a full time day program. If there are any weekend programs in your area, go for that! My husband had to pick up the slack on the weekends which was hard for him sometimes after working all week, but he handled it well. Good luck!!

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Thank you! Was it a BSN program?

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Sent you a PM.

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I've done NICU all of my career, including management and involved in the hiring process. The birthing assistant job is nice and will provide you with a lot of great learning opportunities; however, if you cannot get hired into a Mother/Baby or L&D at this point, I advise you to take the Med-Surg job for a year AND do the birthing assistant on call. The MS job is going to provide you with learning opportunities that will only serve to enhance your nursing skills (time management, critical thinking, documentation etc.). The birthing assistant job is going to focus more on healthy deliveries and will most often be less intense but still a great opportunity to learn about the Labor and delivery process. If you could do med-surg part time and pick up hours as a birthing assistant you could get the best of both worlds.

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Specializes in FNP- BC, Med-Tele, PCU, Home Health Case Manager.

Hey hopping on here because I'm interested in breaking into L&D, M/B also. I worked on a busy step down unit for almost 2 years and then started HH case management for the past year and half. I want to get back to pursuing my dream of L&D but not sure how to get a job! All the jobs say experience required, so how do you even land an interview? Thinking about taking doula course and then possible certification. Would that be helpful for my resume? Thank you!

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