Best route to get into mother/baby

[newnurse085]

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?

[mindofmidwifery, ADN]

I would choose #2 if that's all you want is to work with mothers and babies. However, if you want to work L&D or postpartum in a hospital eventually and want a more unified schedule, I'd choose #1 then transfer when you're able to. The second choice sounds like an amazing option though.

[Clarifier S'il vous]

Heck yeah, take the birthing center job! I'm on the same path as you. My goal is L&D and eventually CNM. If I had my choice and didn't need full-time, your on-call birth center job would be like a dream for me. I say go for it! Good luck and best wishes to you for an awesome career! :)

[Clarifier S'il vous]

I advise you to take the Med-Surg job for a year AND do the birthing assistant on call.

Ok, this advice ^ actually makes more sense than my knee-jerk reaction to the birthing center job, LOL. If at all possible, maybe give this idea a shot?

[sharonx]

One can never go wrong with gaining med/surg experience. Mother's today are sicker than ever before. Skills r/t dx. early sepsis, managing DM, HTN, etc. are skills that are used daily when caring for these patients. Getting your foot in the door is valuable as well. Always apply even when it says experience is required. We have recently hire new nurses without much experience because of need. These new nurses will be an great assess to us as we teach them best practices of our field! Good luck!

[newnurse085]

Yes it was a BSN program, for people that already had degrees in another area.

[queenanneslace, ADN, MSN, APRN, CNM]

The birth center job will provide you with many valuable experiences and skills - though that route might not make you more appealing to the hospital. It will also be more personally satisfying for you to be working at a birth center than med-surg. But unfortunately, the med-surg experience is what is going to get your foot in the door with the hospital and orient you to hospital inpatient management of care.

As far as what other things make new applicants attractive to OB/L&D units?

Take EFM courses, take as many as you can - online, in person, written. Learn this as much as you can.

Attend conferences on Obstetrics, and obstetrical nursing - demonstrate your interest in OB and L&D by furthering your education on your own.

Certify in Neonatal resuscitation. You will not regret repeating this training multiple times, and having a firm grasp on NRP once you need to use those skills in real life.

Learn about breastfeeding and supporting lactation.

Doula training and labor support courses are good, as well.

Keep trying. Keep learning everything you can about mothers newborns pregnancy labor birth - and put those things on your resume. You'll get there!