If you are a mother/baby nurse, please respond to this student's question.

MommyJoy · May 23, 2005

Today, I have to decided between two jobs. Tomorrow morning I must let the nurse recruiter know what I am doing.
If you are a mother/baby nurse, please tell me what you love about your job, and what the perks are. Is there a lot of pt. interaction? HELP!!!

Will someone please answer this question?

babyktchr, BSN, RN · May 23, 2005

I don't do strictly mom/baby, I float between labor and delivery, mom/baby and women's health at times...although I do mostly labor. I like mom/baby because there is a lot of interaction with the new parents. There is HUGE amounts of teaching...HUGE and it can be time consuming and frustrating. I like that I have the option to float around..sometimes doing the same thing for a while gets to me. If you are into the teaching thing....you will get a lot of experience.

Hope it helps

nancimarie · May 23, 2005

I love my job as a mother/baby nurse. I also do labor and delivery. You get to be with parents at the most joyous time in their life. Recovery from birth is usually uninventful. You have to decide on your own though, you have to love babies.

What's the other job?

Today, I have to decided between two jobs. Tomorrow morning I must let the nurse recruiter know what I am doing.
If you are a mother/baby nurse, please tell me what you love about your job, and what the perks are. Is there a lot of pt. interaction? HELP!!!

MommyJoy · May 23, 2005

I don't do strictly mom/baby, I float between labor and delivery, mom/baby and women's health at times...although I do mostly labor. I like mom/baby because there is a lot of interaction with the new parents. There is HUGE amounts of teaching...HUGE and it can be time consuming and frustrating. I like that I have the option to float around..sometimes doing the same thing for a while gets to me. If you are into the teaching thing....you will get a lot of experience.
Hope it helps

That is great. When I took psych. my professor gave us the choice of taking the final, or teaching a section of the class. I taught a section on prenatal development and loved it. I am so glad to hear that teaching is involved.

mstigerlily · May 23, 2005

Hello I am a new grad, I went right into postpartum mom/baby. I LOVE the teaching. Love teaching new parents about what to expect and new moms about the joys of breastfeeding. I think it depends on the hospital how much work is involved. I pictured my floor being comparatively cushy. Not so! We also take care of women's surgeries, gyn surgeries, hysterectomies, etc. So we have a few med-surg patients along with our mom/baby couplets.

We have protocols and policies and procedures on what must be done. Patients must be assessed at shift change, vitals are taken by CNA for mom, but we take baby's vitals and do assessment. We admit new patients - new c-sections get vitals q15 and q30 the first few hours, then q4, new vag moms only q4. Babies are q4 for first 24 hrs, then q8. Our unit manager is obsessed with hyperbilirubenemia, we do transdermal bili tests on any baby who has risk factors: poor feeding, + coombs, previous baby with jaundice and have standing orders to draw a serum bili if needed. We have protocols on blood sugars for both mom/baby, we often have patients on mag, GBS + or who have GDM or PIH so they need extra attention, blood sugars, seizure precautions and/or double antibiotics. I work in a ritzy area so we have a lot of IVF babies and older moms, pretty common to have moms in late 30's to late 40's having their first baby and these moms tend to have more problems.

As for the babies, although most of the time they are healthy sometimes go bad, usually in the middle of the night (I work 3 12 hr night shifts a week). I've only been working since Feb and I've already had at least half a dozen babies go under double bank lights, several more go home with biliblankets, one baby with a pneumothorax, several heart murmurs (all benign) and one baby with a subdural bleed. Pretty scary for a new grad. I can't imagine how stressful labor & delivery must be, I'm glad I started here.

Our unit is very busy, we have 3 floors open right now, in fact they called me in tonight offering doubletime but I turned it down because I worked Thurs/Fri night and had bad busy nights so I am exhausted.

In addition to working on the floor with the moms/babies/women's surgical pts, we also can train for the nursery. This is where babies who need to be monitored go (but are not yet sick enough for level II), babies whose moms are resting and fresh c-section babies go there directly from the OR for their baths and assessments. Circumcisions are done there and most babies go there for phototherapy, although some moms choose to have the lights in the room with them. I loved working in the nursery but have not been properly trained so the most I've done there is work with another nurse or cover for half an hour while someone goes on break.

We also can float to L&D to do recovery when they are super busy. If we become certified lactation educators or lactation consultants we can work a shift as a lactation nurse as well. I plan on taking the CLE classes in the fall.

Did I answer what I liked? Not really huh? Well, it's busy. And yes, tons of patient interaction. You will do tons of breastfeeding assistance, that is at least half my job. We keep track of and chart each feeding, void and stool so that's a lot of checking back with patients. We do hearing tests on the babies and weigh them nightly. Some of the ladies pop their percocets like candy q3 like clockwork so there is a lot of pain meds to be given. Occasionally you'll give rhogam or another IM injection. Hanging piggybacks happens often esp with gyn patients and IV push more often still. Not like on a med-surg floor, but you do get some skills practice. I do straight cath ladies occasionally who can't pee after 6 hrs (our protocol) or if their bladder is distended. I have not yet had the need to start an IV so am very rusty in that department. We mostly DC the IVs and foleys on our floor. Foleys on c-sect moms are DCd around 18 hrs after delivery, c-sect & gyn pts must be gotten up to at least dangle (hopefully ambulate in hall) first post op day), vag deliveries we like to get up within the first few hours to pee and clean them up, IVs are dc'd when mom is drinking and has peed three times and ambulated twice. Many rules to remember on our floor and our manager is adamant about these rules. There is much charting to be done but honestly some nights I don't get around to even starting on charting until well after midnight.

We have an antepartum unit and of course labor & delivery and eventually would like to crosstrain there as well.

Melissa

Princess74 · May 23, 2005

Hello I am a new grad, I went right into postpartum mom/baby. I LOVE the teaching. Love teaching new parents about what to expect and new moms about the joys of breastfeeding. I think it depends on the hospital how much work is involved. I pictured my floor being comparatively cushy. Not so! We also take care of women's surgeries, gyn surgeries, hysterectomies, etc. So we have a few med-surg patients along with our mom/baby couplets.
We have protocols and policies and procedures on what must be done. Patients must be assessed at shift change, vitals are taken by CNA for mom, but we take baby's vitals and do assessment. We admit new patients - new c-sections get vitals q15 and q30 the first few hours, then q4, new vag moms only q4. Babies are q4 for first 24 hrs, then q8. Our unit manager is obsessed with hyperbilirubenemia, we do transdermal bili tests on any baby who has risk factors: poor feeding, + coombs, previous baby with jaundice and have standing orders to draw a serum bili if needed. We have protocols on blood sugars for both mom/baby, we often have patients on mag, GBS + or who have GDM or PIH so they need extra attention, blood sugars, seizure precautions and/or double antibiotics. I work in a ritzy area so we have a lot of IVF babies and older moms, pretty common to have moms in late 30's to late 40's having their first baby and these moms tend to have more problems.
As for the babies, although most of the time they are healthy sometimes go bad, usually in the middle of the night (I work 3 12 hr night shifts a week). I've only been working since Feb and I've already had at least half a dozen babies go under double bank lights, several more go home with biliblankets, one baby with a pneumothorax, several heart murmurs (all benign) and one baby with a subdural bleed. Pretty scary for a new grad. I can't imagine how stressful labor & delivery must be, I'm glad I started here.
Our unit is very busy, we have 3 floors open right now, in fact they called me in tonight offering doubletime but I turned it down because I worked Thurs/Fri night and had bad busy nights so I am exhausted.
In addition to working on the floor with the moms/babies/women's surgical pts, we also can train for the nursery. This is where babies who need to be monitored go (but are not yet sick enough for level II), babies whose moms are resting and fresh c-section babies go there directly from the OR for their baths and assessments. Circumcisions are done there and most babies go there for phototherapy, although some moms choose to have the lights in the room with them. I loved working in the nursery but have not been properly trained so the most I've done there is work with another nurse or cover for half an hour while someone goes on break.
We also can float to L&D to do recovery when they are super busy. If we become certified lactation educators or lactation consultants we can work a shift as a lactation nurse as well. I plan on taking the CLE classes in the fall.
Did I answer what I liked? Not really huh? Well, it's busy. And yes, tons of patient interaction. You will do tons of breastfeeding assistance, that is at least half my job. We keep track of and chart each feeding, void and stool so that's a lot of checking back with patients. We do hearing tests on the babies and weigh them nightly. Some of the ladies pop their percocets like candy q3 like clockwork so there is a lot of pain meds to be given. Occasionally you'll give rhogam or another IM injection. Hanging piggybacks happens often esp with gyn patients and IV push more often still. Not like on a med-surg floor, but you do get some skills practice. I do straight cath ladies occasionally who can't pee after 6 hrs (our protocol) or if their bladder is distended. I have not yet had the need to start an IV so am very rusty in that department. We mostly DC the IVs and foleys on our floor. Foleys on c-sect moms are DCd around 18 hrs after delivery, c-sect & gyn pts must be gotten up to at least dangle (hopefully ambulate in hall) first post op day), vag deliveries we like to get up within the first few hours to pee and clean them up, IVs are dc'd when mom is drinking and has peed three times and ambulated twice. Many rules to remember on our floor and our manager is adamant about these rules. There is much charting to be done but honestly some nights I don't get around to even starting on charting until well after midnight.
We have an antepartum unit and of course labor & delivery and eventually would like to crosstrain there as well.
Melissa

You have my dream job! :redpinkhe I'm getting ready to start school in August. (LPN)

Is there anything extra I should study, even if on my own that would help me out in this type of speciality? (any advice at all would be helpful)

Are you an LPN or an RN? I know some hospitals only use RN's in this field. Luckly I have found out that some of the hospitals in my area do use LPN's. I do plan on doing the bridge program to get my RN pretty quickly after I get my LPN. It sure would be great to be able to work in L&D, mother baby etc...while I go back to school.

baby&mommynurse · May 23, 2005

Our hospital is in the process of moving to mother/baby couplet care. For now, I'm mostly a nursery nurse, but I'm also trained in post partum. This was always my favorite clinical rotation in school and I always new that this is the unit I wanted to work in... so, of course, I love it. As babyktchr mentioned, there is HUGE amounts of teaching which can become time consuming and frustrating when it's a super hectic day. It's not all fun and games... we don't just play with babies all day long... as some people actually think. But if you like patient interaction, are good at teaching and don't mind crying babies, this might be the job for you. It's very rewarding in many ways. Just seeing parents' eyes light up when they see their baby for the first time or cuddling a baby while mom is not feeling well or is gone for a PPBTL and no one else is around to comfort that baby is enough of a perk for me. Hope this helps and good luck with your decision.

mstigerlily · May 23, 2005

Hi there! I am an RN. Our hospital has LVNs (I am in California) but unfortunately they are used more as CNAs who sometimes give meds when the RNs are busy. Their names are on the assignment board interchangeably with CNAs - it says CNA/LVN. Another hospital I was going to work at doesn't even hire LVNs anymore. But many do.

We do have two LVNs who work in our nursery. But they have been LVNs for 10+ years and have tons of experience. I recommend getting your RN to work in this field. To show you are serious about this, do any kind of work in this field, even if you have to work as a volunteer. An extern job would be ideal. Take your NRP class on your own if you have to, take a fetal monitoring class. Call the nurse recruiter at your hospital, tell her what your goal is and ask what you could do to make yourself more marketable!

Melissa

You have my dream job! :redpinkhe I'm getting ready to start school in August. (LPN)
Is there anything extra I should study, even if on my own that would help me out in this type of speciality? (any advice at all would be helpful)
Are you an LPN or an RN? I know some hospitals only use RN's in this field. Luckly I have found out that some of the hospitals in my area do use LPN's. I do plan on doing the bridge program to get my RN pretty quickly after I get my LPN. It sure would be great to be able to work in L&D, mother baby etc...while I go back to school.