Labor and delivery?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hey y'all! I am currently a nursing student and for the longest time I have wanted to specialize in labor and delivery. For those that have specialized in this, can you give me some input as to what I should expect? Feel free to tell me about the good, the bad, and the ugly!

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.

I hope that KatieMI weighs in here....when I was in nursing school I also wanted to do L&D. However, in the economic downturn, the urban private hospital where we did our rotations was sending L&D nurses home because of low census. When there's a downturn, people who plan end up planning not to have babies. The public hospital and our rural hospitals didn't have that problem and some of my new grad classmates were welcomed there. Good luck!

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This is good to know!

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

I didn't know KatieMI was an L&D nurse.

Pretty much all L&D units have that issue, and it happens during good economic times as well as bad.

L&D is very cyclical. Some days we're busting at the seams, and then everyone gets discharged and there is a lull for a couple days, and people are called off due to low census. That's just how L&D is sometimes.

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.
I didn't know KatieMI was an L&D nurse.

Thought she was...but glad you weighed in!!! I never did feel I could fully be trained well if I (or my preceptor) was going home due to census.

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When I was a nursing student I thought what in the heck does a L & D nurse even do, that isn't even real nursing, the mom pushes the baby out, the doctor catches it?????

Ten years later I was the night supervisor for our small hospital. My eyes were OPENED about what a L & D nurse does. I learned it is the hardest, scariest, unit to work in, and I came from ICU. (After thinking as a student, and even new grad..."I will NEVER work in an ICU....to scary.") I started wishing I had gone into L & D nursing!

My point is you don't know as a nursing student, or even your first few year of nursing, what area of nursing you are going to end up in. Keep your mind and heart open to all areas of nursing.

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Great advice! I will remember this!

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