LPN or RN??

[Iwannabeababynurse]

i was just wondering do lpn's or rn's work in the ob department? i've heard that its mostly rn's.

[AlsgalRN]

At my hospital, there are only RNs in labor and delivery. There are some awsome scrub techs but there are no LPNs. Way long ago in the dark ages, we had LPNs on the "mother/baby" side. When the hospital decided that we would all become completely cross-trained, the LPN positions were eliminated. They now do 450-500 deliveries a month. The staff is not all cross-trained and I believe that goal has gone away.

I now work in the hospital run high risk ob/gyn clinic. We had an LPN who just moved on to her dream job (as an archealogist!!!!!!) She will be replaced by an RN. Now we have no LPN positions in clinic.

I hope that helps!

Robin

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

We have one LPN, but she's been there forever. No new LPN's hired. She does a lot of the scrubbing on c/sections. LPN's can't circulate deliveries, can't interpret fetal monitoring strips. there are LPN's on mother/baby, i think.

[SmilingBluEyes]

Go for RN ----Most places do not use LPNs for L/D in particular. I have worked 4 places in 2 states, and in none, did we use LPNs in L/D and on our unit, only used them for some postpartum or GYN patients......if they floated to us. LPNs have never been hired in any of the 4 units on which I have worked at all.

[KellNY, RN]

We don't use LPNs in ANY ob/gyn service (incl. antepartum, post partum, newborn nursery, L&D, gyn/onc, etc).

[Justhere, BSN, RN]

I have worked in Large hospitals and very small hospitals. The only ones it seems that use LPN's in L & D are the smaller hospitals, but usually they are not allowed to check dilation of the cervix it has to be an RN and the RN usually assesses the baby once it is born.