nursing student

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · May 27, 2012

Totally different fields. Totally.

Labor and Delivery- your primary patient is the mother in labor. You'll be monitoring her contractions, cervical dilation, assisting with labor, providing pain management, inserting foleys and IV's, prepping for c-sections, monitoring fetal heart tracings, helping the MD deliver the baby, and clean, assess and monitor the baby and mother after birth. You'll help manage any complications after the birth. Then you'll send mom and baby to the postpartum floor (or NICU). You'll care for the baby for a very brief period of time and the mothers a much longer period.

Pediatrics: Your patients could range anywhere from birth to 18 years old. They can have any range of diverse medical needs and conditions. You'll care for the patients as well as their family members. Your nursing interventions will be much more diverse and you'll handle a much greater variety of conditions and patients. It's really nothing like L&D.

In my opinion, L&D is one of the narrowest fields of nursing. Peds is the broadest. #1 reason I don't work in L&D is because I couldn't deal with screaming, whining women in labor. (Not offense to those who screamed and whined. It's definitely you're right to do so- I just couldn't handle it.)

Since you haven't started nursing school, it makes sense that you wouldn't really have much information about the fields. Once you do your clinicals and have the opportunity to work on these two floors, you'll be able to clearly see that there is a huge difference.

NovaRN777 · May 27, 2012

I was torn between peds and maternity when i was new grad....however it is easier to get a peds new grad job than a new grad labor and delivery job.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Jun 1, 2012

Peds and L&D have very little in common. Working in maternity, the majority of what you see are healthy babies and mommies.

Working in peds, especially at a pediatric hospital, you will see the sickest kids out there. Not everyone who "loves kids" can handle it when you have to hold them down for spinal taps or watch them deteriorate in front of your very eyes because of the disease that's taken over their tiny bodies. I have seen kids come into the hospital walking and talking and leave trach'd, G-tubed, incontinent and wheelchair bound. I have also seen kids come into the hospital with a few day history of a headache, be diagnosed with a whopping brain tumor, herniate, bleed during surgery and finally leave the hospital 3 months later in a body bag. I would never do anything else but "loving kids" does not a peds nurse make.