LPN's in OB

[obnurse13]

I am an LPN and have worked in labor and delivery at the same hospital for @ 6 years. Under our hospitals policies I function pretty much independently with an RN charge nurse on the floor (most of which I trained when they were hired as new grads). Recently our Nurse Manager made a statement that our unit will not be hiring any more LPN's due to standards and recommendations. I was just wondering how other hospitals practice and what are common rules about LPN's in labor and delivery.

[strn96]

At our (small) hospital, LPNs are allowed to work in the Nsy and do Postpartum care, but can't really do much more than assist the RNs in L&D. The LPNs do newborn care at delivery -including assigning Apgars- under the "supervision" of an RN. RNs have to sign off on charting and do an assessment on all the infants, but otherwise the LPN is in charge of the Nsy. Depending on the census, sometimes LPNs will do post-partum mom and baby.

[sunflrz321]

At St. Alexius in Hoffman Estates, IL they are just starting to phase out their techs and phase in LPN's on the postpartum unit. The LPN does tech level tasks and also does basic meds and possibly assessments for patients who have been there a couple days already. This frees up the RN to do admissions and discharges and to focus on the more complex and critical patients and situations. This is the first example of an LPN position in a medical hospital in my area. In Chicago (an hour away), most of the large teaching hospitals there do hire some LPN's on certain units.