Pregnant while in nursing school?

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I am NOT pregnant and don't plan to be while in school. However, I am curious if anyone has been or knows of someone who was pregnant while in nursing school. I have a friend who became an RN in 2006; she graduated in April and her son was born in August. She managed it fine I guess and worked after graduation up until she had her son. Her father died 3 weeks before her son was born d/t a medical error at the same hospital she was working at, so she didn't go back after maternity leave. She started working in home health (now works at a center with medically fragile infants) when her son was a few months old.

I also know a girl I went to high school with who just became an LPN in May, she is due with a baby in November. She isn't looking for a job right now though because she thinks no one will hire her while pregnant/says no one wants to hire a graduate nurse who hasn't obtained their license (She lives in FL, I'm in western NY state)

So has anyone been pregnant or known of someone? Did they have the baby WHILE in school? What did they do??? We're only allowed to miss basically 1 clinical/1 conference/1 lecture a semester; if you miss more than the nursing dept reviews your case! (usually you get to stay, if it was for a legitimate reason, but why risk it??) Were they/you pregnant but graduated before the baby was born, and if so, did you/they find a job easily?

This just makes me curious since I figure there are so many woman in the field, and many of them of childbearing age, I know it has to happen!

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Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, Flight.

There are 5 girls in my cohort who are currently pregnant, it would be 6 but she gave birth over summer break.

Alot of them have gone part time to finish the program.

I think it can be done, you just have to be a bit more cautious about being around extra sick patients.

I personally wouldnt like to be preg. while trying to finish school and secure a job, but sometimes it cant be avoided !

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I would be really stressed being preg while in school. I want to be able to enjoy my 1st pregnancy and focus on it, which I feel like you wouldn't be able to do while in school. We plan to start TTC after I get my first job. I'd be nervous too that it would be a high risk pregnancy or have complications which would keep me out of school and force me to drop out for a semester. I just want to get my nursing degree ASAP and don't want anything getting in the way! We need the money lol. Most people in my program are already part time because we had to have the "co-req's" already done just to get accepted, and it's still so challenging!

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anyone else have an experience?

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Last year during physical assessment check-offs, I had to assess a pregnant classmate. She was actually due over Thanksgiving break, and did fine. I took the spring semester off and she didn't, so when I saw her the other day, I asked her how she ever managed to pull if off...

She said that the lecture part wasn't her issue, because after all, she only felt like sitting anyway so she would read/study during those times.

She did say, though, that her biggest issue was clinical/lab because of lifting and stamina, oh, and of course there were some patients she couldn't be assigned due to their diagnoses.

As far as when I did my assessment of her, I kind of lucked out on apical pulse and bowel sounds, my instructor told me to try to find either, but all I could hear was the baby! It's hard to distinguish a fetal heartbeat from the apical pulse, especially for a first year nursing student!

Hope this info helps.

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Pregnancy spreads like wildfire in nursing school.

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Specializes in Med-Surg/urology.

There was a girl who is a couple of semesters ahead of me (in fact she should be done in a couple of months!) who gave birth earlier this year. They allowed her to miss about 2 weeks of class. She seemed to do fine. However she did mention that it was her 3rd child, and her other kids were old enough to be self-sufficient, and they helped her a lot. It can be done from what it seems, but nursing school is so stressful(to me at least lol)..I don't think it would be great to add pregnancy into the mix..just my :twocents: though!!

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Specializes in Infection prevention and control.

I started my LPN program in January and was pregnant with our first who was born the week before my first clinicals started. I had 6 weeks left at that point, I had the option to start again in the fall but I pushed through driving my 2 week old baby to a very loved and trusted friend of the family and cried the whole way to the hospital and back. I got pregnant with our second child during my OB rotation and was 6 months pregnant with her when I graduated. I'm not gonna lie, it sucked!!!

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