Wanting to become a neonatal nurse

OBNURSEHEATHER · Aug 23, 2002

Hi Sarah! Welcome to the boards! Hopefully someof our resident nicu nurses will see this thread and offer you some information and advice! I just wanted to say "hi" to a fellow hockey lover!

Heather

shay · Aug 24, 2002

Hi Sarah!! Are you 16 years old? We have a lot of young men and women come to this board asking for how to get into nursing, and I just want to say I think it's great!!

A neonatal nurse works primarily in the nursery, although she/he can also work in special clinics for older babies that were once premature, or she can work in home health, making home visits to at-risk babies. Neonatal nurses, as you may have guessed, work with babies!

How small and how sick the babies they work with depends on the area they choose and the type of nursery (if a nursery is where they work) in which they choose to work. The type of work you do depends greatly on the kind of babies you work with.

Hopefully some of our NICU nurses will be around shortly to elaborate....:).

Welcome!

Shay

Heather333 · Aug 24, 2002

Sarah16,

It is so wonderful to see young people interesting in nursing and neonatal nursing at that. As a new NICU nurse I can tell you that it is a very rewarding experience.

There are many options for you in this field. Like Shay said, you can choice to work in a well-baby nursery or you can choose to work in a Progressive Care Nursery(PCN) or an Intensive Care Nursery(ICN). The difference there is that with the PCN babies, they are what we call "feeders and growers". They just need to get bigger and gain weight before going home. The ICN babies are much sicker and require more care and very close monitoring.

If you have a opportunity, find a volunteer program at a hospital that offers services for babies and ask if there are opportunities. (Some hospitals will have you wait until your are 18 so you'll just have to check).

To become a neonatal nurse, you have to become an RN. In some places you can work as an LPN. My suggestion is to find some colleges or universities in your area that offer a nursing program and look into what each program has to offer. You can choose to get your Associates Degree in Nursing which takes about 2 years or you can go to a university for 4 years and get a Bachelor's in Nursing.

I hope this helps you. Good luck to you!

Heather

Sarah16 · Aug 24, 2002

Well thanks for the welcoming....i appreciate it

and am really thankful for the help.............it helped alot thank you so much!!!!

NICU_Nurse, BSN, RN · Aug 26, 2002

Hi, Sarah! I don't know if you saw the Neonatal Nurse BB, but if you post some questions in there, you may get some more responses. Sometimes some of us only have time to check the BB that directly relates to our specialty. Also, there are many posts there that you may find interesting from pevious members who were asking similar questions. Good luck, and let us know if you need anything! Welcome to the boards! ;>)