Best colleges to become a labor and delivery nurse?

How to become a Labor & Delivery Nurse?

• I would love to become a nurse in the labor and delivery ward, how would I go about doing that? What type of schooling do I need? If I would like to work with the babies in the ...show more

• Answer:

  You need to be a Registered Nurse (RN), not a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). You can do this one of two main routes: get an Associate's Degree in Nursing (ADN) or a Bachelor's of Science or Arts in Nursing (BSN or BAN). Either program allows you to take the NCLEX licensing exam for RNs. In nursing school you learn to work in a variety of settings and with all populations - adults, pediatrics, psych, maternal-newborn, etc. You will only have a L&D observation in school. Once you earn your RN license, the employer provides the bulk of your unit-specific and patient-specific training. Most L&D units prefer their hires to have some work experience in a regular medical / surgical environment, they are reluctant to hire new graduates because L&D is a rather critical, fast paced environment where new grads can be overwhelmed easily. They would be more likely to hire a new grad as a postpartum nurse (aka maternal newborn nurse), caring for the delivered mothers and the newborns. Most hospitals don't hire specific "nursery nurses" anymore because rooming in is highly promoted and babies spend such little time in the nursery. If a nursery nurse is used, it is usually the postpartum nurses who rotate through there on various shifts. Start researching schools in your area that have nursing programs, find out their admissions requirements, ask them how many students apply vs. how many are accepted (nursing school is competative for admission and it can take some people a couple of years to get in, so work on pre-requisite courses and general education courses required for the degree in the meantime). Good luck!