Neonatal nurses work closely with new or growing families. They see babies at their very earliest moments and play a pivotal role in introducing them to the world. It’s an exciting job for people who love children and want to know that they are making a real difference in the world.
At the same time, neonatal nursing is not a Hallmark-movie-cute profession. People working in this field encounter tragedy and complications that run deeper than those experienced in other nursing careers.
In this article, we will take a comprehensive look at neonatal nursing—both the good and the bad—so that you can determine if it is the right profession for you.
What is a Neonatal Nurse?
Neonatal nurses work with babies in the very earliest stage of life. Usually, this will include the first four weeks or so following their birth. Unfortunately, when a neonatal nurse is brought in it usually means that something went wrong.
Their patients may have heart conditions or have been born prematurely. They fall, decidedly, into the high-risk category.
The work is extremely volatile. It is fair to say that, once someone has been admitted to a hospital, the potential for their status to change at the drop of a hat is always relatively high. This is particularly true for young infants.
They have no health history yet, which means it is difficult to set expectations. They also lack an immune system, which means it is very easy for their condition to worsen in response to viral or bacterial infections that would not pose a risk to healthy adults.
These factors make neonatal nurse’s job harrowing. They also make it very rewarding. Neonatal nurses routinely have the opportunity to help young children overcome a rough start and go on to live normal, healthy lives.
How Do Neonatal Nurses Interact with New Parents?
It is important to understand that neonatal nurses are—from a patient care perspective—concerned only with the baby. It is an interesting distinction—one sometimes blurred for family members—because the neonatal nurse will often spend time in the same room as the new mother.
This mother will be receiving her own medical care. She also may interact with the neonatal nurse directly when it comes time to feed the child or provide other aspects of their care. However, the infant is the patient. The parents simply have a front-row seat to the child’s care.
Healthcare workers know that working with family members can be a challenge. They are extremely emotionally invested. They often have opinions, but those opinions are not supported by much more than what information they could acquire from Google.
This can create tension between families and caregivers—tension that is only amplified when the patient is a newborn baby.
That’s not to say that the work is constantly tumultuous. Neonatal nurses can have strong collaborative relationships with new parents. However, the emotional entanglements are always present.
Nurses themselves may be overwhelmed by the emotional realities of the work. Losing patients is an unavoidable aspect of many healthcare jobs. Those experiences can be more challenging when the patient is a newborn baby. More challenging still when you witness firsthand the bottomless grief these losses cause the parents.
Devastating though the losses are, the success stories are that much sweeter. Neonatal nurses do what they do knowing that their efforts improve the lives of struggling infants, and—in the best-case scenarios—keep families whole.
How Do You Become a Neonatal Nurse?
All nurses begin their academic journey at approximately the same place. The first step for any nursing career is to earn your BSN, pass the NCLEX, and become fully licensed. If you are pivoting into a nursing career after already having obtained a different college degree, you may be able to pursue alternative licensure.
These programs take about a year to complete but ultimately result in the same certification.
Short of this difference, the initial steps toward becoming a neonatal nurse are always the same.
Once you have done this, it is a good idea to pursue employment opportunities in an NICU. This experience will both prepare you for the professional realities of working with critically ill infants and provide you with a stronger resume for when you eventually try to find work as a neonatal nurse.
Once you have logged some time in the NICU, you can begin earning your neo-natal certification. These programs can often be completed online and will allow you to legally work as a fully licensed neonatal nurse.
Do You Need to Get a Graduate Degree to Work as a Neonatal Nurse?
You do not “need” to get a graduate degree. If you decide you want to get one, you will be able to work as a neonatal nurse practitioner. This will qualify you to play a more influential role in patient care. It will also make you eligible to command a six-figure salary.
Nurse practitioners have a lot more autonomy than regular nurses. However, they do need to work their way through graduate school, which can pose practical and financial challenges. The cost of a graduate program will vary by institution, but can easily cost between $25-100K.
Is it worth the money? That will ultimately depend on several factors. Your perspective, for one thing. What sort of value do you place on professional growth and knowledge?
Also, the state of your career. When determining the value proposition of a degree, it helps to think in terms of ROI. Let’s say you spend $100K on your degree but it results in a salary increase of $25K per year.
This means it will take you four years to break even and five to realize a profit. If you are thirty years old and expect to work for several more decades, that’s a pretty good value proposition. If you are fifty, it might not be.
Of course, continuing your education is worth more than the sum of its parts. If you want to become a neonatal nurse practitioner, you should do it, regardless of how big a return you will see from your investment.
Photo Credit
Photo is Wikimedia Creative Commons
Guest Author Bio
Sarah Daren
With a Bachelor’s in Health Science along with an MBA, Sarah Daren has a wealth of knowledge within both the health and business sectors. Her expertise in scaling and identifying ways tech can improve the lives of others has led Sarah to be a consultant for a number of startup businesses, most prominently in the wellness industry, wearable technology and health education. She implements her health knowledge into every aspect of her life with a focus on making America a healthier and safer place for future generations to come.
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