What is an average day like for a neonatal nurse ?

Congratulations on choosing nursing as yet professional career path! I've worked in many different areas of nursing, all to assist in my changing life with family changes. That is one huge benefit of being a nurse. Most RN's in any critical care unit work 12hr shifts to limit exposure to the patient (neonate) from the "outside" world. Nurses don't really take anything home, except maybe their stethoscope. Especially in the NICU, nurses change into scrubs at the hospital and then back into street clothes prior to going home. This eliminates even more chance of potential infectious causing agents being brought into the nursery. Yes, there are times when we "bring home" some sad stories of babies born with either severe complications from delivery, genetic or chromosomal abnormalities, or too ill to make it despite all the new medical advances that are attempted to help it thrive. These are rare, but happen. We help teach families not only how to take care of their newborn or "preemie", but also how to recover from a sudden and off do traumatic early delivery and how to prepare their home for the welcoming me their new special newborn. It is the most important for the nurse to be in contact with the special "neonatologist" physician who many times is in the NICU, because changes occur at a moment notice. It is a challenging but very rewarding specialty in nursing. Never give up your dream no matter how difficult it seems. Nursing is not easy or for the faint at heart. My daughter is the 3rd generation nurse and she just started working in a NICU after working in an adult telemetry unit following graduation. She always wanted to work in the NICU and never let her goals die! Good luck! We need more smart and ambitious young minds with hearts to go into nursing, grab your friends and hold onto supportive ones in nursing school!!!

Congratulations on your plans! I have been an NICU nurse for 28 years and LOVE it! I work in a 40 bed Level 3 NICU in Memphis, TN and work closely with doctors and families every day. The MD comes in to see the baby once or twice a day, depending on how sick they are and I communicate with him or her to update on the baby's status to ask for new orders as needed all shift. The families ask questions and are encouraged to interact with their babies as much as possible. We teach moms and dads to check their baby's temperature under their arm and change their baby's diaper. We encourage them to do mouth care for their baby and talk and touch their baby as tolerated. We get very close to families and babies and often get pictures of them as they have gone home and keep growing. I recently spoke with a patient who was 18 years old and headed to college that I took care of!

Regarding Hours: Most nurses work 12 hour shifts, but some still work some 8 hour shifts too. Most of our staff work three 12 hour shifts per week and write their own schedule with some guidelines that direct how much weekend time they must sign up for per schedule. The schedule is very interactive with our staff and a group of people who work on the schedule called the "scheduling committee". These nurses work to even up the shifts so we have good nursing coverage and it is fair between staff.

Regarding taking work home: If you mean by that taking things home to work on-- No. Everything that the nurse does in our unit is done under PAID time in the hospital. If you mean Emotionally taking things home-- that depends on the nurse. When you are attached to a baby and family and they do poorly, it can be challenging for the nurse. The great thing about NICU though is that MOST Of the time our news is happy-- and it's amazing that some of our babies survive and do so well.
Best of luck!~ Hope this helps!
Teresa