subject: Neonatal Nurse: High Demand And Highly Rewarding [print this page] So important is prenatal and neonatal nurse care for the healthy development of babies that the response has been to have a specialty just for this area of nursing. The neonatal nurse concerns him or herself with the vital care to the premature and newborn baby.
Neonatal nurse professionals work with newborns that are born early or with serious illnesses, helping to stabilize the new infants and ensure that their lives get off to the healthiest start possible.
The challenges of a career as a neonatal nurse includes working closely with worried parents, neonatologists, and other medical specialties in order to provide ream oriented health care to this fragile patient population.
Neonatal nurses can be found in hospitals, clinical environments (including community care centers), and neonatal intensive care facilities. There are even neonatal nurse specialists who work in the area of medical research, or who serve as educators or consultants.
There are three main roles the neonatal nurse will play in health care. The first is the healthy baby neonatal nurse. This nurse has more of a hands off approach as most health newborns stay with the mother constantly from the moment of birth until discharge.
The other two neonatal nurse specialties work within an intensive care setting for the premature newborn or critically ill. The intensive care neonatal nurse has the most demanding job as they have to constantly monitor the sick babies and various kinds of equipment to stabilize and keep them alive.
Registered nurses with bachelor's degrees in nursing science, and who are certified in neonatal care, may serve as neonatal nurses. The next level of neonatal nursing care is that of the neonatal nurse practitioner, which requires a master's degree in nursing science to prepare the nurse to obtain a license as a Nurse Practitioner.
Depending upon the state in which the nurse lives, other state-sanctioned requirements may apply as well. As a result of the increased levels of education required for this position, the median annual salary for this branch of nursing can reach as high as eighty thousand dollars. In some countries, the salary can range as high as six figures.
Large numbers of qualified neonatal nurses are in high demand due to almost forty thousand premature babies being born each year in the US alone.
Infant survivability has steadily risen over the last few decades due to the specialized teams of neonatal professionals, and the neonatal nurse. If that trend is to continue, however, the growing demand for new neonatal nurse professionals will have to be addressed.
