Qualifications/Skills of a Labor and Delivery Nurse

How to Become a Labor and Delivery Nurse

The road to become a labor and delivery nurse can be smooth if you follow a simple career path. Upon graduating from nursing school and obtaining your registered nurse license in your state, you should start the search for a position in a clinical, hospital-based setting--preferably in the labor and delivery unit. Say yes to the job and start your adventure as an L and D nurse! That experience really is critical to your marketability as a nurse. 

Most hospitals will require a labor and delivery nurse to have some key certifications as a baseline for their nursing practice. The two most common are: Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) certifications. You may also need to complete a fetal heart monitoring course, which you can learn more about through the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN). 

The National Certification Corporation (NCC) currently offers certification options for labor and delivery nurses that you might want to pursue, such as the Inpatient Obstetric Nursing (RNC-OB) certification, which does require two years of specialty experience.

The NCC also offers many continuing education opportunities for labor and delivery nurses that cover a variety of topics such as inpatient obstetric nursing, electronic fetal monitoring, and maternal newborn nursing. You might register to complete an online module in Evidence-Based Labor and Delivery Management or Quality and Safety in Labor and Delivery to earn some continuing education contact hours and to make sure you’re up-to-speed on all the latest knowledge that a labor and delivery nurse needs to do her job successfully. 

Read More About Labor and Delivery Travel Nursing Salary and Requirements from the link below.