Neonatal Nursing in the U.S. today

It seems like a miracle all wrapped into a blanket, with its tiny hands, tiny feet and tiny body. Can you guess what this miracle is? It’s a baby. They are born almost every hour of every day, come rain, shine or even snow. In the United States during 2008, there are 4,251,095 recorded births, and it is shown in studies that it was down 2% of the normal rate it has been at in the previous years (U.S. Births per Year | Business News). At the end of the long journey from womb to real world, the loving families take their bundle of joy home to greet family and friends. But what happens to those babies that don’t just get to go home right away? Most have something simple that keeps their stay in the hospital a little longer, such as infant jaundice, yet there are worst fates than that, such as premature birth, “About 12.8% of babies (more than half a million a year) are born prematurely”( Premature Birth - March of Dimes). It is the neonatal nurse’s job to take care of these little babies that have been born too early.
Neonatal nurses are nurses that take care of infants that need extra care when they are born before they are due. There are different levels of neonatal nurses which all demand different responsibilities from the nurse as well as different needs for the baby. For example, a Level I neonatal nurse is someone who looks after infants who are healthy and do not require any special medical treatment (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills). Sometimes these level nurses are known as pediatric nurses; although these types of nursing jobs are short in demand due to the insurance companies cutting the length of time mother and baby stay in the hospital after birth (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills). A Level II nurse typically takes care of newborns that were either born prematurely or are just in need of intermediate medical care such as special medication (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills). A Level III nurse takes care of newborns that have been born with serious and life-threatening health problems. These neonatal nurses work in Neonatal Intensive Care Units or NICU’s (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills). Some of the education required to become a neonatal nurse “vary depending on the hospital in which the nurse is employed, but typically neonatal nurses are required to complete a registered nursing program in addition to obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree or Masters of Science in Nursing Degree” (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills).
There are various other characteristics of a Neonatal nurse such as pay, and other skills needed to be successful in this field. The pay of a neonatal nurse greatly depends on the location, training and years of experience that the nurse has had (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills). A registered nurse, who is a closely related to a neonatal nurse, can make a range of earnings from year to year. For example 10% of nurses make as low as $40,000 a year, most nurses make an average of $57,000 a year and some even make as much as $85,000 a year (Career Details for Nurse). Every nurse needs a certain amount of skills to survive as a good, well experienced nurse. For example, all nurses need to the ability to think fast and efficiently in order to make the decision to save someone’s life. Some of the other skills needed by a nurse are the ability to work well with others, in addition to the ability to work well as a group due to the fact that it is a nurse’s job to be able to communicate with the doctors and other nurse’s involved in a specific patient’s health. This makes certain that the patient’s needs, wellbeing and life are in great hands. This skill is specifically essential to neonatal nurses because they work alongside many doctors such as a neonatologists and neonatal nurse practitioners due to the severe conditions in which several of the infants lives are in (Neonatal Nurses, Neonatal Nursing Career, Care For Newborns, Neonatal Nurse Skills).
Throughout every profession, different types of controversies come about because it is in our nature as humans to grow and develop to the best of our abilities. At the same time, some people believe we have maybe gone just too far with some things such as stem cell research or abortion, yet some people believe we haven’t gone far enough with research for things like cancer or infant deaths. As the United States has grown into a rich, successfully industrialized country, we continue to try and better the quality and length of our lives. We spend billions of dollars on research to prevent cancer, diseases, common colds, and other such outcomes of pain. We have even begun to understand the process of birthing and how to make it more comfortable for the mother and make a successful and healthy baby appear. Even though throughout time the rate of successful birth for mother and baby have grown greatly as well as the rate of successful maturity of offspring, there are still shocking statistics and rates of premature and infant deaths even in such an industrialized country like the United States.
According to the Census Bureau there is approximately one birth every 8 seconds (US & World Population Clock). They also say that as of April 11, 2010 there are approximately 309,048,551 people in the United States alone (US & World Population Clock). They range from age, ethnic background and size, yet they are all still human with emotions, hopes, needs and dreams. It is our responsibility to educate the people in our country regardless of their background, size, color, age, or ethnicity. One of the main growing problems in the United States is the increasing amount of infant deaths even though we are one of the richest and most industrialized countries in the world. In the United States alone there are a recorded 630 infant deaths in every 100,000 births (Infant Mortality). So out of the 309,048,551 recorded populations in the U.S. today, almost 2,000 infants have died.
There are so many ways to help try and prevent this outrageously high mortality rate for such an industrialized country. One of the easiest ways to prevent it is to simply educate the people of the nation, regardless of any social or physical stipulations. If education was available with no charge and easily accessible to people with any type of social economic standing whether it be low or high, the rate of prenatal care would sky rocket. This would promote a healthy fetus from the time of known conception and this could greatly increase the chance of a healthy, happy and full-term baby greatly. If we could somehow give everyone a chance, whether they are afraid to admit they made the mistake of getting pregnant or just don’t know what to do because either they don’t speak English, we could possibly lower that statistics even more.
Some of the infant deaths belong to young teenagers or mothers beyond the age of recommended conception. Researchers believe that it is the strain of the pregnancy and birth combined with poor prenatal care that leads to the death of possibly baby, mother or both. The things that contribute to it can vary from the amount of babies being born such as twins, triplets or more, health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, etc (Premature Birth - March of Dimes). Another factor that causes it is people conceiving younger than 17 or older than 35 (Premature Birth - March of Dimes).
This directly relates back to neonatal nurses because it is their job to take care of the babies that can’t survive without help. We must join together to try and provide information to the public about various ways to prevent infant deaths. As humans we must do all we can to help prevent these tragic things from happening to loving families. Although the lack of premature births would drastically lower their job demand, it would increase the amount of healthy, happy babies as well as healthy and happy parents and families; this is the main hope in the world—happy and healthy citizens.
The important message to conclude all of this information is a great deal of things. As humans it is in our nature to show compassion and love to the people around us as well as the other species that inhabit our planet. We must continue to try to prevent the negative from occurring amongst the defenseless. When people study and successfully become nurses, it is their dream everyday during every shift to make someone, somewhere better because they existed as a nurse. So at the end of this, I hope that we can continue to advance our skills in the medical field so that we can further assist those who need us most.