Discover the skills that a neonatal nurse needs to perform the required duties effectively.
Babies are very delicate especially the first few months after birth and this call for strict neonatal care to ensure that the newborn is in great shape. Any slight error can result in serious medical problems for the newborn. Neonatal nursing entails looking after newborns that have critical medical conditions and ensuring that they are well taken care of during the first months after being born. So to ensure this, nurses tasked with this duty ought to be perfect at their job and must have key crucial skills to do this. These include attention to detail, organizational skills, usage of medical equipment and decision-making skill.
Attention to detail
Handling newborns require great attention to details since they are very delicate. At this stage anything can happen to the baby leading to serious medical complications, so you need to very keen to do things correctly. Ensure that you give the right medication at all times and that the environment that the baby is exposed to is clean.
Organizational skills
Since the newborn babies you will be handling will be having medical problems, you ought to organize how you handle them all. Your schedule should be divided in such a manner that you can attend to the babies needs while also attending to your assigned duties. This will prevent work from piling up leaving you will less time on your hands to do the urgent tasks.
Usage of medical equipment
As a neonatal nurse, you will be required to handle various medical equipment that the infants will be relying on such as ventilators, incubators, and intensive care units. You need to know how this equipment works and how to operate them. Ensure they are in good working condition. You can also teach others how to handle them.
Decision making skill
Since you will be looking after newborns that have one or more medical conditions, you will be faced with times where you will be required to make decisions. As a nurse, you need first to assess the situation, look at all factors available and then come up with a good solution. You will be required to think critically before making any decision because one wrong decision can put the infant’s lives in danger by causing serious medical complications. For instance, you can be faced with the decision of either performing the surgery that can save the baby but still put the baby's life at risk or not performing the surgery at all.