Maternity Nurses

A professional Maternity Nurse should possess the following:

Suitable experience/qualifications for her role - these are that she has some experience as a Nanny, at least 3 years (although most have around 5-9 years when they start), or some alternative experience such as being a midwife or paediatric Nurse with some additional experience working within family homes. There are always exceptions to the above and many mature women have other very useful professional experience, which is transferable to a Maternity Nurse setting.
Be suitably mature enough - to advise post-natal women on care of themselves and their newborn. This is a vitally important part of a Maternity Nurse's role and as such many Nannies are not considered mature enough until they are at least 25 or possibly even 30. (Again there are exceptions here, as we have trained a handful of younger Nannies aged 23-24 who are very mature with the right background experience who have become highly sought after Maternity Nurses).
Excellent communication skills - a professional Maternity Nurse needs to excel in this field. She needs to be a careful listener, who can take action before problems arise and ensure mum is well cared for without mum having to ask, as well as being a shoulder when either parent needs to talk. She also needs to have a warm, encouraging personality as many new parents feel vulnerable and lack confidence in their new roles.
Take responsibility for herself - she needs to be able to assert herself when discussing contracts and pay and not let herself be drawn into taking on more responsibility than she should. Finally an astute Maternity Nurse knows when it is time to leave parents alone and also when to sensitively make suggestions to parents on care of their baby without making parents feel uncomfortable in any way.
Behave professionally at all times - this includes many aspects of a Maternity Nurse's role such as: being discreet, respecting confidentiality, keeping a daily diary of baby’s feeding, sleeping etc throughout the day, always preparing contracts for every job, keeping to her word when agreeing to do a job, turning up on time for interviews, dressing appropriately on the job, keeping up to date with current best practice in post natal and newborn care.