Newly qualified children's nurses experiences of supporting postnatal women within Scottish neonatal units

Aims and objectives
To gather rich descriptions of the lived experiences of child branch nurses working in neonatal units.

Background
Child branch nursing graduates are replacing midwives within the neonatal nursing workforce and will be the dominant professional in the near future. However this professional group spends little time during their pre-registration education learning about the complexities of pregnancy, breastfeeding and postnatal care.

Design
A qualitative, descriptive phenomenological pilot study.

Methods
Three newly qualified child branch nurses working within neonatal units were interviewed. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with data analysis undertaken using a recognized staged process.

Results and conclusions
Common themes included the important role midwives play within neonatal care and how they felt poorly prepared educationally for their role with regard to supporting breastfeeding and understanding the impact pregnancy complications may have on the newborn.