What's the Difference Between Maternity Nurses, Newborn Care Specialists, Confinement Nurses, Night Nurses and Maternity Nannies?

What's the difference between a maternity nurse and a newborn care specialist?

The answers is, essentially, not too much! We have used the term Maternity Nurse to describe our experienced, qualified newborn carers for decades and this term is still widely used in the UK. However we have recently noticed that families in Europe and the US are more familiar with the term Newborn Care Specialist to describe a traditional maternity nurse over here.

A Maternity Nurse, Newborn Specialist or Confinement Nurse will have many years of experience, provide practical hands-on support for parents with a calm, experienced influence during Mum’s post-partum period. They work for 24 hours and require 4 hours break per day. These can be taken all together or during two separate points during the day, usually in collaboration with what works best for the family. They are responsible for feeding, advising on bottle and breast feeding, changing baby, washing/sterilising bottles, initiating a sleep & feeding schedule and devising activities to help baby develop well. These experienced professionals will likely have spent several years caring for babies and will have experience with common newborn complications such as reflux, tongue tied and minor gastro issues. Whilst they are not doctors, they will be happy to advise you about when to seek advice and will likely have the names and numbers of specialists that they would recommend in such situations. 

Confinement Nurses

The role experienced maternity nurses or newborn care specialists play have been traditional in many societies in the past. In China a Confinement Nurse was a traditional hire, that continues to be ever-popular today. These experienced ladies would support mum and baby post-partum but they would also guide mum through local postpartum traditions and beliefs. This type of newborn help can still be hired to this day and provide lots of support and a traditional post partum experience to new mothers.

Night Nurses

A Night Nurse will have the same experience and expertise as other professional newborn carers, the only difference being, they usually work 12 hour shifts overnight. They often begin at 8 or 9pm then work through until 8am or 9am the next morning. 

Maternity Nanny

A Maternity Nanny will usually begin once a baby turns 3 months old or later, they may not have the same level of experience as newborn professionals’ carers however, they will feed baby and are experienced with weaning, adapting sleep schedules, and devising developmental activities for baby, such as going to local baby classes or arranging play dates with other babies to encourage good social skills. As nannies, they usually work 12-hour days, 5 or 6 days a week.

We hope this has been informative for all prospective parents new and experienced. If you’d like to speak further to one of our experienced consultants do fill in our client registration form and we would be happy to assist you.