NCC Celebrates Neonatal Nurses Everywhere! Happy Neonatal Nurses Week – September 11-17, 2023 September 9, 2023

Neonatal Nurses care for the smallest and often the sickest patients in the health care system.  Since March of 2020, neonatal nurses have had to protect fragile newborns and their families within a health care system that had to be completely refocused. Overnight visitation for these babies changed and practice had to change to communicate with families in other ways such as video visits instead of face-to-face time.  In addition, neonatal nurses had to help parents navigate a new world with protective equipment for parents which in many cases interfered with skin-to-skin care and impacted parent-infant bonding.  Neonatal nurses worked with families to overcome these new barriers. 

Practice changed in the Neonatal Units with social distancing not only for families but for staff and colleagues. With overcrowded hospitals, some NICUs had to send neonatal nurses to other units to care for patients as the nursing shortage in the hospitals was distributed to all areas.  Nurses were challenged by the pandemic not only in the workplace, but in the community and at home. This year we celebrate all nurses, but this week we celebrate Neonatal Nurses who never backed down from the challenge. 

Florence Nightingale once said, “Let us consider that we are never done as nurses…we must be learning all of our lives.”  Ms. Nightingale would have celebrated all nurses who accepted the challenges that a worldwide pandemic brought and never ran from the fight. Nightingale was a leader who demonstrated a passion for nursing with a commitment to speak out, educate and change health care. Neonatal Nurses share this same passion and demonstrate this same commitment to the patients and families they serve. 

NCC honors all nurses and health care providers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to take care of their patients in very difficult circumstances.  We are pleased to recognize all Neonatal Nurses who have demonstrated their expertise in their field and creatively found ways to keep neonates and their families together.  

Happy Neonatal Nurses Week!!

NCC is a national certification corporation that recognizes the commitment and demonstrated expertise of these professionals and has awarded more than 207,000 certifications in the obstetric, neonatal, and women's health care specialties. Visit the NCC YouTube Channel to view and share PSAs showing the importance of certified nurses.  The NCC C E R T I F I E D  and Certified Nurses Make a Difference stores have a variety of products with different mottos that show pride in certification.