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Maternity nurses see a rising demand
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
The pay is very good — about $350 a day or more — though it includes 24 hours on call.
With a house in Sarasota and roots in Yorkshire, England, Carol Lee is part of a small but growing army of “maternity nurses” (Europe) or “newborn care specialists” (the United States).
While the quaint tradition of a baby nurse who moves into the house to care for newborns around the clock is alive and well in other parts of the world, the phenomenon is relatively new in America, and experienced candidates are in short supply.
A spike in U.S. demand over the last few years, say Lee and others, coincides with a higher number of older mothers and multiple births.
According to a Centers for Disease Control report issued last month, one in every 30 babies born is now a twin, compared to one in 53 in 1980. More than a third of all births are to women 30 and older, up from just one-fifth in 1980. Fertility treatments aside, older mothers always have been more likely to have multiple babies.
Nancy Hamm, an officer with the Newborn Care Specialist Association and owner of the Exclusively Baby Nurses agency in California, said requests for help from parents of twins have more than doubled in the past three years.
“There are not enough qualified people to service the growing number of multiple jobs here in the U.S.,” she said.
Lee, who specializes in caring for twins, has worked for “British royalty, rock stars and footballers” on 12-week contracts, as well as middle-income families who employ her for the first week or so after birth.
Her workplaces have ranged from palaces and luxury hotels to “a very small, IKEA-type house in Copenhagen.”
“You’re like a bird in a gilded cage because you can’t go anywhere,” she says. “The furthest you can get is to take the baby for a walk in its buggy, if the parents allow it.”
One thing most of her clients have in common, Lee says: They are high-profile, can-do people with plenty of disposable income but not so much energy for those 4 a.m. feedings. Often they live far away from families who might offer support and advice.
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