Midwife, Children's Nurse or ODP?

Midwives scrub for C-sections (or used to IIRC), as a children's nurse you could work as a theatre nurse in a large children's hospital, as an ODP you would be pretty much tied to theatres and nothing else (they do work in other environments, but this is very much in minority at the moment).

Now, as a midwife a large amount of your time will be spent looking after pregnant adult women. Either in the hospital or in the community, with a small amount of contact with babies during delivery and for the first few weeks of their lives.

As a children's nurse you could work with kids of any age, from newborns up to teenagers, in pretty much any clinical environment you can think of, especially if you have a large children's hospital nearby that your uni does placements at.

Tbh, from your post I'd suggest children's nursing, as it gets two out of the three things you're interested in, but in the end it's your decision, it's your career in the end.

Thanks a lot for your comment, I appreciate it! You're right, it's down to me to decide, it's just difficult because I don't want to make the wrong decision! Hopefully I can take the responses from here as well as elsewhere and come to a decision, do you work in healthcare yourself? - I will definitely take into consideration all that you have said Thanks again! Mollie x

Hi Mollie, yeah I'm an adult trained nurse. I have worked previously in theatres, so know a fair bit about ODP's and the perioperative environment. Have you been to any open days yet? Thanks a good idea to get started.

Ah lovely, how did you find the course at UNI and are you happy you became a nurse? - I have been to the UCAS convention where all of the universities were gathered and picked up some prospectuses and spoke to some students there. I will be going to the open days when they come around but most aren't until September/October! Hopefully this will help me decide too! I'm in the process of trying to get work experience too but that's been difficult as many places are reluctant because of confidentiality etc so I'm finding it difficult to get just some experience - nightmare! But in sure all will work out eventually x

I got into nursing as a mature student and I'm glad I made the change. I found university enjoyable, well, as enjoyable as it can be. Open days are worthwhile, you get to have a look around and see where you may be spending the next three years.

With experience, it's been discussed in several threads here previously, instead of hospitals try care homes, hospices and so on, youth groups are good, especially if you're thinking of children's nursing, or things like breastfeeding support groups for midwifery.