Labor and delivery essentials: what L&D nurses actually need

Labor and delivery is the only unit where the schedule is set by someone who has not been born yet. A patient can sit at four centimeters all afternoon and then deliver in the eleven minutes you spent finding a snack. Pushing can last three hours, with you standing at the bedside holding a leg. And when the baby arrives, so does a surprising amount of fluid, most of it heading for your shoes.

So the L&D kit is built around three things: fluids, waiting, and the sudden end of waiting. The basics (good shoes, a stethoscope, a bag) are in our nurse essentials list. This page covers what changes when you work in labor and delivery, whether you are a nurse, a midwife, an OB resident or a tech.

What makes L&D different

From a gear point of view, an L&D shift looks like this:

• Fluids, lots of them. Amniotic fluid, blood and everything else that comes with birth. Splashes happen even with the drape, and your feet are at ground zero. OSHA’s bloodborne pathogens standard is the reason your unit supplies gowns, face shields and shoe covers, so use them.
• Wet floors. NIOSH lists slips, trips and falls as the second most common cause of lost-workday injuries in hospitals. A delivery room floor right after a birth is a good example of why.
• Long waits, then no waiting. Hours of watching a monitor, then a delivery, a hemorrhage or a crash section with no warning.
• Nights. Babies are famously uninterested in shift times. Plenty of L&D work happens at 3 a.m.
• Big feelings. The best day of a family’s life, in the room next to the worst. More on that below.

Shoes that survive a delivery

Mesh running shoes are lovely on a med-surg floor. In L&D, mesh soaks up whatever lands on it. You want a closed shoe with a wipe-clean upper and a grippy sole, which is why so many L&D nurses wear clogs.

The Dansko Professional is the classic: a leather upper you can wipe down, a closed toe and a rocker sole that helps on long standing days.

Our L&D shoe guide compares it with a cushioned leather sneaker, a lighter clog and a hose-down budget pair.

Socks for the pushing stage

Pushing can mean an hour or three standing in one spot, holding a leg, coaching and watching the strip. Standing still is harder on your legs than walking. Light graduated compression, around 15 to 20 mmHg, is what most people start with. If you have a circulation problem, check with your doctor before going firmer.

The compression sock guide explains the numbers and sizing.

A wet bag and a spare set of scrubs

This is the most L&D thing on the list. At some point your scrubs will get soaked, and it will not be at the start of the shift. Keep a full spare set in your locker: top, pants, socks and underwear. Yes, underwear. You will thank yourself.

Then you need a way to get the wet set home without soaking your bag, your car seat and your lunch. Wet bags sold for cloth diapers are exactly the right tool, which is a nice bit of irony for this unit. One side for soiled, one side for clean.

If your hospital launders scrubs, use that system instead. If it does not, our scrubs guide covers washing them at home.

A watch you can read without touching

L&D is full of counting: contraction length and spacing, a newborn’s respirations, the minutes since delivery for the placenta and for Apgars. A wristwatch is often not allowed, and grabbing your phone with gloved hands is a bad plan. A fob watch with a clear second hand clips to your top and reads upside down when you look down.

Food for the long labor and the short break

L&D breaks are unpredictable. You might get a proper lunch, or you might get four bites of a protein bar between a delivery and an admission. Keep food that you can eat in under a minute, standing up, with one hand, in the break room.

And a big water bottle that lives at the station. Drinks stay out of patient rooms, so drink every time you walk past it.

The shift bag guide has a full plan for meals, including hot food with no microwave.

Hands and nails

You wash and sanitize constantly, and you touch newborns. The CDC hand hygiene guideline says to keep natural nail tips under a quarter inch and to avoid artificial nails with high-risk patients, and many maternity units apply that to every patient. It also recommends hand lotion to cut down on the irritation constant hand hygiene causes. Our NICU and postpartum kit covers nail clippers and a fragrance-free hand cream.

Nights on L&D

If you work nights, the sleep kit matters as much as the work kit: blackout curtains, a sleep mask and earplugs for the day after. The night shift guide covers it, including the drive home after a long night of pushing.

The hard days

L&D carries a strange emotional load. Most days are joyful. Some include a stillbirth, a hemorrhage, or a baby who goes straight to the NICU and does not come back. A 2022 review of maternity care staff estimated that roughly a quarter to a third experience secondary traumatic stress, and it called for peer support soon after hard births and a culture where asking for help is normal.

No product fixes that. What helps is people: a charge nurse who checks in, a debrief that actually works, an employee assistance program, a coworker who sits with you in the break room. If your unit offers support after a loss, use it, even if you think you are fine. Then go home, eat something, and sleep.

What to skip

• Mesh shoes on shift. Comfortable, breathable and absorbent. That last one is the problem.
• Anything you cannot wipe down. Fabric badge reels and cloth pouches get splashed too.
• Long sleeves under your scrubs in a delivery. They catch fluid and need changing. Push them up or skip them.
• Jewelry on your hands. Rings trap water and germs and do not mix with gloves or newborn skin.
• A heavy pocket kit. Most of what you need is in the room. Carry less, move faster.

The L&D checklist

1. Closed, wipe-clean shoes with a slip-resistant sole
2. Light compression socks for long pushing stages
3. A full spare set of scrubs (and underwear) in your locker
4. A wet bag for soiled scrubs
5. A fob watch with a second hand
6. Fast food you can eat standing, and a big water bottle at the station
7. Short nails, nail clippers and an unscented hand cream
8. For nights: the sleep kit from our night shift guide

Shopping for someone who works on L&D, or want to thank the nurse who got you through your own labor? Try the L&D gift guide.

Follow your own unit’s policies, dress code and infection control rules, which always come first.