Top Online Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Programs (2024)
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Neonatal nurse practitioners (NNPs) play an essential role in caring for infants, especially those born prematurely or needing special care due to sickness or acute health challenges. “Neonatal” refers to an infant in the first month of life, although neonatal nurse practitioners may continue to work with children who have ongoing problems from birth for a while longer.
NNPs often work in neonatal units or neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), which are specially designed and staffed to care for newborns with health challenges such as heart abnormalities, congenital disabilities, infections, and lung, kidney, liver, immune, or digestive problems.
Most babies admitted to NICUs are premature, meaning they are born before 37 weeks of gestation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about one in 10 babies worldwide are born prematurely each year. This statistic also applies to the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Complications from premature birth “are the leading cause of death among children under five years of age” (WHO). This is a global statistic that applies to every country worldwide.
These sobering statistics demonstrate the acute need for increased neonatal care. NNPs are trusted with handling the complexity and life-and-death nature of caring for neonates. Supporting NICU families has created a demand for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) who specialize in NICU care.
According to Gallup polls, for nearly 20 years, nurses have ranked as the most trusted occupation in the United States. NNPs can help vulnerable NICU babies, and their families thrive in the face of adversity and live healthier lives moving forward.
Fortunately, several online NNP programs are available throughout the United States at the master’s, post-master’s, and DNP levels. These programs offer mostly online study with fewer than ten campus visits, offering flexibility to working nurses with families and other obligations.
Because these are nurse practitioner programs, students must complete online coursework, a clinical practicum (generally at an approved location local to the student), and sometimes a small number of required campus immersions/intensives. Upon graduation, neonatal nurse practitioner students will be eligible to take the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Core Certification exam through the National Certification Corporation (NCC).
Overall, NNPs work with healthcare teams to provide the necessary advanced medical care to infants and support families through very stressful situations. Also, neonatal nurse practitioners may work with healthy infants and children and focus on family-centered care and the development of the infant and young child.
Read on to learn more about top-ranked online neonatal nurse practitioner programs.
Online NNP Program Rankings (2023-2024)
Aspiring neonatal nurse practitioners must earn a master of science in nursing (MSN), post-master’s certificate (PMC), or doctor of nursing practice (DNP), and then procure professional certification in neonatal care prior to practicing.
Many NNP programs require incoming students to have a year or more of NICU experience, and all require that incoming students be licensed RNs prepared with an associate degree in nursing (ADN), non-nursing bachelor’s, bachelor of science in nursing (BSN), or master of science in nursing (BSN).
Programs vary in terms of which of those degrees they will accept. Most MSN programs are designed for BSN-prepared RNs, for instance, but not all. Some will accept ADN-prepared RNs, and a few will offer an accelerated option to ADN-prepared RNs with a non-nursing bachelor’s degree.
Given this, we have tried to specify a program’s degree path in its program name. In cases where it remains unclear, please click on the corresponding nursing school name to view a full-page profile that details admissions and program requirements, costs, state restrictions, and more.
The online neonatal NP programs listed here are ranked by our AdvanceU score, which factors in cost, admissions flexibility, and program variety, and drawn from the NPSchools.com program database, which includes 1,035 online NP programs at the MSN, DNP, and post-master’s certificate levels.
The NPSchools.com team has compiled what we believe to be a comprehensive list of all of the online NNP programs accepting students at the outset of the 2023-2024 school year. Only NNP programs that require a total of nine campus visits or fewer qualified for inclusion as online programs.
The NPSchools.com team works to ensure the accuracy of the data on our website. Should you wish to report a new program, missing program, or an informational error, please contact us to bring it to our attention.
Neonatal NP Career and Salary
Neonatal Nurse Practitioners (NNPs) play a crucial role in healthcare, providing advanced care to premature and ill newborns, often working in neonatal intensive care units. NNPs work with healthcare teams to provide the necessary advanced medical care to infants, and to support families through very stressful situations. In addition, neonatal nurse practitioners may work with healthy infants and children and focus on family-centered care and the development of the infant and young child. Typically neonatal NPs work with infants until they are discharged from the hospital, but may work with infants and children up to three years of age.
According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), NNPs have an average of 18.7 years of experience and see 13 patients per day. While NNPs diagnose and treat a spectrum of health conditions, the most common ones are anemia, arrhythmias, and acute respiratory lower infections (AANP 2023).
The exact number of NNPs is not readily available as data on this specific nursing specialty is not separately reported. However, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts a 45 percent growth rate for nurse practitioners from 2022 to 2032, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. This growth is 15 times faster than the national average for all occupations (3 percent) and is expected to occur due to an increased demand for healthcare services, particularly in underserved areas. This equates to adding 118,600 new positions over the 10-year span (BLS 2023).
As for salary, according to the BLS, nurse practitioners with an MSN degree earn an average annual salary of $124,680 per year (BLS May 2022). By comparison, Payscale.com (2023) shows the 238 NNPs who reported their salaries earn an average of $116,726, with the bottom percent earning $95,000 per year and the top percent earning $141,000 annually.