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As a midwife, you’ll be a healthcare professional offering care and support to parents and babies throughout pregnancy, birth and during the early stages of the newborn’s life. It’s an extremely rewarding job, as you’ll be helping to bring new lives into the world, but it can also be emotionally challenging at times. To succeed in this role, you’ll be compassionate, calm under pressure, and of course have robust medical training.
What does a midwife do?
Due to the nature of the job, you often can’t predict exactly where the day is going to go, but a lot of the common responsibilities you’ll carry out include:
- Providing clinical examinations
- Monitoring and supporting pregnant people
- Providing care during labour including using pain medication where required and monitoring the baby
- Teaching parents skills to care for their baby
- Creating individualised care plans
- Providing advice before and after clinical examinations
- Offering counselling and advice for issues such as miscarriage, termination and stillbirth
- Identifying and making appropriate referrals in the event of a high-risk pregnancy
What’s it like to work as a midwife?
It goes without saying that this career can be incredibly rewarding. However, you also have to be prepared to deal with sensitive and upsetting topics around pregnancy, so it can be emotionally challenging. You can expect to work roughly 40 hours per week, and you’ll likely be working some evenings, nights and weekends (after all, you typically don’t choose what time of day labour begins!).
You’ll likely be based primarily in a maternity unit, oftentimes this will be in a hospital. You may also carry out community outreach work, perform exams in local GP surgeries, and visit the homes of expectant or new parents.
What skills do you need to be a midwife?
Some of the skills you’ll need to be successful in this role include:
- Ability to stay calm and work fast under pressure
- Time management
- Organisation
- Sensitive to cultural and social differences
- Excellent communication
- Compassion
- Emotional resilience
- Attention to detail
- Problem-solving skills
How much does a midwife earn?
As an NHS midwife, your salary will be on the NHS pay scale, typically at Band 5. There’s room for growth, however, and NHS staff also benefit from generous holidays and pension schemes. Many businesses also offer discounts for NHS workers.
How to become a midwife
All midwives must complete a course or degree recognised by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). After this, you can apply to register with the NMC and begin to practice. There are, however, a few different ways of achieving this.
Study a midwifery degree
One of the most common paths is to study an accredited undergraduate degree in midwifery. Typically, these courses will last three or four years, though you may have the option to study part-time. Studying part-time will extend your course to five or six years. This is the most straightforward route to becoming qualified as a midwife, and you’ll complete a mixture of theoretical learning and supervised practical learning. On a midwifery course, you’ll be eligible for the NHS’ Learning Support Fund, which grants £5,000 per year of study to support you through your course.
Study a nursing degree
If you’re not sure what area of healthcare you want to go into, studying an accredited nursing degree can keep your options open. These degrees usually take the same length of time as a midwifery degree, and you’ll be taught broader nursing training, and get the opportunity to specialise later on in your course. Once you’ve completed your nursing course, you can register with the NMC and take an 80-week pre-registration course to qualify as a midwife. The pre-registration course is a mixture of theoretical and supervised practical learning.
Degree apprenticeship
On a degree apprenticeship, you’ll be learning on the job, and studying part-time at university. The benefit to these courses is that your employer pays for your tuition, and you also earn a salary from the work you’re doing. In order to get onto one of these courses, you’ll have to apply through the healthcare employer you work for. Upon completing your accredited midwifery degree apprenticeship, you’ll be able to register with the NMC.
Postgraduate degrees
This is the route chosen by most aspiring midwives who have an undergraduate degree in a subject other than nursing or midwifery. You can opt for a postgraduate certificate, postgraduate diploma or master’s degree in midwifery. If your undergraduate degree is not healthcare related, you may need to demonstrate a strong interest in the area, for example through practical experience in healthcare to be accepted. Some universities may only want to accept students with a healthcare-related degree.
