How to become a Midwife?

[EllaLouise]

I am sixteen and want to peruse a career as midwife, I am going to go to university to study eventually and want to know what the course will involve, and what research I can do in the next few years to help me along with this.

[Cynical_Student]

I'd recommend Biology for A-Level.

Midwifery is a very competitive course. Not only because lots of people want to do the job, but plenty of trained Nurses are doing the course as well.

My advice would be to apply for Adult Nursing first, work for a year or two as a nurse, and THEN apply for your midwifery.

If you do, you'll be able to do your midwifery course in 18 months instead of the usual 3 years (you'll have the necessary background). You'll be in a position to do 'Bank Shifts' in other wards - meaning you'll get to know staff there AND earn extra money. Nurses wanting to do Midwifery are generally viewed more favourably then 18 year olds applying for the course - and MOST women feel more comfortable when their midwife (or the student midwife) is in their twenties.

[Sugarswheat]

Firstly, get in touch with at least five universities that run a Midwifery course and find out the entry requirements are to make sure that you study the right subjects at A level. Direct entry midwifery is competitive but not impossible and there are lots of things you can do to bump up your experience with mothers before you apply. I only know about the midwifery course at Surrey University as this is the one I did. The course is 50% academic and 50% hands on practice. You do 9 modules, one per term and you usually have to write essays, reading logs and reflections on practice. There are usually lots of lectures and certain modules will have an exam (anatomy and physiology for example). In practice you will get to experience each area - community, delivery suite, post natal and antenatal several times and you will have practising midwives as mentors to help you achieve the competency goals set by the university.

To help you get a place on the course it is best to start asap in gaining lots of experience with mothers and to start networking with midwives and student midwives.

Get in touch with your local NCT teachers and ask if you can go along to their classes to help out. Also you could volunteer at your local hospital (as soon as you are old enough) on the maternity wards or apply to work as a healthcare assistant on delivery suite or the post natal/ante natal wards. Get in touch with your local independent midwives too, they have a good Facebook page you can ask questions on. Some also run workshops for aspiring midwives. North Surrey Midwives do a lovely workshop if you are in the South East! There is a great online forum called Studentmidwives.net so you can chat to like minded people.

Read as much as you can, the definitive midwifery textbooks are called Myles Midwifery and Mayes Midwifery, they are expensive but you can buy the ebooks more cheaply, or you can buy second hand from ebay. Also you could read books about the issues of midwifery - anything by Sheila Kitzinger is great and I recommend Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. Most midwives subscribe to a monthly journal - I like The Practising Midwife which is a fab magazine and is less formal than other publications. If you go to your local hospital library you can find journals there to browse through.

Also, get involved with your local peer support breastfeeding counsellors and if you have one nearby Children Centres will have a lot of resources and contact to help you get in touch with people who can help.. Midwives work with social workers, key support workers and health visitors so any experience you can get with any of these people would help you. If you have the means, you can do private breastfeeding courses to get ahead in this field. Anyone who works with mothers and babies would be a good resource for you, so be breve and go and see some people - most are willing to help!

MIDIRS is a good online resource for info and I like the Association for Improvement of Maternity Services (AIMS) who do great little booklets with lots of information. I could go on and on, but this will get you started anyway! Good luck with your quest - don't let your young age keep you back, there are usually quite a few 'straight from A Level' students in every midwifery cohort - so go for it!

[Mike C]

To find out about lots of different nursing careers and what employers actually expect in a job check out the Free Job Descriptions database at http://free-job-descriptions.com/ you will find help there under medical/nursing