Midwifery

Midwifery is a blanket term used to describe a number of different types of health practitioners, other than physicians, who provide prenatal care to expecting mothers, attend the birth of the infant and provide postnatal care to the mother and infant. Nurse-midwives (U.S.) may also provide gynecological care. Practitioners of midwifery are known as midwives, a term used in reference to both women and men (the term means "with the woman"). Most are independent practitioners who work with obstetricians when the need arises.They usually deal with normal births only but are trained to recognise and deal with deviation from the norm. If something abnormal is discovered during prenatal care, the client is sent to an obstetrician. Other midwives will deal with abnormal births, including breech birth.

Midwifery in the UK

In the United Kingdom midwives are practitioners in their own right, and take responsibility for the antenatal, intrapartum and immediate postnatal care of women. Nearly all births are supervised by midwives, mostly in a hospital setting. One may become a registered midwife by completing an eighteen month course (leading to a degree qualification) following completion of nurse training, or by undertaking a 3 year degree in midwifery. All practising midwives must be registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and are subject to the local supervising authority. Most midwives work within the National Health Service providing both hospital and community care, but a significant proportion work independently, providing total care for their clients within a community setting. To be a midwife is to be responsible for the woman for whom you are caring at all times, to know when to refer complications to medical staff, but also to act as the woman's advocate, to ensure that she retains some choice and control over her childbirth experience. Many midwives are opposed to the so-called 'medicalisation' of childbirth, preferring a more normal and natural option, to ensure a more satisfactory outcome for mother and baby.

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - Childbirth

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Community midwives

As well as the midwives working in the hospitals there are also numerous midwives working in the community. Their roles include the initial appointments of pregnant women, the running of clinics, postnatal checks in the home and attending home births.

Related Topics:
Clinic - Home birth

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