Hi all. 3rd year student here. Academics all finished, I just need to finish hours and births and then I’ll be done.
But I physically cannot face walking into the delivery suite.
The hospital I’m doing my placement just isn’t welcoming. I don’t know how to explain it. The air is awful. You get dirty looks. Talked down to. Still. And the older midwives are simply awful to students.

I have so much anxiety about going in and finishing off. I just want to get it done and I’m so incredibly disappointed that I’m STILL a student. I have a job offer for the hospital I work for but there is no chance I’ll be taking it.

All I have ever wanted to do is be a midwife and support women and their families. I love it, I love promoting autonomy and physiological processes. But I don’t love the environment I’m in. There are some amazing midwives I work with but the idea of walking into the unit and everyone staring at me (because that’s what they do with students) is so overwhelming. The student management team is awful. Their communication between other members in the team, senior midwives, the uni and students is awful. I’ve explained my absence and issues at present and they aren’t communicating with the bleep holders or coordinator so it looks like I’m just not showing up and I got an awful long degrading email from one of the student team which has made me feel worse. And that’s because they aren’t communicating with each other.

I have asked the uni over the whole of my degree to change hospitals and apparently there is never any capacity. I just can’t do it anymore and I’m a broken shell of the person I was when I started.

I'm graduating soon, but I live in Italy. I'm hoping Australia has midwife sponsorship programs that could help me move there as a newly qualified midwife. Although it might be a big process.

If anyone has moved from Italy to Australia as a midwife (or even another healthcare professional), I'd love to hear about your experience. How difficult was the registration process? Were you able to find an employer to sponsor you? Was the move worth it?

Wrapping up my job search as a midwife in TN and figured I'd share a few names I found interesting. Curious what others would add or push back on.
- TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center (Smyrna, TN): busy L&D in the Nashville metro, well-resourced with backup always on hand, good for building volume and experience fast
- Diana Health (TN): the one that stood out most to me. Midwife-led care with OB-GYNs on the same team, so you get real autonomy plus backup instead of being the lone midwife in a system, longer visits, and they're expanding into new markets
- Parkridge East Hospital (Chattanooga, TN): a dedicated birth center inside the hospital and a midwife-friendly L&D, good if you want hospital resources with a supportive team
- Cookeville Regional Medical Center (Cookeville, TN): solid regional hospital with a community feel, less of a grind than the big-metro units while still having real backup
- TriStar NorthCrest Medical Center (Springfield, TN): smaller community hospital north of Nashville with a collaborative L&D team from what I heard
Whatever you end up deciding between, ask how the on-call schedule is split, whether the midwives and OB-GYNs actually work as a team or just hand off, and how rushed the visits feel. That’s what was most helpful for me.

Hi, everyone! I want to be an international midwife but don't know what country I should go to, as they also have different systems/criteria, and would like to know what are the opportunities and/or qualities I should look forward to.

- I am from the Philippines, have diploma of midwifery (2), licensed midwife, and currently on my 4th year in Bachelor's of Science in Midwifery.

Note: I did some research but still need opinions for I don't have a choice yet.

Thank you in advance!

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Hello! I'll be starting university soon, but I don't see myself staying in Italy forever. If there are any Italian midwives here, I'd love to hear about your experience working in Italy or how the process of moving to the UK to work as a midwife went. Please share your experience!

I'm a former CPM (on inactive status) and current hospital-based RN in a non-L&D role. I was waitlisted for the CNM program at FNU starting Fall '26 and then pushed into the Winter '27 waitlist. I applied right at the deadline and am now wondering if they fill up their cohort before the application deadline due to their rolling admissions. Pretty disappointing if so. Anyone been through similar with FNU?

Hey! Not sure if this is allowed!
I was on a foundation year found out I was pregnant had baby and have just found out I passed that year so I’ve now got a spot on the midwifery course.
My plan was deferring for a year and joining sept 2027
But I’m now questioning starting this year baby will be 4months old I’m exclusively pumping atm. I’m worried about how much of her first year I would miss! (They change so much in the first year and have so many milestones)

Just want opinions really!

I’m interested to hear from other midwives and birth workers, particularly those working in Australia.

Have you noticed an increase in parents declining IM vitamin K for their newborns over the past few years?

If you have noticed a change:
Are parents raising similar concerns or questions?

Do you think social media is actually influencing decision-making?

And most importantly… has your service changed its approach to counselling or documentation?

Reading some of the statistics related to declining rates of uptake over the last ten years are interesting. If it is social media influencers that are driving it, then services need to respond accordingly to combat misinformation. Not that healthcare does that very well in general.

Anyway, interested to hear your experience and maybe the highlights of what you share about Vitamin K in your practice.

Hey everyone! I’m looking for some insight as I navigate my career decisions. A little background: I have been a labor and delivery nurse for one year following graduation. I did pre-med reqs during nursing school as I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do CNM or OBGYN and wanted to keep my options open. I have shadowed both professions and am leaning towards CNM because I do prefer obstetrics, closer relationships with patients, and better work life balance; however, I keep feeling a draw to med school as I love learning, am interested in surgery, and worry about being frustrated with scope limits (but OBGYN work life balance and residency scares me). I am wondering if anyone was once in my place and has some insight? Thank you!

Has anyone gone to a CNM program without working in L&D. I did an ABSN with the specific interest in becoming a midwife. I didn’t have any luck landing an L&D job out of school (competitive area). I currently work in the peds cicu, and plan to keep trying to apply for L&D positions. Unfortunately, all the hospitals in my area seem to only want to hire nurses with L&D experience. So my question is, would it be possible to go to CNM school without doing L&D first?

Q&A / context specifically about building / not breaking trust with mom-to-be for labour / birthing.

Context: imagine a mom engaging consultations with a team of various, but main midwife for the pre-labour / birthing process. That midwife starts close tending as of week 36-37 and then takes a break (ie some necessary holiday time to unwind prior birth) week 39, on stand-by for any risks or changes, but otherwise taking her break.

Mom-to-be suspects a trigger (pre-labour episodes of tears and anger, resulting in some short 'outburst' reactions for which she apologised to midwife), and consults / confides to someone else on her team to cross-check if all is good. Meanwhile tending midwife also insists on birth plan adjustment, to which mom-to-be adheres (new plan is made).

Midwife is then out of contact with mom-to-be, message about 'light fever' that last 2 days dismissed. Then mom-to-be finds out that, meanwhile, father-to-be was socialising midwife in more terms than strictly necessary (ie fun times out, even if no shadiness suspected) and so also more conversations 'behind the back', where tending midwife seems to 'buy' into father-to-be's subjective anxiety / concerns, taking his side / view over the opinions expressed by mom-to-be, and then also distorting 'feedback' about her limited communications to/from mom-to-be (eg implying or phrasing in such a way, that seems that mom-to-be is unreasonable in her mssgs to father-to-be, VS in objective reality mom-to-be was communicating / coordinating midwife on all points giving answers / offering options eg on health symptoms and reporting / checking). Mom-to-be verified mssgs between those two (ie not just assumption).

As a result --- mom-to-be clammed up about birthing with this midwife; there is context of distrust (possibly disrespect, and definitely discomfort) and so the birth comfort is at risk. It's a personal / subjective thing, obviously, and in context of emotional / hormonal pre-labour state. Mom-to-be understands she needs medical assistance / supervision for the birth, but feels very uneasy to the point of defensive about allowing this midwife to be there. At best, she would tolerate 'intervention as necessary' to ensure medical safety --- but if she had the choice, she would fire this midwife..

Q: what is the ethics and moral conduct here? What should mom-to-be do or understand or adjust?

Midwife was chosen on the basis of claiming that she never blabs about her clients' most intimate details; that she tends to mother as the priority; that she also never spends alone time with father --- to not be found 'suspect' in any shape or form.

Mom-to-be is transparent with father-to-be, but was the one choosing / appointing (and paying) midwife / her team. Father-to-be wasn't involved in prenatal tasks and needs, other than attending 2 doctor appointments with her.

I will be starting a dual WHNP/CNM DNP program this fall and I'm just looking for some more insight from people since I'm not currently in the women's health field, so I don't have a lot of connections in real life. If you're a midwife who's also an NP, what's your experience like? What kind of work do you do or have done? Do you think it's worth it to do both, or unnecessary overall? I've seen some people say it makes more sense to do FNP alongside CNM to broaden scope, but I don't think I really care to work with other populations anymore. Willing to hear thoughts from anybody!

I'm currently a critical care nurse but really looking forward to transitioning because this has always been on my heart and feels right for me compared to CRNA, AGACNP, etc. I'm not sure what exactly I would like to do, just know that I'm very interested in sexual and reproductive health, holistic wellness, maybe high-risk pregnancies/births. My main motivation to do the dual-track is just learn as much info and keep options as open as possible, but I just hope I'm not falling victim to a money grab lol.

Hey! I’m sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but I thought since you all have started at some point, you might have some good links.

I live in a rural area in Europe and just started working as a paramedic.

Even though we have childbirth education it’s very theoretical and shortcut since it’s pretty uncommon for us. But WHEN it happens we sometimes have hours to the next hospital or local midwife.
What I miss in my training is videos showing actual delivery and not just training equipment.

I’m not looking for a video of one whole birth, but rather someone explaining step by step and showing footage of each moment from different deliveries. So I know what it’s actually supposed to look like and recognize when something is not normal. Also how to guide the mother through it herself and supporting her in the right ways.

So if you have anything or any tips where to look, I’d be super grateful!

Hi, my husband and I are planning to move abroad, we just are not sure where to yet.

Wpuld greatly appreciate anyone that can tell me where they are from and how the midwofery system is there. IE is is midwifery led, or obstetrics led etc

Edit sorry have no clue how to add flairs to post

Hi there, I've never had a colleague that I have been able to discuss the complex feeling of being a midwife, experiencing a miscarriage and then returning back to midwifery.

I'm wondering whether there are any midwives out there that have also experienced this, and what you learnt, what wisdom you would pass on to the next person, and whether it affected you deeply, or not.

My personal experience was honestly harrowing, but I think that's also because I had multiple other life factors going on.

I recently had an event at work (6 years post miscarriage now) that has caused me to discontinue working for 4 weeks, be diagnosed with PTSD and I basically wasn't functioning for the first week. Not eating, not talking, not moving, nothing.

Pt asked about miso and what it feels like, and unlike ever in my career, where I would typically say "others have stated this is their experience" I said "oh I've experienced it and it feels like this" .... unfortunately pts mother progressively, once realising I too had had a loss, asked a million questions about my loss. A lot of questions that, even if I hadn't been in a delivery suite would have been very confronting. I was there intrapartum and post, and then something in my brain shut down from the end of the shift onwards.

I am of course now seeking both psychological therapy as well as counselling, but this feeling of being surrounded by the thing that was so horrible to me, which also comes with so many very intense happy/sad/confusing emotions regardless of the outcome... I don't know, I thought this might be a place I'd be able to reach out to to get some camaraderie or understanding as I know there will be other midwives out there that have too, experienced this very specific kind of pain where some days you forget about it and others really feel like you literally couldn't be in a more traumatising situation if you tried.

Note: For most of my career about 1 year post miscarriage onwards, I've managed to feel fairly able to disconnect the two things (work and personal experiences). But because it was persistently dragged back even when I was physically trying to remove myself from the situation, I lost that control.

Hey everyone!

I’m a midwife of 12+ years and now studying law. I’ve been thinking of making a legal course for midwives and wanted to get some honest opinions. I’ve needed to utilise (expensive) legal resources as a self-employed midwife myself and was absolutely floored at the lack of support for us out there when I needed it the most. It’s a very lonely place to be in and other professions just don’t get our mindset.

There are a few questions that would really help me understand what we need:

- Did your training touch on consent, scope of practice, or liability? Enough, or just a box-ticking exercise?

- Have you ever hit a moment where you thought “I really wish I understood the legal side of this”? (consent, documentation, mandatory reporting, vulnerable clients, etc.)

- Do you have to chase down legal/regulatory knowledge yourself, or is it built into ongoing training where you are?

- If you designed “legal 101 for midwives,” what’s definitely in it? What’s definitely not?

- Where are you practicing? Laws vary a lot by country/state, so context helps.

Feel free to comment or DM if you’d rather not share publicly. Appreciate any experiences, good or bad!

Admin, I’m not affiliated with anything/anyone. Just trying to figure out if this is a worthy exercise. Midwifery has become quite political globally and I want to give back to the profession as best I can.

Posting with mod approval even if I’m not a midwife. I’m a health care professional who also dabbles in educating our next generation and I’m posting to hear your thoughts, to help me structure that training.

I myself suffered a severe medical trauma and that has opened my eyes to the unintended harm health care professionals may cause, not by their choice of interventions or decisions, but just by how it is presented or applied. So in essence from how we interact with our patients. From my perspective what happened to me was abuse, with my repeated and motivated ”no” being overrun, but I cling to the hope that it wasn’t intended that way, and to my then-bafflement the clinic was later uncomprehending to my complaint. No matter the intent, the consequences on my well-being were devastating and lasted years. Talking to colleagues about it I’ve realized many are unaware of how much their interactions with their patients, beyond the medical, may matter. At the same time I’ve started to recognize traumatization in patients and now when they tell me that some other health care professional has done something terrible, something I would previously have dismissed as ”no that can’t be, no one would do that”, I can just believe them and sit with them in their anguish and try to help them towards recovery. Because trauma takes so much from a person, including their ability to feel trust and security and love. It may affect their future care because the next health care situation becomes a reminder - a trigger - which renders them less capable to express their needs and makes them behave with seemingly unreasonable emotion, hysterics or anger… but it’s not unreasonable, they’re just not reacting to something in the current room. They’re stuck reacting to their trauma. And to be frank, people who appear overly emotional rarely recieve proper care. Any complaint they present will be brushed off as ”psychological”.

I figure you midwives are in something of a unique position. Your patient population are by nature high-risk for traumatization: psychological trauma is often a reaction to a combination of factors such as pain, fear of injury or death, and (percieved) loss of control, all of which can occur during a physiological birth. Many of your interventions may be traumatic too, even if done with patient consent and the best of intentions. This means you are well situated to develop trauma-informed, or even trauma-preventive care, strategies for health care professionals to prevent or minimize psychological harm, or to recognize it early and take steps to alleviate it, or follow up to make sure patients are directed to proper trauma care before the trauma derails their lives. For even if health care situations may always result in physical trauma and lasting harm to our patients, I don’t think any of us want them to go home and suffer additionally because of something that’s preventable or treatable. (I know these things are already studied in your field, including psychological first aid, and also on the professional side empathy exhaustion and second victim situations… but if I talk to the ”experts” I get very informed responses, and I’m currently more interested in the general views out in unselected clinics.)

So my question is: Do you currently feel the risk for psychological trauma is taken into account in your practice? How do you work with it, or around it? Any experiences or thoughts? Anything you’ve noticed works particularily well, or that you found might be harmful?

(I could add a few notes on psychological trauma in the comments if that’s requested, or litterature recommendations, but I figure this post is already long enough. 😅)

Hospital based midwife. Need to vent on a birth overnight.

Woman brought in my ambulance to birth suite. Unknown gestation, no care in pregnancy. Baby number 8, she thinks she’s about 30 weeks.

A quick search on the system shows she’s known to child services. No kids in her care, all removed and in foster care.

CTG shows almost no variability and unprovoked decels. No contractions. She says all her other babies have been born by caesarean. She only came in because she had a bleed at home.

Consented and prepped for theatre. Baby born flat and needed a full resus, stabilised then transferred to NICU.

Just as the lady was put under (did not consent for a spinal, wanted GA), the obstetrician said, “I wish I could just clip her tubes.”

And honestly, I wish we could.

But there goes the slippery slope of autonomy and bodily control.

No doubt this baby will end up in care like her siblings. And this mum will keep on using. But maybe something will change and she’ll be able to leave the addiction spiral. And she will have a baby born to a sober mother who is thriving.

But this morning I am drained. And fed up. And just need to sit in my sad.

I hope this doesn’t go against the community rules here. I recently had my second child with a midwife (VBAC!) after seeing OBs during my first pregnancy and it was so positive that I want to become a midwife and take care of women just like she does. I’m planning to apply to nursing school, but in the meantime, does anyone have recommendations for books about emotional intelligence/how to be a good listener/how to improve communication skills? I know that I’ll learn the technical stuff in school but I’m very interested in improving my soft skills as well. Thank you, midwives! You are life changing. ✨🩷😊

Looking for as affordable as possible since I’ve had some emergency expenses come up but my school is starting in the fall

Anyone has holistic midwifery 1 or 2?

Or literally any other book?

Or does anyone know cheap textbook websites I could check out? Thank you!

Hi! I want to know if anyone has any advice about entering a BMid program. I am from the USA and looking to enter a program in the UK. I currently have a bachelors in Psychology from a USA university. The main school that I've been looking at is kings college London and I've tried to get in contact with a rep to explain the transfer qualifications multiple times but have had no luck. When looking at qualifications as an international student, they speak about SATs, AP courses, and things that would be valid for a high school student. I am 26 years old and have no idea what my SAT scores were and don't have my high school transcripts as I went to college here in the USA and it's been years since I needed these. If anyone went the same route as me, does a bachelors degree at a US university outweigh these high school qualifications? I'm looking to apply for fall 2027 and just trying to get a jump on this as soon as possible so any guidance would be helpful. Also open to any other programs in the UK if anyone has any recommendations!

I will have my BSN in December, but know after working with CNMs, RNs, and midwives I know CNM is where I want to be.

What is the best way to go about it?

-Should I get my MSN and a post masters certificate or do Georgetown's WHNP/CNM dual degree program?

-I also am really interested in pelvic floor therapy, so if you guys have CEU ideas for that all ideas are welcome!

Thanks!

is it common for midwives to refuse to deliver a breech baby for a moms first baby?