Job profile: Midwife

The Job and What it Involves
Many midwifes see their work as a ‘privilege’ rather than a job.

Their role in helping to bring a new life into the world and preparing women for the biggest day of their lives means that many see their job as a ‘calling’ rather than a career.

But while the job comes with an abundance of work satisfaction, it is also highly demanding and carries lots of responsibility.

Midwives are increasingly working in the community, providing services in women’s homes, local clinics, children’s centres and GP surgeries. They is also the option to be hospital based where there are plenty of opportunities for midwives to work on antenatal, labour and postnatal wards and neonatal units.

As a midwife you will come into contact with lots of new people every day offering them reassurance and professional support and preparing them for parenthood.
It is a unique and satisfying career within the NHS and will be highly rewarding the majority of the time to see how mother and baby bond through the early stages.

The Main Areas of Work
Midwives can work in the community, in hospitals or both. Their job is not simply to deliver babies, but also to be involved in antenatal and postnatal care, counselling, offering support and education, and helping mothers and their partners get ready for parenthood.

Midwifery qualifications can open the door to a whole host of fascinating career options.

With plenty of experience under your belt, you could take on more senior practitioner roles. Becoming a team or unit manager, you could combine responsibility for managing other staff with ongoing hands-on involvement with clients.

Your career could move through different elements of research, teaching, practice development and management — including management at board level within an NHS Trust, influencing the shape of healthcare across a whole community.
Other areas include neonatal nursing or health visiting. Neonatal nurses have a clinical focus on the treatment and care of women and babies with health complications around birth: for example, helping premature babies to get through the critical first few days after they are born.

Health visitors work with families at home and in the community, promoting good health with particular attention on young children. In effect, they take over where the community midwife’s role ends, and have a wider concern with the circumstances in which a young child is growing up.

Qualities Required
As a midwife you are often the first point of contact for a  huge diversity of women, going through one of the most emotionally charged experience of their lives, so excellent people skills are key.

You need to be a good listener and have the compassion to reassure expectant women and their families. You will also need the ability to keep calm under pressure. On the rare occasions where something goes wrong, you have to be ready to react quickly and effectively.

You will also need to be a good team player. As a midwife you will be part of a multi-disciplinary team liaising with GPs, health visitors and social workers. You will also work alongside the parents and baby. The better your communication skills, the more smoothly the birth is likely to go.

Qualifications
Midwives must hold a “pre-registration” qualification in midwifery at degree level, which allows them to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). You can enter the NHS at various levels, and be assured of practical, and possibly financial, support as you progress.

There are no national minimum entry requirements as each higher education institution (HEI) sets its own criteria. However, these are generally around 5 GCSEs plus 2 A-levels or equivalent for a degree programme. All applicants must be able to demonstrate evidence of literacy, numeracy and good character.

The NHS and education sector encourages applications from people with a wide range of academic and vocational qualifications. It is essential that applicants check with each HEI directly before applying to see if their qualifications meet their required entry standard.

Some people apply for a place on a full-time pre-registration course after gaining good grades at A level (or equivalent) at school or college.

Others may not possess A levels but will have relevant work experience – such as time spent as healthcare assistants or associate practitioners – and are able to show evidence of academic ability, which can be enough to meet a university’s requirements.

Qualified nurses can take a shortened pre-registration course in midwifery; the course lasts for 18 months.

Midwifery training involves a mixture of modules of academic study and placements in hospitals and the community, where you will begin to work under the supervision of qualified health professionals.

Once qualified, midwives are responsible for keeping their knowledge up to date, and have to keep the governing body, the NMC, informed of their progress, so that they can remain on the professional register. If you decide to take an extended career break it is important the registration is not allowed to lapse otherwise you would not be able to practice.

Route to success
Becoming a midwife means undertaking professional education at degree level. Some midwives are qualified nurses who have chosen to change career direction and undertake the extra study necessary to be registered as a midwife. Others begin their career by working their way up via a range of roles (for example from support roles, which require no set qualifications) before going on to study for a registered midwifery degree. Some begin their midwifery career after a first career in an unrelated field.

Salary
Midwives start from £17, 105 up to £146, 675 for the experienced consultants depending on experience and length of service.
Midwives are expected to work a week of 37.5 hours a week but the shifts will vary between day and night and you must be available on bank holidays. You could also work in hospitals, GP surgeries, clinics and patient houses.

Star player
Nikki Wales is an iconic woman as she has successfully delivered more than 1,000 babies, she describes the experience as “one of the most magical things”.
Wales worries there will eventually be a shortage of midwives and with an ever increasing number of babies being born each year the NHS have become very flexible with how to qualify, in the hope of attracting more people.
Being a midwife is a female dominated profession and Wales believes the feeling of excitement has never worn off in all the babies she has delivered.
She works with the families in support of them giving them care and advice. When she first qualified as a midwife she realized it was her niche and has never looked back from converting from a nurse, she has loved the entire experience and helped over 1, 000 women by making their labour as relaxed as possible.

USEFUL LINKS
Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association
www.amicus-cphva.org
A professional organisation for health visitors, school nurses, mental health nurses, nursery nurses and other community nurses working in primary care.

National Library for Health
www.library.nhs.uk

Local Supervisory Authorities Midwifery Officers

www.nmc-uk.orgVisit the NMC website for details of LSA Midwifery Officers.
NHS Professionals
www.nhsprofessionals.nhs.uk
Works in partnership with NHS Trusts to provide temporary staff to Acute, Primary Care and Mental Health organisations across England.

Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)
The governing body for nurses and midwives. Their website contains information for registered midwives in the UK.

www.nmc-uk.org
23 Portland Place, London, W1B 1PZ.
Tel: 020 7637 7181
Email: update@nmc.org.uk

The Royal College of Midwives
www.rcm.org.uk
Professional organisation and trade union for midwives.

UCAS
www.ucas.ac.uk
For information on university applications and entry.

Tags: job profile, maternity, midwife, Nursing, Women in Medicine

Posted by Gaynor Pengelly on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 1:32 pm.

Filed under Students, Tagged as: , job profile, maternity, midwife, Nursing, Women in Medicine.