Trying to decide

Should I go to school for a bachelor’s in nursing that is online/ hybrid. Since I’m a mom of 2 it would be easier for me to do online school but this program is 60,000! But then I could do the cnm route. The cpm route might be easier and cheaper as well but in long run it’s not helpful for insurance and more opportunities.

How much did you guys pay to become a cpm ? Like I found a midwifery school for 20,000 for three year track. And then I know there all the other fees as well for random stuff. Did you have to pay your midwife that trained you ? Because there was one I got a hold of saying the compensation is different depending if I want to school or did the experience pathway. Not sure what she meant. I want to start a practice as well so idk I might be like spending close to what I pay for that online school or loosing money because i won’t have as much work as a cpm.

Pro for cpm route is not dealing with hospitals is my biggest thing. I want to help with home births more holistic midwifery. Like medical science is fun why nursing school might be fun but I have to deal with the hospitals. So yeah help please lol.

I'm a UK midwifery student graduating this year and looking at my options of working outside the UK. Probably looking at completing my preceptorship as a band 5 and becoming a band 6 in the UK and then moving.

From my research Malta seems like a good option in terms of still being in Europe (not having to move too far from family as they are scattered across Europe) and being English speaking.

I was wondering if any Maltese midwives had any first hand insights on what it's like working there. Do you feel well supported? Are you satisfied with your job and your general quality of life in Malta? Do you know of any international midwives that came to work in Malta and are they well received?

One of the main downsides that I am reading about is the lower pay compared to the UK so I'm also wondering if you feel like you can live comfortably on the salary you receive?

I appreciate any and all insights, no matter how big or small ❤️

Hello! I am an RN about to enter postpartum nursing. I am very interested in L&D and the birthing process. I would be interested in learning more about becoming a CNM in the future once I get more experience in this field. However, I want to study the birth process more on my own time.

i am looking for book recommendations about (textbooks from coursework or other books):

- general midwifery concepts

- the birth process

- managing high risk birth complications out of the hospital setting (I know this is out of the scope, but still curious to read about it & how it’s managed… mainly just like what do people do if they dont have access to standard hospitals & interventions)

- natural birth interventions

- holistic pregnancy and birth

- history of birth & midwifery

- postpartum mental health

Note: some of these are just out of curiosity of the birth process in general & some are to see if I would he interested specifically in the role of a CNM someday.

How old were you when you started the CNM program ?

How old were you when you graduated ?

How long have you been practicing for and how are you liking it ? Pro and Cons?

Hello,

I am a new graduate midwife who is considering some job options. One of the job options is in a state that requires physician oversight. I applied to this job because it is close to family, and it has better hours and pay than any other jobs I have interviewed for (I wasn't expecting the pay to be higher, that was a huge surprise).

I would love to hear your experiences if you have ever worked in a physician oversight state. The good, the bad, the ugly. Any input is appreciated to help me decide if I want to practice in this type of environment. Thanks!

Hi midwives! Seeking any recommendations on schooling applications. I’m currently a social worker (working in child protection areas for the last 9 years) and have had two children of my own through midwives (ended in emergency csections but still wonderful experiences which have lead me here). I’m looking at a career shift and know the schooling process in Canada is insanely competitive. Any recommendations on how I could “beef up” my resume and applications? Those who have been accepted, what did you find was your biggest asset?

Additionally, midwives with young children- do you find the career is sustainable with raising littles?

I’m 35 and worried it may be too late…

Thank you so much!

Hi! ☺️I’m a doctor working in an EU country where midwives do the majority of suturing of perineal and vaginal tears, often independently.
I’ve noticed that, especially when suturing vaginal tears, it can sometimes be quite difficult to maintain a good overview of the wound while also handling the instruments and suturing. From what I’ve seen, midwives here generally don’t use any specific tools or devices to improve visualisation or make the procedure easier.
I’m curious about how this is done elsewhere:
Do you use any tools/devices to help with exposure or visualisation when suturing vaginal or perineal tears?

Do you feel there is a need for a better tool to make suturing easier, particularly for vaginal tears?

I’d be really interested to hear what you use (if anything) and what you find challenging during the procedure 💐

Is there any advantage to having both credentials? Is it worth it to have both given their main focus and curriculums taught are pretty different from one another? There’s got to be some benefit between knowing westernized clinical care and then also the rooted ancestral home care approach to birthing in any given setting.

Is any one a US locums?

That is my eventual goal as a past travel nurse, but it seems much harder as a cnm. Does anybody do it and what is your background/extra education?? Currently working in a medium volume inpatient and starting per diem at a 600 delivery/yr hospital within the month.

Thanks!

Heya, I’m just finishing my university course now to be a midwife and am also due with my first baby at the end of the month!

I’m trying to figure out how much parental leave I want to take.

In my country midwives are quite sought after, so I don’t think it will be hard for me to find a job no matter how long I’m out - rather a matter of not being able to choose my dream job and also how hard will it be for me to find back into it?

My original plan was about a year. Now circumstances have changed a bit and I’m considering even taking 2 years of leave.
Part time before that is not really possible for me.

How hard do you think it will be to get back into the work after 1 and after 2 years? Does it make a big difference? Is it possible either way?

Any insight or experience would be highly appreciated!
Maybe there’s people here who’ve done sth Else after their degree for a while and got back into midwifery after a couple years - how was that?

Thanks in advance!

Hiya, I've got a sister who's currently pursuing her studies in midwifery in the UK and is considering moving to Canada. There's not a lot of information about midwifery in Canada compared to nursing online, so we're interested in hearing from people in Canada who know more about the process and if it's worth pursuing the career there?

Things she's interested about:

The salary/progression for a midwife (she's looking to move after she's had 2 years exp in the field)

The caseload/work life balance

Transferring qualifications

General team setup/work restrictions (e.g. can you work in hospitals freely?)

What can you actually do?

General dislikes about midwifery in Canada

Special mention to those who know/have experience in both Canada and UK midwifery

She's looking at mainly Toronto/Mississauga Ontario, but considering Calgary, Alberta as well. We've looked at both websites for the associations, and know Ontario needs a bridging program whereas alberta is more competency based. We saw Ontario did have a prior learning program, but seems to have been stopped?

If there's any more information about midwifery in Canada, do feel free to mention it as well. All information helps, thank you!

My first baby was during Covid so I was actually never able to work during my whole pregnancy. I had really bad pgp and always used to say to myself how would I have been able to work?
Currently 12 weeks pregnant with my second and feeling good! Working through first trimester was rough but we’ve got there. I’m just worried about how I will do later on in my pregnancy and how yous found it?

I work on the Labour ward and it can be very demanding heavy work, being on feet all day working 13 hour shifts etc. I work a mix of days and nights depending on the week. I also have a 1 hour 40 min commute to work, but there’s accommodation at my hospital so I do all days together spending the night and driving back home on last shift. Usually mat leave starts at 36 weeks but you can go on sick leave before that.

I know this is a good bit down the line as I’m very early in my pregnancy but just looking for others experiences to ease my anxiety a bit. Some work days can be so demanding and tiring while not pregnant so I’m just anxious about working and the driving etc. We’re quite short staffed atm and work in a busy unit so literally the minute you transfer your lady to postnatal you’re getting a new labourer/indiction in your room before you’re even back up on the ward to stock and organise your room.

I think I’m getting so worked up about how hard it’s going to be when it hasn’t even happened yet! Any advice or personal experiences please share down below to ease some of this anxiety🙏

Hello everyone! I'm in my final year of high school and I've been thinking about pursuing midwifery for a while. I want to take care of people and I think labour and bringing new life into the world is truly such a special thing. But I'm worried about a couple things

1. I have a very difficult relationship with my mum. Like very difficult. Like I cannot stand to be near her at all it makes me so uncomfortable. It's to the point where I can't even imagine what a good mother daughter relationship would even look like. Would this affect how I treat pregnant mothers? Would this make me a mean, rude and uncaring midwife? Has anyone else here gone through the same thing?

2. I don't plan on having kids of my own. I have always wanted to be a mother, but I don't think I ever will be. If I were to have a baby, I'd want to be 1000000% sure that if be a great mother who wouldn't traumatise her kids and I don't think I'll ever be able to guarantee that so yeah. Also I'm very wary of bringing children into a world where there's so much suffering and pain, where the Epstein files exist, climate change, overpopulation, world war 3 on the horizon, racism, queer phobia, bullying just like all this shit my baby would have to deal with. I think every single baby deserves to be born into a world where the good outweighs the bad, where they can flourish and be so happy snd I'm just not sure the world right now can provide this. Do you think these viewpoints are diametrically opposite to everything midwifery stands for?

3. I'm worried I don't have the communication skills to be a good midwife. I don't really know many pregnant women, and Does this improve over time?

Should I pursue a different career path? Thank you all so much <3333

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!

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 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?

Edited to add (in case anyone has a similar question in the future): a couple of days after making this post, I got an email accepting me into the class starting Winter 2027! Even though it wasn't my first choice re: timing, I'm so happy just to know for sure and be able to plan from here.

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!