A Brief Introduction to Midwifery

The term “midwife” literally means “with woman.” Although nurse-midwives are best known
for their work during pregnancy and specifically labor and delivery, nurse midwives care for
women’s health in a comprehensive way. Certified nurse midwives (CNM) are advanced
practice nurses specializing in prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care,
gynecology, well women’s health care, and family planning. They work anywhere other
advanced practitioners do: in the hospital, at the clinic, and at home.

In the past, many people thought of midwives as only assisting women in home births,
water births, and labor without anesthesia. Although some women may choose to deliver
their babies in this way, midwives actually oversee all types of births, including those that
are more conventional in the hospital. Nurse midwives have the credentials and authority to
empower patients, so the kind of care given is according to their preferences and in their
best interest.

Despite common misunderstandings, nurse midwives are qualified to care for women during
various stages of life. Furthermore, as prescribers and independent providers, they are able
to manage all types of pregnancies, whether straightforward or complicated. Like other
advanced practice nurses, many midwives have years of experiences as registered nurses
in labor and delivery and other areas of women’s health. Many contend that the unique
experience of working as a registered nurse before advancing is what sets nurse
practitioners, including midwives, apart from their physician counterparts.

Within midwifery, there are stratified scopes of practice and levels of education; this is both
location and training-dependent. Just like other advanced practice nurses, midwives work
with varying degrees of independence from physician oversight in an ever-changing climate
of advanced practice patient care. The majority of midwives hold a master’s or doctorate
nursing degree (CNM); there are also certified midwives (CM) who have passed their
advanced practice boards while maintaining a bachelor-level degree of education. For those
who don’t have a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree can qualify to be a certified
professional midwife (CPM). They are either trained through apprenticeship and/or formal
education, and their scope of practice is narrower than CNMs.

As standards of health care providers evolve, the accreditation process for nurse midwives
has increasing standards. The good news is that nurse midwives are learning through
rigorous training and experience to provide high-quality patient care independently. Nurse
midwives are more than the overseers of alternative birthing methods. They are fully
licensed and independent women’s health providers.