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Become a Midwife

You’ve chosen a fabulous profession! As a midwife, you will have the opportunity to provide health care services to women throughout their lives— care that keeps women well and helps them to take charge of their own health care needs. Midwifery is a profession that educates, advocates for, and empowers women. Midwives also provide primary health care to women before, during, and after pregnancy and to newborns in their first month of life.

What to know before you go. Whatever your academic or professional background, there is an educational path available to you to reach your goal of becoming a midwife. You need to begin with a firm grounding in the sciences, including biology, microbiology, chemistry, and human anatomy and physiology. You also need to take courses in

the social sciences, such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and lifespan development. Courses in the humanities are also helpful, for example, English, women’s studies, and a foreign language.

A midwifery degree is a graduate degree, and many people who become midwives first get their undergraduate degree in nursing. A bachelor’s degree in nursing sets you up for a smooth transition into a graduate midwifery program. In fact, most midwifery programs are in schools of nursing, and some programs require applicants to be registered nurses (RNs) prior to entry.

Choose your professional path. The majority of midwives practicing in the U.S. today are certified nurse-midwives (CNMs). CNMs are legally recognized and can practice in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The skills, knowledge, and expertise acquired in a professional nursing degree provide a solid foundation for a career in nurse-midwifery. Upon graduation from an accredited midwifery program, nurse-midwives are eligible to take the national certifying exam, administered by the American Midwifery Certification Board (AMCB).
However, it is completely possible to enter a midwifery program without first being a nurse. Many midwifery programs accept non-nurses and provide a basic nursing education prior to midwifery training, enabling graduates to sit for the AMCB exam. It is also possible to bypass nursing entirely by attending an accredited education program for Certified Midwives (CMs). Graduates are eligible to take the same certification exam that nurse-midwifery graduates take. CMs are legally recognized in three states: New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

A career in midwifery. There are a variety of career options for CNMs from clinical practice, education, administration or research to involvement in policy and legislative affairs. A career as a CNM offers many roads to personal accomplishment and professional recognition. For example:

• You can provide primary healthcare to women for comprehensive gynecologic and maternity care.
• You can use your knowledge and skill to help women to realize personal fulfillment with their labor and birth. Also, through the art of midwifery you reduce the need for high-tech interventions for most women. But, when necessary, you are trained to make the latest in safe scientific procedures available to assist a normal birth process.
• You can share your professional healthcare abilities by teaching at a university in schools of nursing, public health, medicine, and allied health.
• You can conduct clinical research on such key topics as the safety, health benefits and cost-effectiveness of non-medical and medical interventions; maternal and infant healthcare; HIV/AIDS; new contraceptive methods; breast-feeding; and gynecological care.
• You will have the authority in most states to write prescriptions for many of the medications and health care products needed in your practice.
• You can become active in local and national legislative affairs and be a policy maker for health care reform.
• You can empower women to take more active roles in making decisions about their healthcare and lifestyle habits.
• You can play a key role in reducing the maternal and infant death rate both in this country and around the world.
• You can use your business and administrative skills in directing a nurse-midwifery practice in a community, birth center or hospital.
• You will have the opportunity to work in collegial relationships with physicians, nursing specialists, and other healthcare professionals.

As a CNM, you can choose any one or a combination of these career paths to design a career that is optimal for you. For more information on how to become a midwife, please visit the Become a Midwife section of ACNM's web site.