Certified Nurse Midwife Training: A Look at Training Requirements

The term midwife makes one think of women having a baby on their floor, but in fact there is a midwife certification enabling midwives to give alternatives for their patients’ childbirth experience together with a number of career choices for nurse midwives. Midwife career choices include:

Healthcare team practice. Nursing care associated with hospitals. Birthing centers. Health department-based nursing.

First, let's analyze the education required for becoming a certified nurse midwife. The training program you'll need for the nurse midwife is challenging; as it's a master nursing role, this shouldn't come as a surprise. The midwife program can be quite challenging; thus, it is advisable to pick the best program that will fit your location, personality, schedule and learning style.

While training to become a midwife, there are a lot of the same prerequisites as other master degree level nursing disciplines. Having said that, the midwife training program focuses on the nursing practice for the care of women including labor and birth, prenatal and postnatal nursing. But additionally, training in the lifespan of women’s health is required as well as pharmacology.

The days of the typical midwife will be diverse; one never knows what you will find yourself doing, like gynecological exams, writing a prescription, delivering a baby, or even executing an episiotomy.

There are a lot of programs that are available, such as internet based study, and also degree programs that allow students that have a bachelor's degree in something other than nursing. In such programs, you have rigorous prerequisites you need to get a firm foundation in-usually science and math.

Some educational institutions will require up to 1 year of experience in a delivery and labor setting. A midway stage you might like to take a look at is training as a doula. Doulas are qualified to guide soon to be mothers through the process of giving birth without pain medications. A doula goes to labors as well as deliveries however does not perform any functions except inspiration. If you're considering being a midwife, the doula path may be a year well spent allowing you to be sure that this is what you want to do.

The amount of energy required to be a midwife is extreme, considering that babies arrive at all hours. The individual will also have an in depth practicum prior to finishing a degree in this field. This practicum requires the presence of the prospective student to at least 40 births, as well as the prenatal appointments tied to these births.

Additional gynecologic visits, as well as peri/post-menopausal treatment is also a requirement of the practicum. Gaining all these skills under supervision normally requires as long as two years.

The American Midwifery Certification Board determines the guidelines for certification and requires recertification every five-years, requiring proof of continuing education credit. These tests are given at testing centers across the United States and it is a computer based test. Even though you can take the examination again, you would want to make sure you are all set to pass the test on the very first try as it costs $500 to take the test.

All masters-level nursing programs are arduous, although the midwife training program demands the greatest number of nursing skills, given that the midwife treats patients from birth to death and is frequently needed to perform surgical procedures on a basic level. Deciding on midwifery as a nursing occupation brings with it both fiscal as well as spiritual advantages far beyond other nursing choices.