What is a Midwife and Midwifery?
The term ‘midwife’ means ‘with woman’. As a midwife, you will be helping women and their families at one of the most crucial times of their lives, supporting the woman during pregnancy, childbirth and the post-natal period. Midwives play a vital role in promoting and maintaining health, facilitating normal childbirth and helping women make informed choices about their care. The midwife is the key professional providing continuity of care and promoting choice and control to women in pregnancy and birth, and to women and their babies following birth. The core concepts of the midwifery profession are of:
- Normality: Childbirth is viewed as a normal event in the life cycle, a normal healthy event.
- Woman-centred: The focus of midwifery practice is pregnant women and their families and delivering care in woman-centred maternity services.
- Respect: Midwifery care is delivered in a manner that respects the uniqueness and dignity of each person, regardless of culture or religion.
- Partnership: Partnerships between the woman and the midwife is fundamental to midwifery practice. It is based on mutual trust, support and collaboration, which facilitates informed choice and decision-making and the empowerment of both the woman and the midwife.
- Client first: Decisions about an individual midwife’s scope of practice should always be made with the woman’s and her family’s best interests foremost and in the interest of promoting and maintaining best quality maternity services for women and their families.
- Evidence based: Midwifery practice is based on the best available evidence.
- Advocacy: Midwifery practice involves advocacy for the individual woman and her family.