Midwives have become a long time profession in the history of medical care. Many are interested in this medical profession and how to become one. By becoming one, it takes a sense of responsibility, compassion, training/education and qualifications. For those who are interested to become a midwife, here useful information about the profession.
Midwife as a profession may sound limited only to women, but in reality, it can be done both by women as well as men. Its job requires providing prenatal care to expecting mothers and most significantly, attending to the delivery of the baby.
Moreover, a midwife gives postpartum care to mothers and their infants, which include assisting them in proper breastfeeding. They are trained not to intervene in the process unless vital, and if they find any problem that is beyond their area of expertise, they must refer women to obstetricians. However, minor problems can be handled by a midwife.
What are the things to do to become a certified midwife??
First, it is important to note what are the qualifications required in your state for becoming a midwife. The fact is, not all states give license to midwives. At the same time, some states only allow midwives to practice under the supervision of a certified nurse midwife or an obstetrician. What is certified nurse midwife? She/he is a registered nurse who is trained for supervising births.
North American Registry of Midwives ( NARM) is required in many states for licensing midwives. Mostly these are licensed for out of hospital births. Whatever it is, to avoid any problems in the future, it is always better to check the requirements and enroll in a certified course.
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It is significant to know that apprenticeship or rather training is crucial in such a profession, as what you learn theoretically has to be implemented to practice. The basic thing is experience-to get your hands on training with experienced midwives. To get the NARM certification, one has to attend at least 20 deliveries as an active participant; 10 of them should be within 3 years of application for certification. Then one must to attend to twenty (20) births as a primary midwife under supervision. Amongst those twenty (20), ten (10) must be outside a hospital and three (3) of them must be for women for whom you have done 4 prenatal visits, a postpartum exam and a newborn exam.
Moreover, one must also appear and perform 75 prenatal exams, which include 20 initial exams, as primary midwife under supervision. Then one needs to have done 20 newborn exams and finally, 40 postpartum exams.
Yes, this can be quite tedious but if someone is really passionate about any profession, this would not be a problem.
