To want to become a midwife?

[CoralRose]

I'm 28. I have three DC 5 and under. My husband is self employed and works long hours to make ends meet.

I have no qualifications (except GCSE's) and would need to be in full time education for at least 4 years (I think) before I could start work.

It will cost us a fortune and I will see little return (in terms if money).

It will be tough, and I won't get to be Sahm to the 3 dc anymore.

AIBU, should I forget it and get a part time retail job when the DC are all at school?

Wondering actually, as you've all been so marvellous so far, if anyone can give me any pointers for racking up a bit of related work experience. What should I do, and how do I do it?!

I thought about re-training to be a mw about 6 months ago. I have 3 dc and i decided that the shift work, combined with lack of family support for childcare and the years when dc will need me after school (live very rural area) meant that i felt it wasnt the choice for me. After reading some of the other comments, there were lots of other things i didnt consider. Some good insights here.

Good luck! Midwifery is great- but it's demanding and hard- physically, mentally and socially!!!. Personally I don't know if I'd want to start it with small children- have you considered a doula practice first? I admit I don't know anything about setting it up or getting educated or costs and time involved. You could (If its feasible) do that first and if you are interested in education do some childbirth education courses and/or lactation studies. If you're interested in alternative therapies some basics in reiki, homeopathy, reflexology will also stand you in good stead, as a midwife. Doing yoga/meditation (for yourself) will also teach you breathing/relaxation skills you can then, subtly, pass onto your women. All of that would enhance your midwifery, as once you finish your course your real education starts- you basically do the degree to be a safe, beginning practioner. That said I trained elsewhere so I don't know a lot about becoming an English midwife apart from the fact they make it bloody hard to transfer your registration from another country which is why I have chosen not to :-((. Well that, and the fact I have small children and no family or childcare, and I'm not here forever.

I'm not a midwife but I do work in the NHS (for the past 23 years)

It's getting harder, not easier.
Far more paperwork, and when we go onto Computer Records that will have me tearing my hair out.
Continual Professional Development- which I agree with wholely, but finding the courses ,the money and the time to do them, or the travelling to London.
Patients are more high risk. And they complain about things outside my control. (At least they aren't screaming and demanding epidurals though- silver lining)
I work normal 9-5 hours, thankfully no night shifts. But I am working round patients. If a patient is late, it throws my schedule out. A patient takes longer to get ready (I have 20 minutes per patient) Phoning to make appointments.
I can't just go off for lunch at 12.30.I'll be writing up notes. Tea-break? Unheard of.

TBH< I wish I'd got a job in John Lewis or Marks and Spencer . At least I'd get a staff discount. It would make up for Sunday Shopping

70 you're not an OT are you (sorry for hijack Coral)??

No, nothing as interesting.
Podiatrist.

I second whoever said midwives don't have much to do with babies!
I did my nurse training 25 yrs ago with a view to becoming a midwife,as you had to be a nurse first in those days.
After doing my paediatric placement i decided to specialise in paeds instead.
Shiftwork very hard though,especially now with 12 hr shifts.I only do one shift a week now and that nearly kills me!

Great posts again worriedsilly.

Ok I said I'd come back and talk about the training side of it. There were thousands of applications for 30-odd places on the course where I trained (a central London university covering five teaching hospitals) - the competition is very, very stiff. They do want to see relevant experience and of course qualifications, and the key thing is that they need to be confident that you are able to study at degree level. All courses are now degree, rather than diploma; the academic standard is high, and the pressure is very intense. The interview was a day long thing with various different parts to it; timed essay, maths paper, role play, group discussion and individual interview. We were made to feel very welcome though, as opposed to some other universities (I've heard some horror stories). I also had an interview at Kingston Uni and it was completely different there - not welcoming at all.

I enjoyed my training and felt really well supported overall by our tutors and mentors. I enjoyed the academic stuff too, but a lot of people did find that hard. I struggled more with the practical skills and feeling confident with palpation (knowing how the baby is positioned) and vaginal examinations (feeling how dilated the cervix is). Thank god the nearest I ever got to suturing was injecting the anaesthetic into a raw and bloody perineum (which still makes me wince to think of it), because however many times I watched it done, I still couldn't see where on earth to stitch those torn layers of tissue! And you'd better be alright with copious bodily fluids and odours too - urine (all over my shoes on one memorable occasion ), vomit, blood, amniotic fluid, with or without blood or meconium, and poo. Ah the poo. I had no idea there'd be so much poo, and that you have to be in such close proximity to the poo. Birth is a very messy, smelly business, so you'd best have a strong stomach.

The labour and birth was the part of midwifery I enjoyed the least, to be honest. I found it hard seeing women so distressed, and in so much pain and fear. And as I said in my first post, how risky it all is terrified me - the thought that after qualifying, I would be responsible for these lives, was terrifying. I know that you work as part of a multidisciplinary team, and certainly once you as the MW have flagged up a problem, then it's in the hands of the doctors. But nevertheless, a MW is an autonomous practitioner, which means that the buck stops with you. A young MW who had trained at my uni, several years after qualifying, killed herself after holding herself responsible for an incident in which a woman died during labour. I know that I'm the kind of person who would hold a feeling of guilt and responsibility my whole life if I thought I'd fucked up.

On the good side, I really enjoyed caseloading (apart from the on-calls and difficulty with childcare cover for such irregular hours), I enjoyed clinics, antenatal and postnatal care, despite postnatal being the poor cousin in maternity - underfunded, overcrowded and desperately understaffed. When you feel like you've really made a difference to someone, it's the best feeling in the world. But when you're a student it's a lot easier to give someone gold standard care, than when you're a qualified MW looking after ten women on PN ward, when two of them are desperate to go home but you haven't time to do the discharge papers, three are having problems with breastfeeding and you're concerned one of the babies is getting dehydrated, two are post-section and in pain and can't lift their babies, and one woman can't stop crying but she doesn't speak any English at all so it's very hard to find out why she's so distraught...

...for a 12 and a half hour shift. And then the next day you do the same again, and then a day off, then three nights in a row. And the really scary part is, that when you're exhausted and hungry because you haven't had a break all shift, your judgement is impaired and you're more likely to make a mistake.

There was a lot about it that I loved, and that I missed when I left, not least some of the fucking amazing women that I worked and trained with. But please don't underestimate how much of you it takes, and the toll it will take on your family.

Having said all this, a woman on my course had five children, and had a sixth just after qualifying, so it is possible, if you're the right person for midwifery and have the right support. All of the MWs I know have had to compromise greatly on their ideals of what they thought midwifery would be like. Some haven't found that to be a problem, some have. Some MWs you meet seem so desensitised and burned out that they are no longer able to empathise enough to give good care. Others have found their path through all the obstacles of inadequate funding and staffing, and the vast amounts of paperwork and the 'blame' culture, and are able to keep sane and give good care. I don't think anyone ends up as the MW they thought they'd be, though.

Didn't have the energy to proof read that, so apologies for any typos.

Oh, and re back probs and depression - I had both, and declared this on my application. I had a letter from my GP to say that in their opinion these would not adversely impact my ability to be a MW.

However, it is a very physical job - lots of bending and getting into some peculiar positions when supporting breastfeeding and women in labour. Women give birth in some fabulously tricky positions, and babies are slippery little beggars. You're also on your feet A LOT. I broke my leg during my first year, which made everything ever so much more difficult in terms of placements, being on my feet, and being able to kneel/bend to catch babies etc.

WRT to depression, although mine is well controlled by medication, I do think that my personality and propensity toward depression was more relevant than I realised - for instance what I was saying about the risk/responsibility really impacting on me.

They are incredibly informative posts, Crabby- I'm sure they'll be really useful to anyone contemplating it.

Wow, some really great posts from worriedsilly there, not just about midwifery, but found lots of it I could relate to, and I'm psych.
OP I started my training when DD1 was 3months old. I was 19. I think training, especially where shift work is involved, is hard with children. Not only do you have to think about lecture hours, placement times and commutes but study time, assignments, research, and practice.
It is hard, looking back now, I can't believe I got through it. I missed alot of time with her, time when she was a tiny baby, time to cuddle and sit under her, it's why when I became pregnant with DD2 and my contract wasn't renewed I didn't look for more work.
It's true that I found my work incredibly rewarding, I loved psychiatry, I found it so interesting. I did not love the paperwork, or the horrible horrible stories I heard, or how sad it was when someone relasped or even occassionally, committed suicide. The boring team meetings, or the terrible beaurocracy of hospitals. I hated working for 13 hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week. I hated when I looked back at how much time I missed with DD.
I don't have any advice as such for you, other than to think very strongly about whether you will proceed,it's a huge impact on your life and that of you dc and dp. Yes, rewarding but nursing in general, takes a lot from you too. Good luck! :)

Thanks LeBOF

There used to be a good forum for student and hoping-to-be-student midwives, called the student mw sanctuary. I had a look for you and the forum part seems to be here under a different name - I recognise the format and sections though.

Work experience... the best would be as a health care assistant (HCA) on maternity, or as a maternity support worker (MSW). That would also show you whether you can cope with the shifts and the nature of the job. You might even get seconded to train, and your training funded, as one woman on my course did. I had a background in massage and complementary therapies, and was working as a newborn hearing screener on maternity wards when I applied. All of this was viewed as relevant experience. My degree was health based too. So, any job that is connected with healthcare, women's health or maternity is good. My job when I applied meant that I had talked to and observed lots of MWs, so had a realistic view of what MW is about (which alot of people who want to be MWs really don't, tbh). Also I was lucky to be able to observe a couple of births and a section in the hospital where I worked, as I knew the MWs.

imogengladheart - hmm, sitting around drinking tea and chatting , well, not in my experience.

As someone already said, supporting birthing women can be vary hard on your back. Crouched down on the floor for the best part of an hour while someone delivers on all fours is not a good feeling for a back! There is a lot of equipment to cart around too, especially on community. In your cae, it would probably be worth getting an opinion from a physio on whether your back is strong enough for the job, but I'm guessing that you would end up making your problem worse.

OP, why would you think that you'd be more suited to a nursing course though?

You know that you are still required to undertake the same number of exams/course work and shift work as part of your placements?

I understand you have a real interest in women and children - but will that be enough to keep you going through shifts on elderly care wards, nursing homes, etc?

I hope I don't sound negative but I'd really think long and hard about applying for either nursing/MW'ing.

As another poster said, the NHS is not a good place to be working right now. I would second the idea of considering a HCA post, you might be funded to do your NVQ.

thanks Agatha, she misses it terribly (it's like crack - makes you ill but is desperately addictive :( ).

I was talking to her about this thread yesterday, she thinks that programmes like OBEM & Call the Midwife will lead to an increase in applications. Obstetrics & midwifery can be utterly terrifying things can go wrong very quickly & when they do the consequences can be devastating. Working in an environment where the care is only just good enough (often by luck alone) despite everyone working their proverbial bollocks off & there is a culture of bullying & lack of support across the board, is unhealthy.

It isn't just labour ward either - an antenatal ward with 30 very complex women (placenta previa, pre-eclampsia etc etc) would have three midwives at the start of a shift. One would always be pulled down to labour ward, another to the community to cover sick leave/home births. So you would be on your own with 30 high risk patients - you don't have time to write an incident report because if you do then the women don't get their obs done. The buck stops with you - if something goes wrong you are accountable because you are an autonomous practitioner & you can be held responsible for a very long time.

Or a community placement - called out alone (to a place where police officers always go in pairs) to attend a birth at 2am in the morning, can't find the house, carrying a bag which many assume contains lots of nice drugs. Having vigorous discussions with aggressive pissed men about removing their aggressive dogs while you try to find somewhere half clean to sit.

It has got worse & it will get worse - when mum started it is was considered shocking to be attending two women on the labour ward, when she left she would regularly have three. Midwives are leaving in droves. Her advice is consider nursing first - if you hate it you have many more options with midwifery alone, HV is pretty much it.

I recently went to an introductory talk about the access course.

When asked what their end goal was 99% of the women said 'midwifery' (this is not an exaggeration, one woman said paramedic and one said social care everyone else was midwifery) . The tutor looked like this .

It does seem that there are a lot of women who have a baby or two, decide to retrain and then just go for midwifery because it seems relevant to their life.

Out of all the thousands of available careers why do all these women choose to become midwifes?

I know some midwives who are physically less robust. They get through shifts by taking lots of painkillers and never complaining.

It is entirely possible you could work 12 hours without so much as standing still. Let alone sitting down.

Also bear in mind that most of us will work until we are 65. There is no concept of being 'put out to farm' the job is the job. Unless you go management [and there aren't actually that many opps to do that in midwiofery] then you will work the same shifts, the same nights and days in a week, the same workk load when you are 65 as when you are 35.

Some of the older midiwves will admit to being absolutely knackered. But they are a truly tough breed and get on with it.

Being sensible, if someone has significant problems then full time is going to be hugely challenging. Part time might be doo-able, but remember the day isn't part time. You might only work 12 hours a week - but those 12 hours will be in one shift and that shift might see you supporting a labourer for 8 hrs. . then 2 hours actively pushing (which is utterly truly exhausting) then flying to theatre for a trial of forcepos that goes to section - so you will stand/walk/run about in there for 2 hours.

Then half hour to an hour late off making you paperwork tight before you crawl home. This might be the day of the hen do you are missing. Because they couldn't give youyour request because of staffing.

In all of that, you will have the threads of mn flashing in front of your eyes. So you will be trying to empower, communicate, mind read, support, honour birth plans, fight for normal birth....and so on.

Plus you may have a student who is struggling/brilliant/liability/ and a member of staff caring for a tricky case from hell who needs lots of hand holds and debriefs.

In the middle of it all a manager will pop up and tell you you made a drug error a week last Fri and can you write a statement and a 4000 word reflective essay. Someone didn't recieve their 8am oral antibiotic on the ward round you did. No long term effects, no risk of care comprimise.....but still.

In the meantime you might need to deal with a woman's terror, her denial, her lack of confidence, her indecison. SHe will ask you what she should do, when it will be over, how she will cope. You don't know and can't answer her. If it's hell she may blame you all the days of her life. If you predict it and get it wrong, she will lose all faith in you and be scared of you for the whole day. The father to be will get angsty and start feeling threatened and even slightly agressive. Mother will feel increasingly panicked.
Lots of judgements and choices you make will be questioned and picked over by women, her family, your senior midwives and the obstetrics department. In some cases a supervisor of midwives, the NMC or indeed the legal team may do the same. You will be asked to account for yourself if the family or management query your decisions. All you will have to help you is your notes.

Trying to think of an example. Ok. The fact that the birth plan said 'I do not want an epidural' but the woman begged and begged and begged and so you got her one. The anaesthetist got consent, you got consent and the request, all protocols were lfoloowed.
This will NOT cut it when the case is reviewed becasue the family feel they were pressed into a medicalised birth including epiural and that caused a cascade of intervention and a traumatic birth with resulting ongoing health problems. You will need to make sure your plan is clear, communication is transparent, the reasons things are done is utterly defined in law. Your notes are your only evidence.

Your own memories, the memories of the family, the ward coordinator - all those become distorted.

I.E. I had a debrief about my own labour. I felt I was left too long thinking I was dying and out of control. I shoudl have had an epidural sooner and it should have been performed quicker. I felt I was like this for about 3 hours. My dh thought the same. My mum thought the same.

It was 45 mins. From asking for the epi to being pain free. Bonkers.

Good eh? If that sounds like your kinda day at the office for about £14 per hour, midwifery might be right for you.

It is a great job. It really really is.

Do Law. It's all nice suits and free lunches

And sometimes you do get peaceful days too

ok at least I have a realistic view of midwifery :)

I have worked as a doula for 2 years and whilst it is wonderful, I get to breeze in and out of delivery suites with my one client, see her safely onto a ward and pop in and out over the next few weeks for reassurance and BF support (if they are BFing).

but for all the reasons craggy et al have mentioned, I want to be a MW and not a doula, that's why I've applied for uni this year. The world is not filled with lovely engaged white middle class women with vastly supportive partners, and they seem to be the only women I work with. All my clients are amazing women, but our society has a broad range of women with differing needs who become mothers, and that's who I want to work with.

Thanks to all the midwives who have posted. Your insights are fascinating, and have convinced me that I DO want to be a midwife :)

Worriedsilly- I'm really enjoying your posts, it's really making my mind up that it IS something I want to go for