Midwife only wants to do straight-forward natural births?

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I met a trainee midwife this weekend who told me that once she's qualified she doesn't want to work in hospitals or with doctors. Instead she intends to work in birth centres as she prefers' the straightforward, natural, non-intervention births'.

Is this a common attitude in midwifery? It came across like she felt a hospital birth was less valuable than straight-forward natural births.

AIBU to think that the women in hospital who may have risk factors or complicated labours with interventions are likely to need the skills and support of a good midwife more than those women who manage to pop them out naturally with minimal complications in the birth centre.

AIBU to think that this is like me saying I only want to do the easy, straightforward quick projects at work rather than the more complicated ones that really need my skill and effort if they are going to be successful?

Like that's going to happen.
I guarantee she will see a fair few emergency situations.
Birth is by its nature completely unpredictable.

No. It's like you saying you would like to be a primary teacher rather than a secondary teacher or an accountant in a small, start-up company rather than a large multi-national company. Different challenges, different strengths and skills required. Both equally valuable.

To be fair though, in a low risk situation in a birthing centre the midwife is likely to be there as the only medical support for the whole Birth and deliver the baby herself.

In a high risk situation on say, a consultant unit, her role will be different- potentially a lot of watching c sections. And she'll have to do rotations on crappy boring post natal wards.

She has a preference of where she wants to work - her choice. Chatting to mw in the mlu I had my children in - they preferred the greater autonomy of the unit and the encouragement of natural births. These were all very experienced mw. First sign of complications and yoir whipped out.of the unit to the main hospital

Different midwives prefer different things.

I love a high risk, consultant led unit. Sliding scales, atosiban infussions, epidural, synto, iv labetalol, emergencies. Love it.

Others prefer a midwifery led unit. Where yes there will be emergencies but not high risk labours with most of the above. Some don't like birth and prefer postnatal or clinic.

Good job we're all different.

Does she not realise that a birth is only "normal" in retrospect? Daft woman.

Good luck to her.
I want to be a vet - but I really would prefer to just, like, stroke puppies or brush foals or play with kittens. I don't want to see any animals distressed and I don't want to work with any animals who need any kind of medical intervention at all.

It's going to be ace.

Lots of midwives chose to work in a birth centre type environment. Just as lots prefer high dependancy or community or theatre. It's horses for courses.

Working in a birth centre type environment means you get to be more autonomous but also your skills need to be shit hot and as you don't have a doctor there to defer to you need to be able to handle emergencies very well. Normally such settings don't take newly qualified staff. It takes experience. It's an environment some love but some hate and VERY stressful. It's not all lavender oils and massage.....

She sounds a right idiot!! I can't see how she can avoid it.

I think it's a shame that the NHS wasted money training her. She's an utter twat and too thick to be a decent midwife.

I'm not a midwife but I am a band 7 nurse. I decided very early on in my training that I wanted to work in critical care - I loved the ever changing dynamic and I am naturally quite science-y so I enjoyed the challenge of caring for the sickest patients in the hospital. I especially like looking after critically ill obstetric patients which my unit sees a lot of as we have a very high risk maternity unit in this Trust.

My best mate while training chose to go down the elderly care route and she's fab at it. We're all different.

Interestingly, I very nearly retrained as a MW a few years ago. Despite coming from such an acute environment I actually hankered after working in a MW led birth centre.

Different strokes and all that

Luckily not all midwives like the same things. Community midwifery would make me want to rip my own arm off and beat myself with the soggy end. But a high risk delivery suite really satisfies me. If we all excelled in the same areas of midwifery it'd be a dull place.

Gosh who would have thought that a medical person might have a preference as to how they utilise their skills?

Some pretty obnoxious comments here.......

Midwives are specialists in natural births.

I prefer to do easy projects at work. So what?

everybody prefers straightforward, natural births with no complications But like BishopBrennansArse said, birth is unpredictable. What does she intend to do if a certain birth doesn't go to plan? Will she resign, run away, burst into tears...?

Baklava that is so rude! Just because she's expressed a preference of where she would like to work. It's no different to a teacher saying they'd rather teach secondary than primary, you know.
God forbid HCPs show a preference in where they'd like to work.
Shall we start forcing neurosurgeons to work in palliative cancer care, just because?

Echoing what other posters have said- some midwives love low risk care and prefer to work in birth centre, others love the intensity of birth suite and working with high risk, more complex women. Some love postnatal ward, which is by far my least favourite area! I don't think it's that strange really, just like some nurses love working in a busy place like A&E, others prefer to work in community etc. Everyone has different skills and qualities that suit different specialties.

Not sure why some of you are being so offensive towards a midwife choosing which setting she wants to work in? What's your problem? I can only assume you don't understand what she's saying here.

As a midwife, you can choose to work within a midwifery led setting or an obstetrical one. She's choosing the former, where the women will be low risk with non-interventional labours. It doesn't warrant being called daft or idiotic. It's a legitimate choice. It also doesn't mean her job is any less challenging. In fact, it may be more so as her midwifery skills will be at the fore of the care offered and she will be working autonomously.

That might be her intention, but as a PP has said, she might find that newly-qualified she's unable to do that straightaway; due to the autonomous nature of midwifery-led units (particularly those stand-alone), they are often staffed by more senior midwives.

Soggy end 😂

Everyone does this in healthcare. And other jobs too - sometimes you want a nice easy office job

Not all doctors and nurses want to work in majors, or ITU, or PICU. Some want to do occupational health, and you know what? That's fine. She's not said that if something suddenly went tits up in a birthing centre she'd leave her patient alone. She just wants to work in that particular setting.

There's a place for all of it in healthcare. There'll be other midwives in her university who really love the challenge of dealing with comorbidities, multiples, high risk deliveries.

everybody prefers straightforward, natural births with no complications

Well, SoPassRemarkable doesn't!
Maybe she phrased it badly, but surely what she was really just trying to say was that she preferred the idea of working in a midwife-led unit. I don't see anything wrong with that - it's not like the job they do is any less valuable.

There is this odd thing that many women have that they want childbirth to be a transcendental experience with the midwives as their spirit guide. I think this trainee believes this mince as well. No-one can guarantee they are going to have a good easy birth. The objective should be to have a healthy baby and healthy mother, nothing more.