Current midwives… I need your advice! **Content Warning**

[meadowkoa]

Hi there,

I am really wanting to go in to midwifery and go back to uni after wanting to go in to this career for many years. I’ve queried with local universities and it is possible. The only thing putting me off is the current state of the NHS and regretting my decision with how over stretched things are etc. I follow a lot of midwives on TikTok and it seems the job isn’t what it used to be.

if you are currently a midwife please could you give me your advice on the matter? Particularly newly qualified who have nothing to compare it to… what is it like?

thank you xx

Not a MW but want to be when I grow up (I’m 40) so I’ll be interested in hearing current MW advice etc too.

I’m a midwifery lecturer and the majority of my students complete the course and go on to get jobs as midwives. So they’re not put off enough to drop out/or not get a job. There probably is a variation between units as to how good staffing and support is. Plus the current situation could be different in three years time (hopefully better). There needs to be more funding though so who knows.

This is exactly what I’m thinking… it could get better. Also reassuring to hear most go on to get jobs. I’ve been told there’s a hold on recruitment xx

It’s hard, really hard. At my trust there is a period where you are supernumerary but often that goes out of the window when it’s busy. I was left to staff a ward of high risk postnatal mums and babies alone when I’d been qualified 6 weeks when the ward should normally be staffed by two midwives.
It’s a frequent occurrence to be put in a situation where you don’t feel comfortable with minimal support.
NQM’s are given students to teach when they aren’t even confident in their own skills. It can be scary.

I don’t regret my choice to enter this profession but it’s not for the faint hearted. Particularly with the current political tensions regarding maternity care.
The maternity system very much feels like a conveyer belt.

Being a student is hard. 2,300 hours of clinical work. Having to fill a quota for 40 deliveries when normal delivery rates are dropping.

The pay is okay but not enough for the stress and emotional toil it takes. It costs me over £400 a year to be a midwife between NMC costs and union fees.

Ultimately, it’s not a job you can do for the sake of it. You need to have drive and passion because sometimes they are the only things you have to make you want to return the next days after a particularly rough shift

There is a current hold on recruitment in most trusts. I know many students who haven’t been able to get jobs. We need the staff but unfortunately there is no money to pay their wages.

No midwifery jobs in the county where I live unfortunately. Over the past couple of years I have known a significant percentage of newly qualified midwives choose not to practice in this field because it’s too stressful.

Students are qualifying but trusts are unable to recruit because of recruitment freeze. Midwifery has changed so much (26 years in the job- no fees when I trained, we were paid)! Nearly 50% c/S rate, lots of negative press, litigation and burn out. I am now in a band 8 position and not as clinical. I am fit and healthy but it’s definitely in my view a ‘young persons’ job. Very long, physically and mentally demanding hours. However, when I see those starting out, it gives me hope! But the role that f a midwife has dramatically changed. No knitting in the corner and chatting or community visits with cups of tea and getting to know the families. High paced, obstetric nurses caring for high risk women. Still an amazing buzz of birth however the method….but not what you read in the ‘old’ books.

This is one of the most realistic videos I have seen recently of what it is actually like.

If it's anything like nursing (which of course it is), the placements will be the hardest part of the degree. It's almost impossible to appreciate in advance the amount of toxic shit you will have to put up with just to get your placement hours in. This is from your colleagues, not patients.

I would focus loads of research on the placement side before making a decision.

Apart from not shutting the curtains to the corridor before doing the ArM! 🙈🤣

Thank you for sharing this. I quit midwifery 6 years ago (after being qualified 4 years) and this video almost brought me to tears from remembering how horrific some of the shifts were.

I’m sorry to say I wouldn’t recommend it as a career path. Yes there are some lovey moments, but I never felt safe or supported, and that terrified me. There’s nothing scarier than being a midwife in your first year, in a room on your own with a woman having a difficult labour and needing help/support but all the other midwives are busy with their own patients. Yes in the obvious emergencies the care is usually good and as a midwife you have a good team around you, but in the ‘grey areas’ it’s awful. And you don’t graduate with the knowledge of how to deal with those situations, it often comes with experience. I was pretty confident and very competent by the time I actually left, but I was not able to give the care I wanted - constantly letting women down when you are trying your best is soul destroying. It’s simply not possible to give the care people deserve when midwives are responsible for 10 women and 10 babies on the postnatal ward, or 2 ‘low risk’ labouring women. I’m in awe of my old colleagues who stick it out.

This was fantastic. Thank you for posting it