• Question: will studying child development help me get a job as a midwife in the future?

    Asked by anon-220385 to Shobhana on 11 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Shobhana Nagraj

      Shobhana Nagraj answered on 11 Jun 2019:

      Hi Abbie, Great to hear you are interested in being a midwife! I am not a midwife myself, but I have worked with midwives in my career. You can find out more about the requirements to study midwifery here: https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/midwifery/faqs-midwifery
      The NHS careers webpages have lots of useful information on careers in healthcare. Midwives are usually responsible for the care of a pregnant woman before she delivers a baby (antenatal care), and for delivering the baby (childbirth) and for a few days after the baby is delivered. After this, a healthcare professional called a Health visitor usually takes care of the developmental needs of the baby and mother. While studying child development is not compulsory for a job as a midwife, it is a really interesting area, and will be helpful to you – as the mothers you might work with as a midwife might have questions about what to expect as their baby develops. I have studied child development and find it fascinating, so would recommend reading a bit about this, but only for your own interest! Hope that helps and all the best for your career!

Comments

  • Photo: Rebecca

    Rebecca commented on :

    Midwives look after women throughout their pregnancy and then for about 2 weeks after the birth. It is usually then health visitors (a branch of child nursing) that continue to follow the child through the preschool years to make sure they are growing and developing properly. So a midwife is only involved with the baby for a short period of time, but it’s a really important time to establish bonding and feeding so some knowledge of child development will help.