What is a Midwife?

A midwife is a professional natural birth specialist. She aims to guide a woman through a low-risk pregnancy, whether that means providing gynecological exams, performing family planning, providing primary care, or advising on pregnancy health issues. However, midwives are best known for helping a woman achieve natural birth.

What is a Nurse-Midwife?

A nurse midwife is someone who receives training in both nursing and the practice of midwifery. They may prescribe medications or deliver children in any state. However, high-risk pregnancies should be delivered in a hospital setting; in these cases, a nurse-midwife will direct their patients to a hospital obstetrician. To become a midwife, a woman must undergo specialized training.

What is a Direct-Entry Midwife?

A direct-entry midwife is someone who enters the midwife profession without any prior nursing education. Various training methods for direct-entry midwives abound. A midwife could be self-taught, apprenticed to another midwife, trained through a university, or schooled in a specific school of midwifery.

Different Midwifery Titles

Nurse-midwifes will generally go by their nursing title (nurse practitioner, R.N., etc.). However, direct-entry midwives may be any of these titles:

• Certified Professional Midwife, or CPM. These professionals meet the certification standards of NARM (North American Registry of Midwives). What makes a CPM unique is that Certified Professional Midwives have training in out-of-hospital births.
• Licensed Midwives are registered to practice in one particular state.
• Lay Midwives are those taught by methods like self-teaching or an apprenticeship.

Unique to the American College of Nurse-Midwives, or ACNM, is a degree called Certified Midwife– though the degree is only currently accepted in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. A Certified Midwife must be certified through the same exam as a CPM.