OVERVIEW
What Is a Midwife?
A midwife is an advanced practice healthcare professional trained to help women before, during, and after labor. They play an important role in delivering babies in a variety of settings, such as birthing centers, hospitals, or the home. Midwives treat and manage conditions and complications of pregnancy, labor, and the postpartum period.
They may also provide primary care and preventive women’s health services, as well as gynecological care, in their role as primary or specialty providers. Midwives can carry different training levels, including certified nurse-midwives (CNMs), certified midwives (CMs), and certified professional midwives (CPMs).
RESPONSIBILITIES
What Are the Different Types of Midwives?
Not every midwife follows the same training path. Three main credential types are recognized in the United States, each with a different path and, in some cases, a different scope of practice:
- Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM): A registered nurse who has completed a graduate program.
- Certified Midwife (CM): A midwife with a non-nursing bachelor’s degree plus graduate-level training.
- Certified Professional Midwife (CPM): A midwife with clinical experience education centered on out-of-hospital settings.
A CNM is the most common of the three and the only one that requires underlying nurse licensure. A CM follows a nearly identical scope of practice but doesn’t require a nursing background. The CPM path is built specifically around home births rather than hospital-based care.
Many people wonder about the difference between a midwife and a labor and delivery nurse. A midwife has additional, specialized training and independently manages patient care while a labor and delivery nurse is an RN who fulfills medical orders to support patients during labor.
What Does a Midwife Do?
Midwives are healthcare professionals who assist women through pregnancy, childbirth, newborn care, and postpartum health. Some of their most common daily responsibilities include:
- Providing family planning and preconceptive care.
- Doing prenatal exams and ordering tests.
- Monitoring the physical and psychological health of a patient.
- Helping make birth plans.
- Advising about diet, exercise, medications, and staying healthy.
- Delivering babies.
- Educating about and counseling on pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn care.
- Giving emotional and practical support during labor.
- Admitting and discharging patients from the hospital.
- Making referrals to doctors when needed.
Where Do Midwives Work?
Midwives practice in a range of settings depending on their training, state regulations, and personal scope of practice, including:
- Hospitals: Often alongside OB-GYNs as part of a larger maternity care team.
- Freestanding birth centers: Offering comprehensive care for low-risk births.
- Private practices and physician offices: Providing prenatal visits, well-woman exams, and other outpatient care.
- Home births: More commonly attended by a nurse-midwife trained for out-of-hospital care, depending on state rules.
EDUCATION & BEST DEGREES
How to Become a Midwife
Midwives play very important and complicated roles in the women’s healthcare industry, so they’re required to earn an extensive education as well as pass the midwifery exam. Here’s a step-by-step guide to becoming a certified nurse-midwife.
- Become an registered nurse. If you are already a RN, you may want to earn your Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN).
- Complete an accredited midwifery graduate program. Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education (ACME) is the accrediting body that directs prospective students to midwife programs, and most of these programs are delivered at the master’s level or as a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP).
- Take and pass the national midwifery certification exam administered by the American Midwifery Certification Board (AMCB).
Best Degrees for a Midwife
Health & Nursing
Nursing (Prelicensure) – B.S.
A one-of-a-kind nursing program that prepares you to be an RN and a...
A one-of-a-kind nursing program that prepares you to be an RN and a baccalaureate-prepared nurse:
- Locations: Due to in-person clinical requirements, students must be full time residents of Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, or Wisconsin to enroll in this program. The coursework in this program is offered online, but there are in-person requirements.
- Tuition: $8,755 per 6-month term for the first 4 terms of pre-nursing coursework and $8,755 per 6-month term for the remaining 4 terms of clinical nursing coursework.
- Time: This program has a set pace and an expected completion time of 4 years. Certain coursework may be accelerated to finish faster.
- WGU offers the prelicensure program in areas where we have partnerships with healthcare employers to provide practice sites and clinical coaches to help teach you and inspire you on your path to becoming a nurse.
- If you don't live in one of our prelicensure states or don't qualify to apply, consider getting our Bachelor's in Health and Human Services instead. This degree allows you to work inside the healthcare industry, while also working directly with patients who need help.
Skills for your résumé that you will learn in this program:
- Community Health
- Women's and Children's Nursing
- Pathology
- Physiology
- Research
Health & Nursing
Nursing (RN-to-BSN Online) – B.S.
An online BSN degree program for registered nurses (RNs) seeking the added...
An online BSN degree program for registered nurses (RNs) seeking the added theoretical depth, employability, and respect that a bachelor's degree brings:
- Time: The program is designed to be completed in 1 year.
- Tuition: $5,325 per 6-month term.
- Courses: 23 total courses in this program.
- Transfers: Students can transfer up to 90 credits.
Skills for your résumé that you will learn in this program:
- Healthcare Policy and Economics
- Information Technology in Nursing Practice
- Anatomy and Physiology
- Applied Healthcare Statistics
If you don't currently have an RN and don't qualify for your nursing prelicensure program, consider getting our Bachelor's in Health and Human Services instead. This degree allows you to work inside the healthcare industry in a unique way.
SKILLS
What Skills Does a Midwife Need?
Midwives have a unique job in the healthcare field and, therefore, need a specific set of soft skills along with clinical expertise. While their main focus is playing an operative role in safely delivering babies, a lot of other qualities contribute to being an excellent midwife.
- Understanding and caring attitude: Having a baby is one of the most exciting moments in a woman’s life. While it’s one of life’s greatest joys, it’s also one of the most hectic, stressful moments a family experiences, which is why it’s so important for midwives to maintain a calm, understanding, and caring attitude.
- Emotional and mental strength: While most pregnancies go as planned, complications can sometimes arise, and midwives must have the emotional and mental strength to keep mothers and families calm while they work through the problem and deliver a healthy baby.
- Good observation skills: Midwives are skilled at detecting subtle changes in temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure during the antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal periods of maternity care.
- Patience: Pregnancies can be long and exhausting for mothers, and it’s the job of the midwife to approach every mother and family with patience and compassion.
Technical and clinical skills:
- Clinical competency: As may be expected, a midwife is a medical professional and should be competent across the full scope of midwifery practice, from prenatal screening to newborn assessment.
- Clinical decision-making under pressure: During labor and delivery, so many things can happen that require quick decisions. A midwife must be able to think about the clinical consequences of actions and act quickly for the best patient care experience.
- Comfort with electronic health records (EHR) systems: Most medical professionals are aware of and comfortable with these and other technologies already, but EHRs are important because they are used to document prenatal, labor, and postpartum visits.
How Much Does a Midwife Make?
$134,920
According to the BLS, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners earn a median salary of $134,920 per year, as of May 2025. There is a wide salary range depending on several factors, including place of work, experience, and geographical location. There are many nurse roles and salary is affected by these roles.
What Is the Projected Job Growth?
36%
The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), reports an extremely positive job outlook for nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners. Job openings for these healthcare professionals are projected to experience a 36% growth rate from 2025 to 2035, which is significantly higher than average for all occupations. Nurse midwifes seems to be a stable career.
Frequently Asked Questions About Midwifery
Becoming a CNM typically takes six to eight years total: about four years for a BSN (although an RN-to-BSN program can have a different timeline), followed by two to four years in a graduate midwifery program accredited by ACME—often at the master’s level or increasingly as a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP).
Yes. Certified midwives complete a graduate-level midwifery program without an undergraduate nursing degree, and certified professional midwives follow a separate path built around clinical experience in out-of-hospital settings rather than a nursing background.
A CNM is a registered nurse who completes graduate midwifery education and national certification through the AMCB. A CM has similar graduate-level training but without the nursing background. A CPM’s process is built specifically around out-of-hospital care, such as home births.
A midwife is an advanced practice provider focused on low- to moderate-risk pregnancy, labor, and postpartum care, and they can often refer patients to a physician when complications arise. An OB-GYN is a physician trained to handle high-risk pregnancies and surgical deliveries. A doula provides emotional and physical support during labor but doesn’t provide clinical care or deliver babies.
Pros and Cons of a Midwifery Career
The rewarding side:
- Deep, often long-term relationships with patients across pregnancy, childbirth, and the weeks after delivery.
- Meaningful autonomy in guiding birth plans and supporting a family’s choices.
- Strong job outlook and competitive salaries relative to many other nursing specialties.
The demanding side:
- Unpredictable hours that often run long, including night, weekend, and on-call shifts, since labor doesn’t run on a schedule.
- Emotionally demanding work, including occasional high-stakes complications during labor or delivery.
- A lengthy education path—becoming a nurse-midwife generally requires both an RN license and graduate study before sitting for the AMCB certification exam.
Our Online University Degree Programs Start on the First of Every Month, All Year Long
No need to wait for spring or fall semester. It’s back-to-school time at WGU year-round. We also offer scholarships. Get started by talking to an Enrollment Counselor today, and you’ll be on your way to realizing your dream of a bachelor’s or master’s degree—sooner than you might think!
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