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Midwifery Dissertation Topics

Published by Owen Ingram at January 3rd, 2023 , Revised On August 16, 2023

There have been midwives around for decades now. The role of midwives has not changed much with the advent of modern medicine, but their core function remains the same – to provide care and comfort to pregnant women during childbirth.

It is possible to be a midwife in the healthcare industry, but it is not always a rewarding or challenging career. Here are five things you didn’t know about midwifery nursing to help you decide if it could be the right career choice for you.

The profession of midwifery involves caring for women and newborns during pregnancy, childbirth, and the first few days following birth. Registered nurses are trained with four additional years of education along with major research on methods involve in midwifery and writing on midwifery dissertation topics, while midwives provide natural health care for mothers and children.

As a midwife, your role is to promote healthy pregnancies and births while respecting women’s rights and dignity. Midwives provide care to patients at every stage of life, from preconception to postpartum, family planning to home delivery to breastfeeding support.

Important Links: Child Health Nursing Dissertation Topics , Adult Nursing Topics , Critical Care Nursing Dissertation Topics . These links will help you to get a broad experience or knowledge about the latest trends and practices in academics.

Midwifery Is A Good Fit for the Following:

● Those who want to work with women, especially those at risk of giving birth in a                    hospital setting. ● Those who enjoy helping people and solving problems. ● Those who like to be creative and solve complex problems. ● Those who want to help others and make a difference in their lives.

Midwifery is a career with many benefits for both the midwife and the baby. They are well-trained and experienced in caring for pregnant women and newborns and often have access to the exceptional care that other nurses may not have.

Related Links:

• Evidence-based Practice Nursing Dissertation Topics
• Child Health Nursing Dissertation Topics
• Adult Nursing Dissertation Topics
• Critical Care Nursing Dissertation Topics
• Dementia Nursing Dissertation Topics
• Palliative Care Nursing Dissertation Topics
• Mental Health Nursing Dissertation Topics
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• Coronavirus (COVID-19) Nursing Dissertation Topics

Midwifery Dissertation Topics With Research Aim

Topic:1 adolescence care.

Research Aim: Focus on comprehensive medical, psychological, physical, and mental health assessments to provide a better quality of care to patients.

Topic:2 Alcohol Abuse

Reseasrch Aim: Closely studying different addictions and their treatments to break the habit of drug consumption among individuals.

Topic:3 Birth Planning

Research Aim: Comprehensive birth planning between parents discussing the possible consequences of before, between, and after labour.

Topic:4 Community midwifery

Research Aim: Studying different characters in community midwifery and the midwife’s role in providing care for the infant during the early days of the child’s birth.

Topic:5 Contraception

Research Aim: Understand the simplicity of contraception to prevent pregnancy by stopping egg production that results in the fertilization of egg and sperm in the later stages.

Topic:6 Electronic fetal monitoring

Research Aim: In-depth study of electronic fetal monitoring to track the health of your baby during the womb, record construction per minute, and make a count of your baby’s heart rate.

Topic:7 Family planning

Research Aim: Importance to follow the basic rhythm methods for the couple to prevent pregnancy and use protection during the vaginal sex to plan a family without fertility treatments.

Topic:8 Foetal and newborn care

Research Aim: Expansion of the maternal-fetal and newborn care services to improve the nutritional quality of infants after delivery during their postnatal care time.

Topic:9 Foetal well being

Carefully tracking indications for the rise in heart rate of the fetal by weekly checkups to assess the overall well-being of the fetal.

Topic:10 Gender-based violence

Research Aim: Studying the consequences of male desire for a child that results in gender-based violence, harming the child’s physical and mental health.

Topic:11 Health promotion

Research Aim: Working on practices that help in controlling the amount of pollution of people, taking care of their overall health, and improving quality of life through adapting best health practices.

Topic:12 High-risk pregnancy

Research Aim: Calculating the ordinary risks of a high-risk pregnancy and how it affects a pregnant body resulting in a baby with poor health or any by-birth diseases, increasing the chance for complications.

Topic:13 HIV infection

Research Aim: Common causes of HIV infection and their long-term consequences on the body’s immune system. An in-depth study into the acquired immunodeficiency and the results leading to this.

Topic:14 Human Rights

Creating reports on human rights and their link with the freedom of thought, conscience, religion, belief, and other factors.

Topic:15 Infection prevention and control

Research Aim: Practices for infection prevention and control using efficient approaches for patients and health workers to avoid harmful substances in the environment.

Topic:16 Infertility and pregnancy

Research Aim: Evaluating the percentage of infertility and pregnancy, especially those facing no prior births, and who have high chances of infertility and pregnancy complications.

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Midwives are nurses who provide continuous support to the mother before, during, and after labour. Midwives also help with newborn care and educate parents on how to care for their children.

How Much Do Midwives Make?

The salary of a midwife varies depending on the type of work, location, and experience of the midwife. Midwives generally earn $132,950 per year. The average annual salary for entry-level midwives is $102,390.

The minimum requirement for becoming a midwifery nurse is a bachelor’s degree in nursing, with the option of pursuing a master’s degree.

An accredited educational exam can also lead to certification as a nurse-midwife (CNM). The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) enables you to practice independently as a midwife.

There are many pros and cons to working as a midwife. As a midwife, you have the following pros and cons:

• Midwives have the opportunity to help women during one of the most memorable moments in their lives.
• Midwives can positively impact the health of mothers and their children.
• Midwives can work in many hospitals, clinics, and homes.
• In midwifery, there are many opportunities for continuing education and professional development.
• You will often have to work nights and weekends, which can be mentally draining.
• You will have to travel a lot since most births occur in hospitals or centres in different areas.
• You will have to deal with stressors such as complex patients and uncooperative families.
• You will be dealing with a lot of pain, so you need to be able to handle it without medication or other treatment methods.

A career in midwifery is a great fit for those with a passion for health and wellness, an interest in helping people, and a desire to work in a supportive environment.

It is important to become involved in your local midwifery community if you are contemplating a career in midwifery – the best source of learning is your major research work, along with writing a lengthy thesis document on midwifery dissertation topics that will submit to your university to progress your midwifery career.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How to find midwifery dissertation topics.

To find midwifery dissertation topics:

• Explore childbirth challenges or trends.
• Investigate maternal and infant health.
• Consider cultural or ethical aspects.
• Review recent research in midwifery.
• Focus on gaps in knowledge.
• Choose a topic that resonates with your passion and career goals.

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Midwifery students’ perceptions and experiences of learning in clinical practice: a qualitative review protocol

Yang, Zhihui 1 ; Li, Xinxin 2 ; Lin, Huanhuan 2 ; Chen, Fanfan 2 ; Zhang, Lili 1 ; Wang, Ning 1

1 PR China Southern Centre for Evidence-based Nursing and Midwifery Practice: A JBI Centre of Excellence, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, PR China

2 School of Nursing, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, PR China

Correspondence: Ning Wang, [email protected]

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Objective: 

This systematic review aims to investigate and synthesize qualitative evidence related to midwifery students’ perceptions and experiences of learning in clinical practice.

Introduction: 

Midwifery students are required to develop strong competencies during pre-registration education for future practice. Clinical placements provide a good opportunity for students to build essential practice capacities. Understanding the perceptions and experiences of midwifery students in clinical practice helps develop effective midwifery clinical educational strategies. A qualitative systematic review is therefore proposed to improve midwifery clinical education.

Inclusion criteria: 

This proposed review will consider qualitative studies that have explored midwifery students’ perceptions and experiences of learning in clinical practice in all degrees. The search will be limited to English-language published and unpublished studies to the present.

Methods: 

This review will follow the JBI approach for qualitative systematic reviews. A three-stage search will be conducted to include published and unpublished literature. Databases to be searched include PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, American Nurses Association, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertation & Theses, and Index to Theses in Great Britain and Ireland. Identified studies will be screened for inclusion in the review by two independent reviewers. Any disagreements will be resolved through discussion. Data will be extracted using a standardized tool. Data synthesis will adhere to the meta-aggregative approach to categorize findings. The categories will be synthesized into a set of findings that can be used to inform midwifery education.

Systematic review registration number: 

PROSPERO CRD42020208189

Introduction

Due to strong advocacy for improved health and safety of pregnant women and their babies globally, many countries have made significant progress in increasing the proportion of pregnant women who give birth at health care facilities. 1 However, such effort has not led to the expected level of reduction in maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths, 2 which can be caused by inadequacies in the quality of care provided in the health care facilities. 3

The delivery of quality and safe midwifery practice requires that health professionals develop strong competencies and high-level accountabilities. Evidence shows that well educated, regulated, and licensed midwives are associated with improved quality of care and rapid and sustained reduction in maternal or neonatal morbidity and mortality. 4 Pre-registration education is an important stage for midwifery students to develop the fundamental professional knowledge, skills, and judgment essential for their future practice. Clinical practice programs as a significant component of midwifery education provide a valuable opportunity for midwifery students to build hands-on capabilities that integrate with classroom theories, and to be socialized into their chosen profession. 5 Specifically, it helps students develop the required professional competencies for registration and ideas about their career preference, as well as smoothly transit to their future career. 6,7 It has been found that education undertaken through clinical placements provides up to 50% of the learning experience for students in pre-registration midwifery courses. 8

Midwifery refers to “skilled, knowledgeable and compassionate care for childbearing women, newborn infants and families across the continuum throughout pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, birth, postpartum and the early weeks of life.” 9 (p.1130) Midwifery practice involves a wide scope of care activities that are undertaken to pursue the overall well-being of pregnant women. This includes providing continuous support to the women during their antenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum periods, being responsible for conducting births, caring for the newborns, and preventing and managing complications in pregnancy and childbirth. 10 These require that midwives are highly competent in undertaking various work tasks in partnership with the women and to cope with the complex and dynamic nature of the practice environments. 11 To face such challenging learning requirements, midwifery students can become frustrated when they first enter a practice setting. Literature shows that student health professionals often face challenges and experience a high level of stress during their clinical placements, 12,13 and midwifery students experience more stress compared to students in other professions. 14,15 Research has found that the midwifery students’ clinical stress was either due to their low confidence in undertaking care and a fear of making mistakes, or their relationships with clinical educators and colleagues. 16 Negative clinical experiences perceived by the student midwives can pose a potential threat to their effective learning and recognition of their future professional career. 17-19

As a key part of successful midwifery education, a well-designed practice program with a supportive environment is essential for fostering students’ confidence and passion to pursue a future midwifery career and for building competencies for entry to their registrations. 7,20 Students’ perceptions and experiences about their clinical learning are considered a hallmark of quality education. 21 While there is a growing body of knowledge reported in the literature about these elements, a systematic aggregation of such evidence should identify implications for the educational and clinical faculties to develop appropriate and effective clinical training strategies and provide required support to the students. Our literature search has identified three reviews about student professionals’ learning experiences; however, these reviews have focused on the learning experiences of undergraduate nursing rather than midwifery students, 22 a setting other than clinical placements, 23 or the relationship between workplace culture and the practice experience. 24 This review addresses a gap in the literature by aggregating evidence about midwifery students’ perceptions and experiences of learning in clinical settings. The ultimate aim is to improve midwifery educators’ understanding of their students’ clinical experiences.

Review question

What are the perceptions and experiences of midwifery students’ learning in clinical practice?

Inclusion criteria

Participants.

This review will consider qualitative studies that focus on midwifery students’ perceptions and experiences of learning in clinical practice settings. There will be no limitation regarding age, gender, grade or year, or ethnicity of participants.

Phenomena of interest

The phenomena of interest will be midwifery students’ perceptions and experiences of learning in clinical practice settings.

This review will consider studies conducted in any settings identified as a clinical practice, including clinical placement or internship, in acute care, community care, or simulated learning environments.

Types of studies

This review will consider English-language qualitative studies that describe the perceptions and experiences of midwifery students in their clinical practice. These studies will focus on qualitative data including, but not limited to, designs such as phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, and action research. Qualitative data from mixed method studies will also be included.

The proposed systematic review will be conducted in accordance with the JBI methodology for systematic reviews of qualitative evidence. 25 The review has been registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020208189).

Search strategy

The search strategy aims to locate both published and unpublished studies. A three-step search strategy will be utilized in this review. An initial limited search of PubMed will be undertaken followed by analysis of the text words contained in the titles and abstracts, and of the index terms used to describe the articles. This preliminary search in PubMed will be used to develop a search strategy for this review that will include other databases. A second search using identified keywords and index terms will then be undertaken across all included databases. Thirdly, the reference list of all identified reports and articles will be searched for additional studies. A sample search strategy for PubMed is detailed in Appendix I. There is no date limit for the studies included in this review.

The databases to be searched for published studies include: MEDLINE (PubMed), Science Direct, Web of Science, EBSCO (CINAHL), and EBSCO (PsycINFO). The search for unpublished literature will include Google Scholar, American Nurses Association, ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Database, and Index to Theses in Great Britain and Ireland.

Study selection

Following the search, all identified citations will be collated and uploaded into EndNote v.9 (Clarivate Analytics, PA, USA) and duplicates removed. Titles and abstracts will then be screened by two independent reviewers for assessment against the inclusion criteria for the review. Potentially relevant studies will be retrieved in full and their citation details will be imported into the JBI System for the Unified Management, Assessment and Review of Information (JBI SUMARI; JBI, Adelaide, Australia). 26 The full text of selected citations will be assessed in detail against the inclusion criteria by the two independent reviewers. Reasons for exclusion of full-text studies that do not meet the inclusion criteria will be recorded and reported in the systematic review. Any disagreements that arise between the reviewers at each stage of the study selection process will be resolved through discussion or with a third reviewer. The results of the search will be reported in full in the final systematic review and presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram. 27

Assessment of methodological quality

Papers selected for retrieval will be assessed by the two independent reviewers for methodological quality prior to inclusion in the review using the standard JBI critical appraisal checklist for qualitative research. 25 Any disagreements that arise between the reviewers will be resolved through discussion or with a third reviewer. Authors of primary studies will be contacted with questions on missing information or if clarification is needed. The results of the critical appraisal will be reported in narrative form, as well as in a table. All studies, regardless of the results of their methodological quality, will undergo data extraction and synthesis.

Data extraction

Qualitative data will be extracted from studies included in the review by the two independent reviewers using the standardized JBI qualitative data extraction tool for qualitative evidence (JBI SUMARI). The data extracted will include specific details about the participants, context, geographical location, study methods, and the phenomena of interest relevant to the review question and specific objectives. Findings will be verbatim extractions of the authors’ analytic interpretations, along with relevant illustrations. Each finding will be assigned a level of validity or credibility. Findings will be described as “unequivocal” or “credible,” as recommended in the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis . 25 All “unsupported” findings will be excluded from the review. Any disagreements relating to credibility that arise between the reviewers will be resolved through discussion or by a third reviewer.

Data synthesis

Qualitative research findings will, where possible, be pooled using JBI SUMARI with the meta-aggregation approach. 28 This will involve aggregation or synthesis of findings to generate a set of statements that represents the aggregation, through assembling and categorizing these findings on the basis of similarity in meaning. These categories will then be subjected to a meta-synthesis in order to produce a single comprehensive set of synthesized findings that can be used as a basis for evidence-based practice. The categories and synthesized findings will be agreed by discussion among the reviewers to ensure they support the meaning of the data. Where textual pooling is not possible, the findings will be presented in narrative form.

Assessing certainty in the findings

The final synthesized findings will be graded according to the ConQual 29 approach for establishing confidence in the output of qualitative research synthesis and presented in a Summary of Findings. The Summary of Findings includes the major elements of the review and details how the ConQual score is developed. Included in the Summary of Findings will be the title, population, phenomena of interest, and context for the specific review. Each synthesized finding from the review will then be presented along with the type of research informing it, score for dependability and credibility, and the overall ConQual score.

Acknowledgments

The library staff at Southern Medical University for their guidance and support on literature retrieval.

Appendix I: Search strategy

Medline (pubmed).

Search conducted August 2020

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clinical practice; experience; midwifery students; perception; qualitative research

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Best Midwifery Dissertation Topics Ideas & Examples

Table of Contents

List of Midwifery dissertations Topics and Some Tips for Selecting Better Dissertation Topics in Midwifery

Many students feel difficulty in pursuing their studies in midwifery, let alone making a selection of topics for the dissertation. If you are searching for examples of midwifery literature review topics, midwifery research topics, midwifery dissertation titles , midwifery dissertation topics, or midwifery research questions this post is for you.

Do you belong to the above group of students who are not only shy but are also confused about how to make a selection of dissertation topics in midwifery for the midwifery dissertation?

Let’s first define what midwifery means and what its importance is in our social and medical structure.

What is Midwifery?

Midwifery is a healthcare profession that provides care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labor, and birth and during the postpartum period. They take care of the newborn and the mother. They also provide primary care to women which includes primary care to women, gynecological examination of women, family planning, and menopausal care.

In the nursing profession, students may be asked to write a dissertation on any topic of midwifery.

Tips for Selecting Midwifery Dissertation Topics

Like any dissertation in which it is difficult to choose a topic and write it, midwifery dissertations also students face the same problem. So, it is not an exception. However, one must know the important areas for the selection of the topic for the dissertation. Therefore, prior to the final selection of the topic, there are some important tips that would help students in selecting   midwifery dissertation topics. These tips are as follows.

• The students must be sure that they are going to discuss one of the most important topics in the subject.
• The dissertation on midwifery must touch on some of the serious problems which are faced by mothers and newborns.
• The students must take care that their topic is specific, and it is not broad in its nature.
• If someone has chosen a narrow topic, he/she must expand it through research and writing.
• Clear attention should be given to traditional midwifery dissertation topics in order to know their content and scope.
• The topic chosen must be aimed at explaining the profession in greater detail. The students choose the research topic which can help to improve the healthcare of mothers and their children.
• The students must enhance their basic knowledge for a better understanding of the subject.

Prenatal Care:

• The role of midwives in promoting healthy prenatal behaviors
• Assessing the effectiveness of prenatal education programs
• Addressing cultural barriers in accessing prenatal care

Postpartum Care:

• Strategies for improving postpartum support for new mothers.
• The impact of postpartum depression on maternal health outcomes
• Exploring alternative postpartum care models, such as home visits

Labor and Delivery:

• Examining the use of pain management techniques during labor
• Investigating the influence of birth environment on labor outcomes
• Evaluating the role of midwives in reducing cesarean section rates

Maternal Health:

• Addressing disparities in maternal healthcare access
• Exploring the impact of maternal nutrition on birth outcomes
• Investigating interventions to reduce maternal mortality rates globally.

Neonatal Care:

• Assessing the effectiveness of breastfeeding support in neonatal care units
• Exploring the role of midwives in neonatal resuscitation
• Investigating best practices for kangaroo care in low-resource settings

Women’s Health:

• Examining midwifery-led models of women’s health care
• Investigating the role of midwives in promoting sexual and reproductive health
• Addressing cultural taboos surrounding women’s health issues

Family Planning:

• Evaluating the impact of contraceptive counseling provided by midwives
• Exploring the role of midwives in providing abortion care
• Assessing barriers to accessing family planning services in rural areas

Midwifery Education and Training:

• Assessing the effectiveness of simulation training in midwifery education
• Exploring innovative teaching methods in midwifery programs
• Investigating strategies for mentorship and professional development in midwifery

Midwifery Ethics and Legal Issues:

• Examining ethical dilemmas faced by midwives in clinical practice.
• Exploring legal frameworks for midwifery practice across different countries
• Assessing the impact of litigation on midwifery practice

Mental Health in Pregnancy and Childbirth:

• Investigating the prevalence of anxiety disorders in pregnant women
• Exploring interventions for addressing trauma in childbirth
• Assessing the role of midwives in identifying and supporting women with perinatal mental health issues

Integrative Medicine in Midwifery Practice:

• Exploring the integration of complementary therapies in midwifery care
• Assessing the safety and efficacy of herbal remedies during pregnancy and childbirth
• Investigating cultural practices and rituals surrounding pregnancy and birth

Technology in Midwifery:

• Examining the use of telemedicine in midwifery practice
• Exploring the impact of mobile health applications on maternal and neonatal health outcomes
• Assessing the role of artificial intelligence in improving prenatal diagnosis and monitoring

LGBTQ+ Inclusive Care:

• Investigating the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals in maternity care settings
• Assessing cultural competency training in midwifery education programs
• Exploring strategies for creating inclusive and affirming birth environments

Global Health and Midwifery:

• Examining the role of midwives in addressing maternal and neonatal health disparities in low-income countries
• Investigating the impact of international partnerships on improving midwifery services
• Assessing the cultural appropriateness of western midwifery models in diverse global contexts

Midwifery and Public Health:

• Exploring the role of midwives in promoting breastfeeding initiation and duration
• Assessing the impact of midwifery-led prenatal care on birth outcomes
• Investigating strategies for reducing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality through public health interventions

More Midwifery Dissertation Topics

In light of the above guidance, students can choose any topic from the following given midwifery dissertation topics.

• The impact of maternal obesity on birth outcomes
• The use of midwife-led continuity of care models in maternity care
• The role of midwives in promoting breastfeeding
• The use of technology in midwifery practice
• The impact of cultural diversity on midwifery care
• The use of midwifery-led care in low-risk pregnancies
• The role of midwives in reducing maternal mortality rates
• The use of telehealth in midwifery practice
• The impact of poverty on maternal and newborn health
• The use of water birth in midwifery practice
• The role of midwives in promoting maternal mental health
• The use of midwifery-led care in premature births
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on midwifery practice
• The use of aromatherapy in midwifery practice
• The role of midwives in promoting gender equity in maternal health
• The use of midwifery-led care in home births
• The impact of policy changes on midwifery practice
• The use of midwifery-led care in rural and remote areas
• The role of midwives in promoting maternal and newborn nutrition
• The use of hypnobirthing in midwifery practice
• The impact of midwifery-led care on maternal satisfaction
• The use of midwifery-led care in women with complications in pregnancy
• The role of midwives in promoting maternal and child health
• The use of midwifery-led care in family planning
• The impact of the integration of midwifery practice and primary care
• The use of midwifery-led care in women with a history of trauma
• The role of midwives in promoting gender-sensitive care
• The use of midwifery-led care in low-income communities
• The impact of midwifery education on quality of care
• The use of midwifery-led care in women with chronic conditions.
• Role of a midwife: The role of the midwife in the present healthcare environments.
• Midwifery profession: Nursing and Midwifery-two identical yet different professions. Are they likely to go together? Or one will replace the other? What are the Prospects of males working in the midwifery profession?
• Improvements are needed in the midwifery profession in light of scientific developments in the health and childcare fields.
• The state of midwifery in developed and underdeveloped countries.
• Midwifery field: Discuss the latest practices in nursing and midwifery fields.
• The evolution of midwifery from ancient times to modern times.
• The relation between nursing and midwifery.
• The role of prenatal counseling in the growth of a child.
• Critical analysis of midwifery as the profession dominated by women.
• Midwifery service: How to improve midwifery services to less privileged women?
• What is the future growth of the midwifery profession?
• Pregnant women: Do the midwives influence decision-making and facilitate informed choices among pregnant women?
• Midwives’ descriptions and perceptions of pregnant women with problems of substance abuse .
• Comparison of midwife-led and consultant-led care of healthy women at low risk of childbirth complications in the Republic of Ireland: a randomized trial (the MidU study)

Midwifery is a noble profession with a lot of growth potential. There could be more thought-provoking nursing dissertation topics for research in this field. Interested in further details, call us for more Midwifery Dissertation topics.

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Midwifery is a health profession concerned with the care of mothers and all stages of pregnancy, childbirth, and early postnatal period. Those that practice midwifery are called midwives.

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The quantification of midwifery research: Limiting midwifery knowledge

Elizabeth newnham.

1 Griffith University, Brisbane Queensland, Australia

2 University of Newcastle, New South Wales New South Wales, Australia

Barbara Katz Rothman

3 The City University of New York, New York New York, USA

Associated Data

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

As two academics researching in the area of maternal health, we are increasingly concerned with what we see as a positivist turn in midwifery research. In this paper, we examine this idea of the quantification of midwifery research, using as an example the current esteem given to the systematic literature review, and its creep into other methodologies. We argue that the current favor toward quantitative research and expertise in midwifery academia risks the future of midwifery research by the lack of equal development of qualitative experts, diluting qualitative research rigor within the profession, and limiting the kinds of questions asked. We identify the similarity between the current prominence of quantitative research and medical dominance in midwifery and maintain that it is of vital importance to the profession (research and practice) that the proper attention, contemplation, and merit are given to qualitative research methods.

As academics whose work is in the area of maternal health, we have grown increasingly concerned with the positivist turn in midwifery research. We can only offer observational evidence of this, for example, examining qualitative theses with (poorly conducted and ill‐fitting) “systematic‐styled” literature reviews, comments from colleagues about what kinds of research projects are publishable or fundable, criteria for systematic styling of literature reviews in master's degree marking guides, reviewing incoherent qualitative manuscripts, by which we mean nonreflexive use of inappropriate language style (such as use of third person), or attempting to apply quantitative measures of rigor (eg, lack of bias, sample size, and generalizability). Our concern stems from the following premises—that the quantification of midwifery research:

• Limits knowledge, including research direction, design, funding, and the form research projects then take; and
• Risks reproducing patriarchal, colonizing and medically dominant systems of thought and knowledge creation, despite midwifery having human rights–based foundational principles that promote women's autonomy and claiming to value other forms of knowledge. 1 , 2

Medicine entered the university early—before anything we would call “scientific method,” well before asepsis, back when physicians were focused on translating historical medical knowledge into Latin. 3 Medicine was in the university long before what Foucault called “the birth of the clinic” in the early 1800s, the beginning of what we now think of as a “teaching hospital,” offering clinically based education. 4

Midwifery as a university‐based field of study and research, on the contrary, is in its infancy, although with different histories and trajectories of training and education worldwide, and with much of early midwifery education subsumed first into medicine, then nursing. We also need to recognize and value much more the knowledge of traditional, Indigenous, and lay midwives. However, when we look at university‐based midwifery research, many of the first professors of the modern discipline of midwifery are still living and working among us. Over the last few decades there has been an extraordinary amount of research by midwifery scholars that asks different questions, from the perspective of women and other birthing people, and of midwives. However, it seems to us that there is now a greater significance and authority placed on quantitative research. This can partly be explained by needing to produce research that is taken seriously by medicine and is certainly the route to attaining funding from medically‐oriented research bodies. It is also a symptom of the more widespread problems within academia including increasing pressure to publish, which has trickled down to postgraduate research students, and can lead to a favoring of research with clear lines and discrete projects, rather than traditional exploratory theses, which may not be dissectable into publication‐sized chunks. It is wrong, however, that there is not an equivalent growth, significance, and authority given within the profession to qualitative methodologies and paradigms, particularly given the claimed feminist nature of midwifery, and the importance of childbirth in the human experience. Although many midwives do conduct qualitative research projects, particularly in postgraduate research programs, there is less enthusiasm for, and status given to, continuing on with and building expertise in qualitative research. In addition, although midwives often identify as feminists because of the nature of their work with women's bodies, upholding autonomy and holding space for birth, 5 it has been argued that the profession of midwifery does not engage fully enough with feminism. 6 , 7 This is something we think can be, in part, remedied by this call to reprioritize the role of qualitative research in midwifery academia.

The importance of quantifiable research in maternity care is not under question. Quantifiable evidence by midwifery researchers has made groundbreaking advancements in knowledge, for example, demonstrating the importance of midwifery models of care 8 , 9 and place of birth 10 , 11 on improving outcomes for women and babies. The issue we are raising is the apparent incline toward quantifiable research within academia, to the exclusion of other forms of knowledge production, and the effect this has on robust qualitative research production.

Midwives were engaged in “research” long before it was understood as such. Techniques and substances were tried, evaluated, adjusted as more subtle variables became clear, and moved into practice or abandoned. 12 , 13 There is a long‐standing tendency within the culture at large and within contemporary midwifery in particular to dismiss this as research, and instead attribute this hard‐won, thoughtfully gained knowledge to “intuition.” When a neurosurgeon with many years of practice sees three patients with very similar charted attributes and says two should be okay but is concerned about the third, we recognize experience‐based wisdom and knowledge. When a midwife does the same with three laboring women, the language of “intuition” gets evoked. It would be wiser and truer to call this “tacit knowledge”: when we know things but cannot always articulate precisely how we know. 14 Research on that tacit knowledge, how one knows, is what is truly needed.

One of us (BKR) is a sociologist, coming from the perspective of symbolic interactionism, the sociology of knowledge, and grounded theory. One could discuss these perspectives in great detail but suffice it to say that how people know things, and how knowledge is developed, constructed, and shared, is itself worthy of study, and has extraordinary power in our world. Rather than coming up with a hypothesis in a causal relationship and testing it, the researcher might do better to take an educated, thoughtful, analytic mind into the field and listen. Early sociological work in this vein brought us the concept of a “midwifery model” in contradistinction to a “medical model” of what birth itself is. 15 Listening to the midwives who had been trained in one system and worked in another, the idea of fundamental differences in the model of birth became clear. This kind of qualitative work, deep listening, and open‐minded and open‐ended research is precisely what is being undervalued.

For the other of us (EN), a midwifery academic, this is most clearly illustrated in the “systematization” of literature reviews. There is an apparent push, in midwifery academia, toward systematic‐styled literature reviews, even for those reviews foregrounding a qualitative research project. Commonly now, midwifery postgraduate students and researchers are persuaded that a “systematic‐styled review” is the only (authoritative) kind of literature review that can be accomplished (or published). Coming to midwifery research with a social/political science background, which has different academic practices, EN has watched this emphasis grown over the last decade with increasing dismay.

Systematic reviews are a form of primary quantitative research, where meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials aims to give a more robust account of the intervention in question because it can draw on a greater sample size. Systematic reviews have been incredibly useful to maternity care research, particularly in the early days of the Cochrane database, 16 in identifying practices that were harmful to birthing women and eschewing practices based on clinician preference. The methodology of meta‐synthesis (or meta‐ethnography) attempts a similar aim: to provide a systematic qualitative “synthesis” of data about human experience, and so these also make use of a predetermined protocol and search strategy.

Preordained protocols and search strategies are fundamental to the systematic review and meta‐analysis/meta‐synthesis as a primary research methodology so that they can be replicated and/or verified by others. However, it is important to remember that replicability is a quantitative measure of rigor; invariably, primary qualitative research cannot be replicated in the same way. In qualitative research, it is important to show the “workings out” in terms of raw data, analytic transparency, reflexivity, and so on. But there is no expectation that, for example, one ethnographic study can be replicated by another ethnographer in the way that a laboratory experiment must be replicable. To some extent, this is because the researcher is an instrument of the research. 17 Thus, the more experienced the researcher, the keener their critical thinking skills and breadth of knowledge, the better the quality of the research.

Yet, it is increasingly common to see systematic‐styled literature reviews with quasisystematic aspects, foregrounding what would otherwise be a (qualitative) narrative literature review. Not only is a structured and predetermined search strategy unnecessary for these kinds of reviews, but it is also completely incongruous with qualitative research rigor and methodology. Literature reviews for qualitative research projects may include historical, theoretical, or anthropological–sociological literature, which is chosen, read, and deliberated on by the student or researcher, using critical thinking, depth, and breadth of reading in their field, deep reflection, and attention to theoretical arguments. The criticality needed to produce high‐quality qualitative research is not fostered by a quasisystematic literature review based on quantitative methodological principles.

Attempts to conduct qualitative research in a quantitatively rigorous way not only defies all logic but also significantly reduces the rigor of that research. It is important to note that the rigor of most qualitative research methods and findings is reliant on their relationship to the underpinning social theory and the ability to construct a critical argument. Here is yet another basis to our concerns about the quantitative turn in midwifery research, as the requisite knowledge and expertise of the social theories that accompany qualitative research are at risk of not being understood or developed. Embedding beginning social theory courses into midwifery undergraduate programs (and certainly in postgraduate programs) may help to alleviate this.

We are not at all diminishing the importance, rigor, or use of quantitative and systematic methods, particularly when reviewing clinical or experimental research. However, for reasons inexplicable to us, the idea of the systematic‐styled review as the only robust measure of reviewing literature has crept into midwifery academia. The extent of the creep now leaves little room for other ways of reviewing literature that might be more exploratory, or critical, or discursive, or transdisciplinary. The uncritical acceptance of the quantification of the literature review discounts the need for also having narrative, inquiring, critical, purposive, theoretical literature reviews, which have a different intent and a different process.

What is lost by conforming only to stepped, recipe‐like, preordained literature review approaches, with their “robust and nonbiased” knowledge claims (the same claims of science over the centuries, while simultaneously asking research questions from a point of view of gendered, cultural, and economic dominance), is critical, theoretical, and intellectual rigor, in both research direction and execution. There is a danger therefore of reproducing the reductionism and dominance of medical and scientific discourse, which feminist theorists and midwifery scholars alike have painstakingly identified, dissected, and resisted. Crucially, midwifery needs good qualitative research. It needs skilled researchers who are willing to take chances, and dissertation supervisors who are competent to supervise students in rigorous qualitative study. Midwifery needs journal editors who are able to see past the “systematic‐styled review” blindness, and professors who are experts in qualitative research and its accompanying social theory.

The risk of not valuing qualitative expertise, or of perceiving qualitative research as easy, or an adjunct to the more important quantitative data (especially now that policymakers and research bodies are interested in participant experience), is poorly conducted qualitative research design and analysis (see, eg, Coates & Catling's 18 discussion on this issue in the use of ethnography in maternity research). It is as risky to midwifery—to research, practice, and praxis—as understanding childbirth only in terms of measurable “outputs.”

The quantification of life has some use but can also approach absurdity, and it is toward the absurd that an uncritical acceptance of “quantification as rigorous” is leading us. What is surprising is that there appears to be little backlash to this turn from within the midwifery research community, and, perhaps more astounding, even less insight into how this stance is reminiscent of (or reproduces) medical and scientific dominance. 19 Audre Lorde wrote: “For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” 20

In order to continue to bring about genuine change in maternal health and maternity care, as well as continuing attempts to systematically measure outcomes, we must recognize the patriarchal and colonial roots of knowledge production and dissemination, and critically engage with theories of antioppression, antiracism, and feminism that address decolonization, intersectionality, and reproductive justice, 21 , 22 which remain absent from much midwifery research design. We call for midwifery and maternity care researchers to hold space for qualitative expertise; for deep, slow, reflective, theoretical thinking; for exploring tacit and experiential knowledge; for tangential asides; for creativity; for meandering down various paths; for seeing what is possible; and for discussion of why these are important to midwifery research, just as we discuss how such things are important to midwifery practice.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Open access publishing facilitated by Griffith University, as part of the Wiley ‐ Griffith University agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.

Newnham E, Rothman BK. The quantification of midwifery research: Limiting midwifery knowledge . Birth . 2022; 49 :175–178. doi: 10.1111/birt.12615 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

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So you have been asked to complete a literature review, but what is a literature review?

A literature review is a piece of research which aims to address a specific research question. It is a comprehensive summary and analysis of existing literature. The literature itself should be the main topic of discussion in your review. You want the results and themes to speak for themselves to avoid any bias.

The first step is to decide on a topic. Here are some elements to consider when deciding upon a topic:

• Choose a topic which you are interested in, you will be looking at a lot of research surrounding that area so you want to ensure it is something that interests you. 
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It is important to remember that databases will only ever search for the exact term you put in, so don't panic if you are not getting the results you hoped for. Think about alternative words that could be used for each keyword to build upon your search. 

Build your search by thinking about about synonyms, specialist language, spellings, acronyms, abbreviations for each keyword that you have.

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Your inclusion and exclusion criteria is also an important step in the literature review process. It allows you to be transparent in how you have  ended up with your final articles. 

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Boolean Operators

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Don't forget the more ORs you use the broader your search becomes, the more ANDs you use the narrower your search becomes. 

One of the databases you will be using is EBSCOHost Research Databases. This is a platform which searches through multiple databases so allows for a comprehensive search. The short video below covers how to access and use EBSCO. 

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Sample - as this is qualitative research sample is preferred over patient so that it is not generalised. 

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Design - the form of research used. 

Evaluation - the outcomes.

Research type -qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods.  

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Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)

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Understanding Health Research

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Greenhalgh, T. (2014) How to read a paper: The basics of evidence-based medicine . 5 th edn. Chichester: Wiley

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• 20 August 2024

How a midwife became a neuroscientist to seek a cure for her son

• Elizabeth Landau 0

Elizabeth Landau is a science writer based in Washington DC.

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Terry Jo Bichell (pictured in her laboratory) was part of a 2016 campaign in which scientists shared their inspirational stories. Credit: Wes Duenkel

Working scientist profiles

This article is part of an occasional series in which Nature profiles scientists with unusual career histories or outside interests.

Terry Jo Bichell sensed there was something different about her fifth, youngest child when he was just a baby. At first, doctors and friends told her that she was being neurotic, that there was nothing wrong. But when the boy, Lou, couldn’t sit up properly at the age of one, a paediatrician decided to run some tests.

A blood test revealed that Lou had Angelman syndrome, a rare developmental disorder with symptoms such as impaired motor function, limited or no speech, seizures and difficulty in sleeping. It affects one in 12,000 to one in 20,000 individuals, and there is no known cure.

Bichell heard about this diagnosis in 2000 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she was teaching at a midwifery school at the time. She remembers that, soon after, she walked half an hour to get to an Internet-connected computer to learn more.

But merely reading about Angelman syndrome didn’t satisfy Bichell. She wanted to help to find a cure, or at least a treatment — even if it meant becoming a scientist herself.

In July 2000, Bichell flew to Finland with her mother and the baby to attend the first major international conference on Angelman syndrome in Tampere. “It was the first time I had really been interested in hard science” as opposed to health care, Bichell remembers. “And it was just fascinating. And it felt like we were on the verge of a treatment, and all we had to do was just reach through the curtain, and we’d be able to figure it out.”

Sleepless nights

Angelman syndrome is named after British physician Harry Angelman, who, in 1965, noted three children with poor muscle control and abnormalities of the brain, skull and eyes, and who frequently laughed. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that scientists identified a mutation in the UBE3A gene, on chromosome 15, as the cause. Most people have both maternal and paternal copies of UBE3A , and the condition is most commonly the result of the maternal copy being absent or damaged. Overexpression of a protein linked to the same gene has been linked to autism spectrum disorders 1 .

At the Tampere conference, Lou’s sleep challenges were exacerbated by jet lag and the long daylight hours near the Arctic Circle, and Bichell would do 3 a.m. walks with him in the hotel lobby. That’s how she got to know Arthur Beaudet, a geneticist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who helped to establish the connection between Angelman syndrome and UBE3A . Beaudet found himself sleepless at the same time, and the two of them discussed starting a clinical trial in San Diego, California, where Bichell was then based. The idea was to test supplements called folate and betaine as possible treatments for Angelman syndrome, on the basis that these substances might lessen some of the symptoms. Although the trial proved unsuccessful, it led to Bichell becoming a coordinator and part-time co-investigator for research into the condition.

At that point, Bichell hadn’t trained in medicine, genetics or neurobiology. She had, at first, worked as a documentary film-maker, but her career aspirations changed during a film shoot in Côte d’Ivoire in 1986, when she saw a baby die after a difficult birth. The experience made her determined to become a midwife, and subsequent degrees in nursing and public health equipped her for her new calling.

In 2000, Bichell partnered with Lynne Bird, a clinical geneticist at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, to raise funds for and undertake Angelman research projects, including the folate and betaine trials. In a subsequent study on the natural course of the condition, Bichell interviewed more than 100 families of children with Angelman, work that she continued at Vanderbilt University after her family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2006.

Lou’s sleep difficulties persisted, and Bichell remembers feeling sleep-deprived herself while driving to Vanderbilt to teach pre-literacy skills to children with Angelman. She began to wonder whether the circadian system had some connection to the disorder. “I didn’t think that anyone else in the world would be interested in following up on those hunches,” she says.

Biology homework

Eventually, Bichell decided she couldn’t sit back and await developments that might help Lou. She resolved to train as a neuroscientist and, one day, to determine the direction of research herself. “I was almost 40 when he was born, and that meant that I was probably going to die 40 years before him,” she says. This meant that “somebody else was going to have to take care of him all that time”, so she felt she had better find a treatment for the condition.

Aged 49, she enrolled in a neuroscience PhD programme at Vanderbilt in 2009 and found herself doing homework alongside her teenage daughters, who were also studying biology.

Initially, Bichell worked in a laboratory specializing in Angelman syndrome. But when the principal investigator decided to quit research, she lost her funding to probe the very condition that she had set out to study.

To stay in the programme, she would need to redirect her energy to a topic she knew nothing about for her dissertation. So, Bichell joined the lab of neuroscientist Aaron Bowman to work on Huntington’s disease, an inherited neurodegenerative condition. In retrospect, she appreciates the shift. “It expanded my mind beyond just Angelman syndrome, so then I was able to learn about a lot of other disorders and think more globally,” she says.

But the question of how the circadian system plays a role in Angelman continued to nag at Bichell. At Vanderbilt, she found an ally in Carl Johnson, who specializes in studies of circadian rhythms but knew little about Angelman syndrome. “She basically sucked me into this,” he says. Johnson had a small grant to support her investigations, which led to peer-reviewed papers demonstrating links between circadian rhythms and the condition 2 .

Being a PhD student in her fifties came with challenges. Whereas most graduate students could check on their experiments in the evenings, Bichell needed to pick up her children from school, take them to sporting events and cook their meals. (Lou attended Nashville public schools with the help of an educational assistant.) She would sometimes set an alarm in the middle of the night so that she could have uninterrupted research time on campus. “I would be there in the dark with all those creepy lab sounds going on, and nobody else there,” she says.

One night in 2010, while 11-year-old Lou, his father and two of his sisters slumbered at home, Bichell found herself crying in the lab, unable to wipe her tears off her nose because her hands were in a sterile area. “I just felt like, ‘This is horrible. What am I doing to my family? What am I doing to myself?’”

The mini-lab manager

But Bichell’s schedule became more sustainable when she created what she called a “mini-lab” of undergraduate students to work and study with her. Just as a principal investigator would, she delegated a host of small tasks to the students, but remained in charge of the experiments and analysis. The group learnt as a collective, rather than competing with one another.

“I felt like I was a mum to all my students and grad students. I was feeding the kids dinner, and then I was going back to the lab and feeding the cells,” she says. “It was all the same”, she laughs, just on “a slightly different scale”.

For her dissertation, Bichell investigated the role of manganese — which is essential for cells and yet toxic when overabundant— in mouse models of Huntington’s disease 3 . Exposing the mice to supplemental manganese led to a rebalancing of the natural urea cycle, a crucial process that mediates ammonia’s removal from the bloodstream. Her findings support the idea that the mutation in HTT , the gene that causes Huntington’s, leads to a deficiency of manganese in the brain, which contributes to increases in urea and ammonia, also in the brain. More research is needed to determine whether manganese could be involved in treatment, Bowman says.

Bowman, who now heads the School of Life Sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, remembers the unusually large audience at Bichell’s thesis defence in September 2016, including the many undergraduates who had worked with her, plus faculty members, other graduate students and her family. “She got a standing ovation,” Bowman says. “I have never seen that before. Usually there’s polite clapping.”

Bichell never had expectations of going into academia after her graduation: “There’s no time for me to have a career like that,” she says. Instead, using the broadened perspectives she gained in her PhD work, she founded COMBINEDBrain, a non-profit body that connects patient-advocacy groups with clinicians, researchers and pharmaceutical companies. Its goal is to speed up research on treatments for rare genetic neurological disorders, including Angelman syndrome.

“She’s a bridge-builder,” Bowman says. Bichell’s diverse experience gave her credibility among both researchers and patient-advocacy communities, and “there are very few people in this world that can stand strong on both sides”, he says.

Combining forces

Today, Bichell’s son Lou is 25 years old. His speech is limited to “mama”, “dada” and a few approximations of other words, but he uses about 25 sign-language adaptations. Through an iPad app designed for non-speaking individuals, he can construct short sentences. He cannot be left alone in a room.

Bichell is confident that in her lifetime, a “disease-changing” treatment for Angelman syndrome will be found, and thinks that such a treatment would need to go hand in hand with widespread screening of newborns for the condition. COMBINEDBrain is one player in a large collaboration that plans to undertake a whole-genome sequencing study among infants aged 3–12 months who show signs of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Bichell is also hopeful that gene therapies will improve the quality of life of people with Angelman syndrome. Lou is currently taking part in an open-label clinical trial, meaning that participants know whether they are receiving an experimental therapy or a placebo. Bichell’s mother, who helped to look after Lou at the conference in Finland more than two decades ago, now assists with caregiving during the treatments in Boston, Massachusetts.

Now that their other children have grown up and moved away, the Bichell family offers rooms in their home to local musicians, who help out with Lou in exchange. Their farm includes a horse, donkey, chickens and bees. Bichell takes care of her grandchildren and teaches a translational neuroscience course at Vanderbilt. To fit everything in, she sometimes works late at night and sleeps only in short spurts, as she did during her graduate studies.

“I always have ten things going on at one time,” she says. “Eight people living in my house, ten animals to take care of, two careers. That’s the only way I really know how to do things.”

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Bichell, T. J. V. et al. Biochim. Biophys. Acta Mol. Basis Dis. 1863 , 1596–1604 (2017).

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Introducing ‘Natural’ Childbirth in Russian Hospitals. Midwives’ Institutional Work

• First Online: 13 October 2017

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• Ekaterina Borozdina 4  

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This chapter considers the development of independent midwifery services as an institutional innovation in the Russian maternity care. Following traditions established in the Soviet times, Russian maternity care continues to be highly medicalised. Based on a study of a Russian centre for midwifery care, this chapter investigates how, with the advent of marketisation and liberalisation in the 1990s, midwifes have performed informal institutional work to craft a professional space for themselves in this setting and introduce changes in maternity care in the form of demedicalised ‘natural’ childbirth approach. The chapter emphasises the uncertainty of the results achieved and continuous precariousness of midwifes’ professional position, highlighting midwifes’ skills in informal negotiations and navigating contingency.

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In Russian medical parlance, ‘vaginal birth’ is typically defined as ‘delivery through the natural birth canal’, and ‘natural birth’ frequently serves as a short form of this phrase. To avoid possible misunderstanding, I would like to stress that in this text I use the term ‘natural childbirth’ in another, more limited sense. To define ‘natural’ childbirth, I refer to the following (broad) criteria: (1) mothers are supposed to actively participate during labour, making decisions about the scenario; (2) a natural birth requires from parents some specific physical and psychological training; and (3) at the core of natural childbirth lies the principle of reducing, almost rejecting, medical intervention, with homebirth (attended by a midwife, or doula, or neither) as the prototypical form of natural birth (Mansfield 2008 ).

In December 2016, one of the federal Russian newspapers announced that the Ministry of Labor was developing new professional standards for midwives . If these standards are approved by the Ministry of Healthcare and the Council for Professional Qualifications in Healthcare, midwives will receive the right to attend deliveries without doctors’ supervision in cases of uncomplicated physiological labours. However, the newspaper also stated that at the time the article was published, the draft standards had been discussed in the Ministry for three years (Berishvily, N. [23 December, 2016] Midwives Want to Attend Deliveries without Doctors. Izvestia . Retrieved 26 January 2017 from http://izvestia.ru/news/653785 ).

Plans for building new, highly technological maternity hospitals were officially approved by the Russian government in early 2016 as part of the Plan of Measures for Realization of the 3rd Stage of the Strategy of National Demographic Policy to 2025 (official webpage of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security of Russian Federation. Retrieved 29 January 2017 from http://www.rosmintrud.ru/docs/mintrud/protection/237/Proekt_plana_meropriyatij_na_2016-2020_gody_7-10-15_-proverennyj.doc ).

The charismatic leader of the movement and inventor of the water birth method, Igor Charkovsky, is actually a swimming instructor by training.

Decree No. 572n of the Ministry of Healthcare of Russian Federation, issued on 1 November 2012 “On Establishing the Order of the Provision of Medical Help in the ‘Obstetrics and Gynecology’ profile (with the Exception of Assisted Reproductive Technologies)”. Published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, special issue № 6066, 25 April 2013.

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There are no official statistics on homebirths in Russia.

I am grateful to Tetiana Stepurko for suggesting this metaphor.

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Acknowledgements

The research has been conducted with the support from Novartis AG. I finalised the resulting text during fellowship at the Institute for Human Sciences, which was supported by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation.

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Borozdina, E. (2018). Introducing ‘Natural’ Childbirth in Russian Hospitals. Midwives’ Institutional Work. In: Zvonareva, O., Popova, E., Horstman, K. (eds) Health, Technologies, and Politics in Post-Soviet Settings. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64149-2_6

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September 2024

In a nutshell

International applicants: please check the  international intakes page  for the latest information and application dates. 

This postgraduate masters programme is for qualified midwives only. If you aren't a midwife and you want to qualify as a midwife please look at the below alternative web pages:

• BSc (Hons) Midwifery
• MSc Midwifery (pre-registration) - if you already have a degree in health or a related area. 
• MSc Midwifery Post-RN (pre-registration) - if you are a Registered Adult Nurse. 

On the  MSc/PgDip/PgCert Midwifery course , you will develop a mastery of contemporary midwifery and practice, enhance your professional credibility and develop your personal confidence for career advancement. 

The MSc Midwifery will empower you to take forward your practice in any environment such as clinical, management, leadership and research roles. There is also a dedicated pathway for those with, or planning to have educational responsibilities.

• Examine your practice and develop an evidence-based approach to care and service provision.
• Be taught by a dynamic multidisciplinary team of academics and clinicians who are recognised experts in their disciplines and who have strong practice links across the North West.
• Be encouraged and supported to present and publish your work.

students accepted

This is for you if...

You want to enhance your professional credibility and develop personal confidence for career advancement.

You want to develop a mastery of contemporary midwifery and practice.

You have the ability to act on your own initiative.

All about the course

You will be taught by a dynamic multidisciplinary team of academics and clinicians who are recognised experts in their disciplines and who have strong practice links across the north west. The teaching environments are equipped with state-of-the-art classroom facilities and dedicated midwifery and neonatal clinical skills simulation suites. Creative learning and participation are encouraged through reflection and critical discussion.

Please note that some modules require a clinical placement which must be in place prior to application. In some circumstances, assessment and practice can be undertaken via simulation.

One-to-one support and preparation is provided for assessments which emulate the real-life environment and allow practitioners to develop their skills and confidence. Although this might seem daunting you have the opportunity to learn at an achievable pace with a group of like-minded peers which students find friendly and supportive.

• MSc : 180 credits
• PgDip : 120 credits
• PgCert : 60 credits

Please be aware that if you are an international student you are welcome to apply for the MSc Midwifery but you will not be able to undertake any modules that require assessment of clinical skills. You will not be able to gain any clinical experience in the UK, unless you are registered as a midwife by the UK Nursing & Midwifery Council.

• Year one, trimester one:  Two 30-credit modules.
• Year one, trimester two:  Two 30-credit modules.
• Year one, trimester three:  Dissertation (60 credits).

Part-time (two years):

• Year one:  Three 30-credit modules (one 30-credit module per trimester).
• Year two:  One 30-credit module (trimester 1) and a dissertation (60 credits) in trimesters 2 and 3.

Part-time (three years):

• Year one:  Two 30-credit modules. On completion, this equates to a PgCert. 
• Year two:  Two 30-credit modules. On completion, this equates to a PgDip. 
• Year three:  Dissertation (60 credits). On completion, this equates to the full MSc. 

Critically Exploring Professional Practice

This module focuses on your professional development as a midwife nurse and is designed to support your critical analysis of yourself and professional practice.

Research Methods (Online)

This online module allows you to critically evaluate a range of research techniques and prepares you for the dissertation module. It includes an overview of the research theories, guidance on critically reviewing research, developing a research proposal and the fundamentals of qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.

Perinatal Mental Health

This module provides you with a systematic, in-depth understanding of knowledge, evidence and skills in relation to perinatal mental health, identifying, assessing and supporting pregnant and new mothers, their infants and families.

Professional Advocacy Modules

Two single 15 credit modules or taken concurrently for full 30 credits

Professional Midwifery Advocacy and Leadership (15 credits)

This module provides midwives with the knowledge and skills to become a Professional Midwifery Advocate (PMA). It introduces the concepts of the A-EQUIP model focusing on coaching, clinical supervision and restorative practices. Taught by experts in the field and PMAs; leadership, advocacy and the midwifery profession are critically explored. Students will have the opportunity to be taught in the state of the art simulation facilities and examine real-life case studies.

Contemporary Leadership in Midwifery (15 credits)

This module can be studied concurrently with Professional Midwifery Advocacy and Leadership to provide the student with 30 credits at level 7 and learning focused on wider leadership issues. Students will have an opportunity to explore self and others in the context of contemporary leadership and develop their own leadership styles. Social media and the use of technology will be introduced as a learning tool and to improve students’ use of these in their field of practice. This is a self-directed online module.

Newborn and Infant Examination (NIPE)

This module encourages a holistic approach to the care of the neonate by addressing the relevant physiology, pathophysiology, psychological, professional, social and behavioural issues underpinning the routine newborn and infant examinations.

Newborn and Infant Examination (NIPE): Theory only

This module explores theory of examination of newborns using simulated practical workshops. This module is designed for international students who cannot gain experience in a clinical environment in the UK. 

Independent Learning Midwifery

This online module allows you to undertake a comprehensive literature search on a topic of your choice (agreed with your academic supervisor) and to critically evaluate a range of evidence. This will provide you with the opportunity to formulate, negotiate and undertake a project that will enhance or develop skills and knowledge of a midwifery topic of choice.

Third Trimester Ultrasound

The aim of this module is to equip the practitioner with scientific and clinical knowledge, and critical understanding in order to demonstrate skills, competence and safe effective practice in performing Third Trimester Obstetric Ultrasound imaging. 

Students on this module will normally already be employed by a clinical department. 

In order to apply for this module, students must submit a Clinical Verification Form to demonstrate they have support from their manager and a clinical mentor to access the required caseload. 

Non-Medical Prescribing

This module allows midwives to study with other health care professionals to prescribe safely, appropriately and cost-effectively as an independent prescriber. It also allows you to critically evaluate and challenge prescribing practice with reference to evidence-based practice, equality, diversity and clinical governance.

Project Management

Develop project management skills for an individually defined project.

Dissertation

This gives you the opportunity to undertake a research project aligned with your own practice and area of interest. 

Evidence-based Care for Normal Birth

This module aims to support and promote normal birth, challenge the medicalisation of birth and increase your confidence to practice autonomously.

Emergency and Intensive Care of the Newborn

This module will enable you to advance your academic knowledge and clinical skills expertise to meet the needs of the newborn who require intensive/emergency care. You will also develop the skills necessary for decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations. Students will ultimately foster a deeper understanding of the needs of the family within the context of changing health care provision.

Care of the Compromised Baby

This module will enable you to advance your academic knowledge and develop your clinical expertise to meet the needs of the compromised newborn. It will also enable you to develop the skills necessary for decision making in complex and unpredictable circumstance.

This module explores theory of newborn examination using simulated practical workshops. The module is for international students who cannot access clinical experience in the UK. 

Maternal Critical Care

Develop specialist knowledge, skills and expertise to meet the needs of women requiring critical care during the childbirth continuum, and to facilitate a multi-disciplinary team approach.

Please note that it may not be possible to deliver the full list of options every year as this will depend on factors such as how many students choose a particular option. Exact modules may also vary in order to keep content current. When accepting your offer of a place to study on this programme, you should be aware that not all optional modules will be running each year. Your tutor will be able to advise you as to the available options on or before the start of the programme. Whilst the University tries to ensure that you are able to undertake your preferred options, it cannot guarantee this.

What will I be doing?

The MSc Midwifery is underpinned by a student-centred teaching and learning philosophy. A range of teaching strategies is used, including seminars, lectures, action learning, online learning, directed study, practice-based assessments and peer-supported learning.

You will have access to tutorial support via email, phone, facetime, Skype or any other appropriate methods that can be supported depending on student and lecturer preference.

Contemporary midwifery requires a diverse range of skills and the programme is designed to nurture and develop these in you. The MSc Midwifery allows for a variety of assessments related to the real world, depending on the module undertaken, and includes:

• Practical assessments
• Written assignments
• Seminar presentations

“The MSc Midwifery course team at Salford have an openness to recognising and valuing prior learning and clinical experience in the mature student. Salford gave me the encouragement and vision to drive me to achieve my full potential. Completing my dissertation (MSc in Midwifery) was quite a journey, given the extra demands and challenges of maintaining a fulltime job and a busy family life. However, the encouragement, support and facilitation that my supervisor provided was second to none. I would recommend others to grasp the opportunity of studying for their MSc at this excellent and dynamic academic institution”.

Chris Navin

Specialist Midwife Bereavement Support, University Hospital South Manchester

“The choice of modules available on the MSc Midwifery enabled me to develop and integrate knowledge and skills in clinical practice, leadership, management, and research. The support from the lecturers was excellent, with both face to face tutorials and online support, which enabled me to maintain a workable balance between study, work and home life. The modules are well designed and allow students to access areas of study that are relevant to their professional development, interests and aspirations. The MSc Midwifery has provided me with the necessary skills and knowledge, particularly in critical analysis, with which to continue to lead and support ongoing developments in midwifery care, and thereby continue to support the women and their families during the childbirth continuum.”

Anne McGlone

St Mary's Hospital, Manchester

The School of Health and Society

The School of Health and Society is a forward-thinking, dynamic school with a commitment to lifelong learning and real-world impact. 

We live in a rapidly changing world, and we’re keen to leave a productive legacy of helping people at all stages of their lives, improving their physical, psychological and social wellbeing. 

Simulation Suite and Immersive Suite

The University has state-of-the-art simulation facilities for clinical skills and simulation scenarios in a variety of high and low-risk environments. The immersive suite, one of only a handful of its kind in UK universities – will enable students to practice dealing with any kind of incident in a virtual setting. A series of cameras project realistic images onto three walls of the room as well as onto the floor, while sounds can be played into the room by specialist technicians working from a separate control room. 

The room can be transformed into anything from the back of an ambulance transporting women between hospitals or from home to hospital or to a challenging environment such as a houseboat where a woman has chosen to give birth. 

The dedicated counselling suite with therapy and psychotherapy rooms can also be utilised for learning such as debriefing and coaching sessions. 

Birth Simulators

We use a maternal and fetal simulation system called Sim Mom which allows you to appreciate the birthing experience from the onset of labour, through delivery, to treatment of the mother after the birth. 

What about after uni?

Past students have gone on to take up posts as midwifery managers, educationalists and consultant midwives. Others have continued their studies at PhD level, for example undertaking the Professional Doctorate offered at this University.

A taste of what you could become

A Midwifery Manager,

A Consultant Midwife,

PhD Candidate,

and more...

Career Links

This course is mapped against the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework, which was introduced to provide greater flexibility and benefits for individuals and employers. It provides a single, consistent, comprehensive and explicit framework on which to base the review and development of all staff. By undertaking this programme, you can therefore demonstrate you have the knowledge and skills to deliver a high-quality service for childbearing women.

This course has close links with the maternity and neonatal services and module teaching teams are multidisciplinary. This means your learning will be current and relevant to contemporary midwifery practice.

The MSc Midwifery: Education confers NMC-accredited teacher status for those wishing to move into midwifery education.

What you need to know

Applicant profile.

You will be a practising midwife, normally with at least a year’s clinical experience. You will be keen to explore and analyse the latest developments in midwifery knowledge and practice and develop a leading role in clinical practice.

English language requirements 

If you are an international student and not from a majority English-speaking country, you will need IELTS 6.5 with no element below 5.5. We also accept a range of other English language qualifications . If you do not have the English language requirements, you could take our Pre-Sessional English course . 

International Students - Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS)

International Students are required by the Home Office and/or the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) to apply for an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) Certificate before they begin studying their course. You may need to obtain an ATAS Certificate before you come to the UK in order for you to comply with Home Office regulations. Please refer to your offer conditions. You can find out if your programme requires an ATAS by checking the FCO website  with your JACS code which will be on your offer letter should you choose to make an application. If you cannot find it please contact our Application Services team. If you have any queries relating directly to ATAS please contact the ATAS team. Apply for your ATAS Certificate  through the ATAS website .

All students on a Student Visa must attend a minimum of eight hours of timetabled face-to-face sessions over three days per week. This would only be available to those students taking a full-time route.

NB: Certain elements of the PG Dip Midwifery: Education and MSc Midwifery: Education is subject to accreditation by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and not available to international students.

Undergraduate degree

You need an undergraduate degree in BSc (Hons) Midwifery or related degree at 2:2 or above, equivalent or have evidence of recent Level 6 study. 

International Students

We accept qualifications from all around the world. Find your country to see a full list of entry requirements.

Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL)

We welcome applications from students who may not have formal/traditional entry criteria but who have relevant experience or the ability to pursue the course successfully.

The Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) process could help you to make your work and life experience count. The APL process can be used for entry onto courses or to give you exemptions from parts of your course.

Two forms of APL may be used for entry: the Accreditation of Prior Certificated Learning (APCL) or the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL).

Additional costs

You should consider additional costs which may include books, stationery, printing, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits.

Scholarships for international students

If you are a high-achieving international student, you may be eligible for one of our scholarships. Explore our International Scholarships .

All Set? Let's Apply

Still have some questions? Register for one of our  Open Days  or contact us:

By email:  [email protected] By phone:  +44 (0)161 295 4545

Enrolment dates

September 2025

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Home » Blog » Dissertation » Topics » Nursing » Midwifery » Midwifery Dissertation Topics List (30 Examples) For Your Research

Midwifery Dissertation Topics List (30 Examples) For Your Research

Mark Dec 14, 2019 Jun 5, 2020 Midwifery , Nursing No Comments

As a student, if you are finding Midwifery dissertation topics, you have visited the right site. We offer a wide range of midwifery dissertation topics and project topics on midwifery. As the field has evolved, the research topics on midwifery are based on new and emerging concepts and ideas. You can choose any of the […]

As a student, if you are finding midwifery dissertation topics, you have visited the right site. We offer a wide range of midwifery dissertation topics and project topics on midwifery. As the field has evolved, the research topics on midwifery are based on the new and emerging concepts and ideas.

You can choose any of the give topic for your research in midvfery and our team can offer quality dissertations according to your requirements.

A list Of midwifery dissertaton topics

Emerging trends in midwifery and obstetrical nursing.

Modern trends of the N education in midwives and modern methods in practical training.

The impact of delayed umbilical cord clamping after birth.

How the cell-free DNA screening is helpful in identifying genetic problems in the baby?

Limiting interventions during low-risk labor.

The concept of cost containment in healthcare deliver.

The importance of family centred care and natural childbirth environment.

An interpretive research on the disparity between women’s expectations and experience during childbirth.

Systematic literature review on the extrauterine life management focusing on lung functions in new born.

To analyse the role of perinatal care to pregnant women.

Studying the treatment alternatives for urogenital infections in rural women.

Conducting a systematic review on how midwifery students plan their career.

Strategies adopted by midwives to advise pregnant women about nutritional values and healthy food consumption.

Studying the impact of Hepatitis B in pregnant women.

Analysing how frequent miscarriages are linked with higher anticardiolip antibodies.

Studying the relationship between perinatal mortality rates and physical activity levels.

How can nurses recommend preventive strategies to avoid sexual transmission of Zika virus to new born?

Evaluating the attitude of women related to the implementation of basic immunisation programs in village.

Analysing the modern trends of the education in midwives and new methods in practical training.

To study the advance trends in gynaecology and obstetrics.

The role of midwives in saving the lives of unborn foetus.

Exploring the global trends in nursing and midwifery education.

Analysing the role of optimal midwifery decision-making during second-stage labour.

To study the integration of clinical reasoning into midwifery practice.

A literature review on labouring in water.

Exploring the experiences of mothers in caring for children with complex needs.

An ethnography of independent midwifery in Asian countries.

To explore the perceptions of control in midwifery assisted childbirth.

Analysing the decision-making between nurse-midwives and clients regarding the formulation of a birth plan.

The role of Vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy .

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Information resources to support your midwifery research, student studies and clinical research.

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• MIDIRS Monthly - Midwifery, a Masters and Multi-Chained viruses.

Diary of a Student Midwife: My Experience as a First Year

My name is Helen, and I am a first, nearly second, year student midwife at University of the West of Scotland (UWS). I am hoping to write a few blog posts for MIDIRS, sharing my experiences of life as a student midwife, intended to help current and aspiring student midwives alike. My twitter and Instagram handles are both @pathtomidwifery, feel free to get in touch and let us know what you would like to see from these blog posts.

As I reflect on the first year of my midwifery degree, I have mixed emotions, but the overriding emotion is that of achievement. I have achieved things in the past year that I never thought possible. Midwifery is a career which allows us to be part of one of the most lifechanging milestones of someone’s life. As a first-year student midwife, I’ve done just that; I’ve been privileged enough to be present at a number of births and formed a part of many more pregnancy journeys.

That’s the thing about the midwifery course, you’re not eased in and kept on the side-lines. From the get-go you learn everything you need to know to form the foundations of your midwifery knowledge, preparing you for that first day on placement where it’s time for you to get involved.

My first year began with a 12-week theory block, all online due to COVID-19, where we learned the foundation knowledge required. Our first-year curriculum focuses on “normal” pregnancy and birth, so we learned the physiological changes to all the body systems during pregnancy and physiological processes of labour and birth. I personally think having the physiological knowledge forms the perfect basis for us to build on in future years when we start learning about complications and emergencies. After all, how can you learn about when things don’t go to ‘plan’, if you don’t know what the ‘plan’ is?

This theory block took us to Christmas where we had a well-needed three-week break. When we returned in January, we had a 6-week theory block, consolidating our knowledge and learning about more practical skills. In February, we embarked on our first placement, a six-week block which for me was in Best Start, the Scottish continuity-based model of care (blog post about my experience on Best Start will be coming soon). Other members of my cohort started community or ward-based Antenatal/Postnatal placements, or Labour ward placements.

We then had two weeks off around Easter, before starting our next seven-week placement block, where I stayed at Best Start, while others rotated around the Antenatal/Postnatal/Labour ward placements. I really enjoyed staying at the same placement; especially given the continuity-based nature of Best Start. As a first year, I felt this gave me a lot more confidence than if I had started somewhere new.

Finally, it was time for our last placement, a seven-week block on Labour Ward for me. The big, scary, dreaded Labour Ward. The environment of a Labour Ward is indescribable; there is a constant hustle and bustle, and a continual sense of disquiet as to what will happen next. Labour, and therefore a Labour Ward, is totally unpredictable. It’s a lot to walk into as a first-year student, but you’ll get through it, and look back on it as a huge learning curve.

I’ve done it, first year complete, and you will too! To all aspiring and future student midwives – enjoy it, relish every moment, and relax now while you can…

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