Training Midwives in England

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XV, Issue 2, 1 April 1926, Page 69

Training Midwives in England

In the report of the Central Midwives Board for the year ending March 31st, 1925, recently published, some new rules as to training are given. These will have the effect of increasing the midwifery training to twelve months except m the case of certain trained nurses, who will only be required to undergo a six months' course of training.

This is a reform long needed — the training of unqualified women for a period of three months, which was the original rule of the Board, and turning them out to attend women m confinement merely requiring them to seek medical aid m case of abnormality (which three months' training would scarcely enable them to recognise) was a scandal.

It is interesting m view of the new Act and regulations now m force m Now Zealand to realise that m length of training for this important work the young Dominion daughter is still m advance of the Mother Country. The regulation as to the delivery of cases is also revised, and m addition to the minimum number of 20 cases to be personally delivered and nursed by the

pupil midwife she will m future be re^ quired to witness at least ten labours before the personal delivery is commenced and also to have conducted an ante-natal examination of at least 20 pregnant women.

The number of lectures to be attended has been increased from 20 to 30 and must extend over a period of at least four months.

The policy of the Board is against approving training m any institution which does not have at least 50 midwifery cases per annum, as a lesser number could not possibly provide sufficiently continuous experience and frequent impression to be of much value to the pupils. Only m an institution where cases are numerous, with the concomitant quick succession of cases and the presence of an obstetric atmosphere, can the practical training be regarded as satisfactory.

May we conclude from the above that the training of midwives by approved teachers entirely outside institutions, which we have maintained (by personal experience) is absolutely unsatisfactory, is now no longer approved by the Central Midwives Board?