Duties and Responsibilities of Midwife

What is a Midwife?

A midwife is responsible for providing care to women and babies during the antenatal, intranasal, and postnatal periods from time to time. Midwives provide high quality, culturally sensitive care during labor. They conduct a clean, safe delivery; give care to the newborn, and manage/refer emergencies effectively to prevent maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.

 Roles and Responsibilities of a Midwife:

The responsibilities of the midwives have pointed out the below:

1. Give the necessary supervision, care, and advice to women during pregnancy, labor, and the postpartum period.
2. Provide full antenatal care, including screening tests in the hospital, community, and the home.
3. Provide counseling and advice before and after screening and tests.
4. Conduct deliveries on her own and care for the newborn infant.
5. Manage complications in pregnancy and childbirth, by the principles of basic emergency obstetric care.
6. Identify high-risk pregnancies and making referrals to doctors and other medical specialists.
7. Provide support and advice following events such as miscarriage, termination, stillbirth, neonatal abnormality, and neonatal death.
8. Provide primary care to women of productive age, by the Basic Package of Health Services.
9. Supervise the provision of primary health care within the community by female health workers.
10. Counsel and educate women, the family, and the community, in relevant areas of health and provide a program of parenthood preparation and complete preparation for childbirth including advice on hygiene and nutrition.
11. Give support and advice on the daily care of the baby, including breastfeeding, bathing, and making up feeds.
12. Provide all non-surgical methods of family planning, and counseling for surgical methods.
13. Follow established health center policies, procedures, and objectives; continuous quality improvement initiatives; safety, environmental, and infection prevention standards.
14. Decreased risk of needing a cesarean and reduced rate of labor induction and augmentation.
15. Help to decrease infant mortality rates and preterm birth and take all initiatives which are necessary in case of need and carry out where necessary immediate resuscitation.
16. Help to decrease the maternal mortality rate and pregnancy-related sufferings.

More questions related to this topic:

1. How do you become a certified nurse-midwife?
2. What do you need to become a midwife?
3. Mention the role, responsibilities, and practice of midwives.
4. Discuss midwife duties & responsibilities.
5. Discuss nurse-midwifery responsibilities.
6. Mention the responsibilities and role of a midwife.

Maria Mona

Maria Khatun Mona is a Founder and Editor of Nursing Exercise Blog. She is a Nursing and Midwifery Expert. Currently she is working as a Registered Nurse at Evercare Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has great passion in writing different articles on Nursing and Midwifery. Mail her at “maria.mona023@gmail.com”