48^th Global Nursing and Healthcare Congress

Women Health and Midwifery Nursing

Midwives are supported by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) as independent providers of health care for women and babies. AWHONN promotes a woman's freedom to select and have access to a wide choice of pregnancy, birth, and women's health care providers and venues. The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) defines midwifery practise as providing health care to women from their teens until menopause (2011). Midwives provide primary care, gynecologic, family planning, and preconception care, as well as care during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, and treatment of male partners for sexually transmitted illnesses during the first 28 days of life (American College of Nurse-Midwives, 2011). Midwives can work in a variety of locations, including the home, a birthing centre, a clinic, an office, or a hospital.

AWHONN endorses the International Confederation of Midwives' Essential Competencies for Basic Midwifery Practice and Global Standards for Midwifery Education (International Confederation of Midwives, 2013a, International Confederation of Midwives, 2013b), which have been endorsed by the American College of Nurse-Midwives, 2014, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2014, as the minimum requirements for practising midwives in the United States. A midwife, according to the ICM, is a person who has successfully completed a midwifery educational programme that is recognised in the country where the programme is located and is based on the Essential Competencies and the framework of the Global Standards; who has acquired the qualifications to be registered and/or legally licenced to practise midwifery and use the title midwife; and who demonstrates that they have acquired the qualifications to be registered and/or legally licenced to practise midwifery and use the title midwife.