Is midwifery cliquey?

This might be a strange question, but after working across the maternity wards as a HCA I’ve found the midwives to be quite cliquey and not wanting to work in a team. On my last shift I didn’t manage to go the toilet for almost 7 hours as it was so short staffed. Whereas when I work on the adult wards, I find the nurses much more welcoming and grateful for my help, and some even ask if I want a job on their ward as they say I work well in a team etc.

I never thought I’d feel this way as midwifery has been my dream for years, and I didn’t want to think about doing adult nursing, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t want to work in a hostile environment where I’m looking down on for being a HCA, or just rubbish atmosphere where you feel like you’re being talked about.

What would you suggest I do? Currently I hold an offer to study midwifery for next year. If I was to do adult nursing then I’d want to go into either gynaecology, neonates, health visiting, sexual health.

Thank you for your advice.

Edit: The thing that’s putting me off adult nursing is that I have no interest in ‘adult’ nursing, so I don’t think I’d enjoy the placements on dementia wards, etc.

I'm not doing nursing so can't say what it's like as a whole but would it perhaps be worth getting some work experience on maternity wards across a few more different hospitals? It could be that you just got unlucky and maybe it's different in other hospitals?

You'll also be able to see what the dynamic may be like as a nurse on 'their level' level as opposed to as a hca. I used to work as a cleaner and the relationship between nurses and support staff is different to what nurses have with each other. Some wards the nurses would just ignore you / not see you as part of the team and some wards they were really nice and inclusive. I would actually say i had the opposite to you, maternity were generally nice, adult was mixed.

I'm an adult nurse so can't comment on the midwife cliqueyness thing - sometimes this is just unit dependent (although @Tracey_W may be able to help with this?)
From an adult nursing perspective, it's not all dementia wards. Placements that my colleagues and I went to included elderly medicine and nursing homes, but also amongst other things included other medical wards, surgical wards (including gynae), theatres, ICU, A&E, district nurses, GP surgeries, breastfeeding clinics, health visiting.
What else about adult nursing puts you off and what is it about midwifery that attracted before the cliqueyness? Hopefully Tracey and I can help.

Hi, thank you that’s really helpful. I’ve worked on Gynae, ICU, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Respiratory, Stroke, and also for a brief period in the community as an elderly care assistant in the home, to name a few.

The pros of adult nursing for me:

- Variety of options once graduated/opens more doors

The cons:

- Would I get bored working in areas I’m not interested in?

The pros of midwifery:

- Women-centred care

- Bringing new life into the world

- Can branch into neonatal nursing/health visiting

Cons of midwifery:

- Can’t work in other women-centred areas as need a nursing qualification (eg, Gynae/sexual health)

- What if I get bored in 10 years time and wish I’d have done adult nursing which is broader?

Are you a student midwife? I’ve worked all across the hospital but prefer women’s health, so that’s why I decided upon midwifery instead of adult nursing.

I’m only bank staff at my local hospital, so unfortunately haven’t had the chance to work on other maternity units elsewhere to get a ‘feel’ for the dynamics of staff.

This might be a strange question, but after working across the maternity wards as a HCA I’ve found the midwives to be quite cliquey and not wanting to work in a team. On my last shift I didn’t manage to go the toilet for almost 7 hours as it was so short staffed. Whereas when I work on the adult wards, I find the nurses much more welcoming and grateful for my help, and some even ask if I want a job on their ward as they say I work well in a team etc.

I never thought I’d feel this way as midwifery has been my dream for years, and I didn’t want to think about doing adult nursing, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t want to work in a hostile environment where I’m looking down on for being a HCA, or just rubbish atmosphere where you feel like you’re being talked about.

What would you suggest I do? Currently I hold an offer to study midwifery for next year. If I was to do adult nursing then I’d want to go into either gynaecology, neonates, health visiting, sexual health.

Thank you for your advice.

Edit: The thing that’s putting me off adult nursing is that I have no interest in ‘adult’ nursing, so I don’t think I’d enjoy the placements on dementia wards, etc.

@Oliviasmithxo please take up @Tracey_W on her offer of talking though things. She's genuinely lovely, really helpful and will hopefully be able to help you through your midwifery journey - clearly not all midwifery units are cliquey as Tracey has never moaned to me about stuff in the time I've known her

I've worked in a large number of healthcare settings in several different roles:


Don't generalise every work place based on your experience of one. Don't end up in a career you might hate because of one poor experience. If you're a healthcare professional you have an unprecidented ability to move to new workplaces if your current one is not to your liking: Unlike with so many careers, the job security healthcare workers have allows you to be quite selective with who you are employed by, as there is always going to be work for you somewhere. It's a lot easier to change where you work than to go back and do another degree because you chose the wrong one last time!

You might not hate adult nursing though, there's a lot more to it than dementia care, there's a whole variety of interesting, specialised career paths managing a huge variety of complex conditions in diverse settings.

I’d imagine being a student is a lot different than working as a HCA.

I’m quite interested in public health nursing, so that’s what’s leaving me undecided about which path to choose.

You imagine correct. Being a student is definitely different to being a HCA, and being qualified is very different again.


I've just googled "midwife public health jobs" and there are band 7/8 public health jobs for midwives so going down that route is definitely an option.
I've also had a look at requirements for being a school nurse. To do this, you have to have the SCPHN qualification on top of degree/registration... and everywhere says registered nurse or midwife. How common it is for midwives to go down this route I honestly don't know but it is allowed (https://www.nmc.org.uk/registration/staying-on-the-register/scphn-registration/)

Hi Emily

Thanks for letting me know, I think school nursing is definitely something I’d want to look into as it’s good that midwives are allowed to do this. I’m not too
keen on health visiting, as I didn’t enjoy working in the community in the sense of visiting people’s houses.

I’m wondering whether I’ll wish I did adult nursing if I start the midwifery course now, because Gynae, & sexual health nursing appeals to me. Basically I love working with young people & families.

With regards to the common adult nursing areas, I’m only really interested in palliative care, maybe oncology, so I feel as though that’s not a broad enough scope to justify making that choice? What do you suggest?

From what you've said, you've now added a 3rd area.
Midwifery - caring for pregnant women. Can go into SCPHN, not sure how common.
Adult nursing - can go into gynae, sexual health, palliative care, oncology.
Children's nursing - this one you've thrown in now by saying maybe young people and families.

It sounds like you really want to do midwifery yet are finding other interesting areas as a way to talk yourself out of it.

Shame work experience isn't possible right now or i'd suggest going and shadowing nurses in all the different specialities. If you're really unsure perhaps a gap year would be worth it so you have time to decide, get experience and be more sure of the area you're applying into.