The Student Room Group

Is Midwifery a good career choice

I want to study midwifery but my family is discouraging me because they know I don’t handle other people’s bodily excretions well. I think when I study and go on placement I’ll learn to overcome this problem, especially since most healthcare courses have stuff that make me queasy, to an extent.

They’re also telling me it’s too demanding and I’ll get worn out which I’m not gonna deny.. but at the same time isn’t this something you learn to manage over time? The work hours per week aren’t that different to radiography, (which is what they want me to do) so it’s not like I’ll be at home less. I wouldn’t mind doing radiography but imo it’ll be more mentally rewarding for me to help women in labour and see babies enter this world than to see broken bones and upsetting cancer cases. Obviously midwifery won’t always be sunshine and rainbows but I just want some advice as I’m a bit conflicted atm

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Original post by Anonymous
I want to study midwifery but my family is discouraging me because they know I don’t handle other people’s bodily excretions well. I think when I study and go on placement I’ll learn to overcome this problem, especially since most healthcare courses have stuff that make me queasy, to an extent.
They’re also telling me it’s too demanding and I’ll get worn out which I’m not gonna deny.. but at the same time isn’t this something you learn to manage over time? The work hours per week aren’t that different to radiography, (which is what they want me to do) so it’s not like I’ll be at home less. I wouldn’t mind doing radiography but imo it’ll be more mentally rewarding for me to help women in labour and see babies enter this world than to see broken bones and upsetting cancer cases. Obviously midwifery won’t always be sunshine and rainbows but I just want some advice as I’m a bit conflicted atm

Midwifery is a absolutely fantastic job and it's a unique job to be doing.
I would certainly recommend it to you if you are 100% sure you want to become a registered midwife after qualifying.

Your actual shifts will depend on what the working pattern are for the particular NHS hospital trust you are working under okay - some hospitals work a straight long hour shift pattern ( 12.5/13 hours) over 3 days from 7 days as you'll get four days off. Other hospital trust works a split shift pattern each day which means you'll probably be working 5 days out of 7 days per week.
There's community midwifing working in a GP practice which usually means you are only working the GP opening hours with a day off during the week and free weekends, there also community midwifing which works similar hours to the hospitals with 24/7 care.

Not all midwife's are delivering the babies as you have those who'll be looking after the new born babies and mothers.

Obviously as a student midwife you'll be working whatever hours you are allocated to do per week under the particular NHS hospital trust working patterns.

NHS registered midwife

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