Midwifery work experience?
12
Hi, can anyone who does midwifery at university please tell me what you did for work experience? I contacted my local hospital trust to ask if they had any placements but they said that i have to secure one myself with a department/ consultant, but they also said you have to be 18+ for maternity placements and I'm only 17 (year 12).
I have found an online midwifery day course, but I think I need a bit more than just that, as it isn't exactly work experience. Do I need to have physical work experience? If so, what can I do because I turn 18 in december and my school wants us to submit our personal statements around then so I can't really get a hospital placement by then
I have found an online midwifery day course, but I think I need a bit more than just that, as it isn't exactly work experience. Do I need to have physical work experience? If so, what can I do because I turn 18 in december and my school wants us to submit our personal statements around then so I can't really get a hospital placement by then
Reply 1
17
Original post
by meoowHi, can anyone who does midwifery at university please tell me what you did for work experience? I contacted my local hospital trust to ask if they had any placements but they said that i have to secure one myself with a department/ consultant, but they also said you have to be 18+ for maternity placements and I'm only 17 (year 12).
I have found an online midwifery day course, but I think I need a bit more than just that, as it isn't exactly work experience. Do I need to have physical work experience? If so, what can I do because I turn 18 in december and my school wants us to submit our personal statements around then so I can't really get a hospital placement by then
I have found an online midwifery day course, but I think I need a bit more than just that, as it isn't exactly work experience. Do I need to have physical work experience? If so, what can I do because I turn 18 in december and my school wants us to submit our personal statements around then so I can't really get a hospital placement by then
Hi
Finding it strange to hear that you are not able to start midwifery until you are 18 ?
You have young people who are just turned 17 going to university to start as a student midwife and also general adult nursing and children nursing.
I would suggest that you should perhaps try and apply for a auxiliary/HCA nursing role at local hospitals and gain confidence and experience before you consider applying for midwifery at university. Also why not consider doing a MCA ( maternity care assistant) role if your local maternity unit has any vacancies for this as you will be trained in all aspects of midwifery except you can't deliver babies ( the course is around 18 months to complete and then apply for university to become a midwife as most MCA go onto becoming qualified midwives.
Any kind of work experience will be useful as doesn't have to be a healthcare job but it's doesn't matter if you don't have any experience....( I never had any nursing experience when I did my midwife degree but I only had retail experience behind me).
NHS registered band 7 senior charge nurse midwife.
Reply 2
hey, ive recently just applied for midwifery sept 25 start and i just did some general volunteering within the sector so ive been doing work experience at a care home and then also did some general volunteering at a primary school and all of the universities seemed impressed and didn't care that it wasn't directly related to midwifery, the main thing is transferrable skills such as teamwork and communication! hopefully you find one soon!! 
Reply 3
Hi there
Think laterally about transferrable skills that you can apply to the 6c's. It's going to be hard to get direct clinical midwifery work experience as a non-midwifery student. So you need to think about working with pregnant women, babies and families and how you can directly apply it to midwifery. Volunteering roles? Contact your local branch of NCT to ask about volunteering or just sitting in on a few of their breastfeeding sessions? If you can't get to a live session, watch the online NCT videos and talk about what you learned from them How to find breastfeeding support in your area when you need it | NCT.
Google local baby groups like baby massage or baby yoga and contact the person running them to see if you can shadow for a session or two.
Can you volunteer on the maternity suites at your local hospital or is it that also age-restricted? You would have experience of being in the environment, communicating with perinatal women, working in a team (very important), have an understanding of the role of midwives, their shift patterns and the highs/lows of their job (again, really important). < To be honest, you can demonstrate most of these without actually being on a maternity ward, so don't panic if you can't.
Think laterally about transferrable skills that you can apply to the 6c's. It's going to be hard to get direct clinical midwifery work experience as a non-midwifery student. So you need to think about working with pregnant women, babies and families and how you can directly apply it to midwifery. Volunteering roles? Contact your local branch of NCT to ask about volunteering or just sitting in on a few of their breastfeeding sessions? If you can't get to a live session, watch the online NCT videos and talk about what you learned from them How to find breastfeeding support in your area when you need it | NCT.
Google local baby groups like baby massage or baby yoga and contact the person running them to see if you can shadow for a session or two.
Can you volunteer on the maternity suites at your local hospital or is it that also age-restricted? You would have experience of being in the environment, communicating with perinatal women, working in a team (very important), have an understanding of the role of midwives, their shift patterns and the highs/lows of their job (again, really important). < To be honest, you can demonstrate most of these without actually being on a maternity ward, so don't panic if you can't.
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