Midwifery Studies BSc(Hons)

In this module you’ll be introduced to research and evidence-based practice in midwifery. You’ll learn about critical thinking, reasoning and reflection, which are essential skills for contemporary midwifery practice.

This module introduces you to the midwife’s roles and responsibilities in promoting and supporting family and newborn health and wellbeing. You’ll learn about fetal development and physiological adaptation to newborn life with a view to working alongside parents and health and social care colleagues to assess, plan, implement and evaluate family-centred care. This includes screening and diagnostic testing, as well as safeguarding mothers and babies. You’ll have the opportunity to learn how you can support parents in building nurturing relationships with their newborn baby, considering their cultural, psychosocial and health education needs. You’ll also explore the importance of supporting safe, informed and responsive infant feeding and protecting breastfeeding.

This module introduces you to the roles and responsibilities of the midwife in providing universal care to all women, their babies and families. You’ll have the opportunity to gain an insight into the accountability, autonomy and professionalism required for safe, respectful and effective midwifery care across women’s maternity journey. This will include pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, labour and birth and post-partum. Through this module you’ll start to recognise the importance of midwives working with women and their families, multi-professional and inter-agency teams to provide care that best meets women’s individual needs.

You’ll have the opportunity to complete 750 hours on clinical placement within a midwifery practice environment. You’ll be supported to participate in midwifery care that is universal for all women and their families during pregnancy, labour and birth and the postnatal period. This will involve you participating in caring for the newborn and supporting effective infant feeding. This practice-based module will help you to start developing and applying knowledge, skills, values and attitudes within a range of clinical practice settings. It will also provide you with opportunities to work towards the proficiencies and standards required of a registered midwife.

This practice-based module will provide you with the opportunity to develop and apply midwifery knowledge, skills, values and attitudes in a variety of clinical placements, whilst supported by a range of health professional practice supervisors. In addition to providing universal care for all women, their families and newborn infants, you’ll contribute to providing additional care for women and newborn infants with complications and challenges to family health. This will include public health, health protection, reproductive, medical and surgical conditions. The module will provide you with opportunities to progress towards achieving the proficiencies and standards required of a registered midwife.

This module explores a range of methods and approaches, using seminal and emerging research, providing the opportunity for you to develop critical awareness of research methods and practice. You’ll make decisions regarding which research methods are suitable to answer research questions emerging from practice. You'll consider how judgements are made about research quality and will address ethical, political and financial constraints on research.

In this module you’ll explore the midwife’s role and responsibilities in meeting the additional care needs of women with complications. You’ll learn about pathology, pre-existing, current and emerging complications and additional care needs affecting childbearing women, as well as how these complications can affect women’s health and wellbeing. You’ll have the opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills to recognise compromise and deterioration, provide first-line management, escalate concerns appropriately and work collaboratively with the interprofessional team to provide evidence-based best practice approaches to management and care. This will comprise situations including breech birth, haemorrhage and caesarean and conditions such as diabetes.

This module is designed to strengthen your ability to holistically assess and promote newborn health and wellbeing and promote parent’s confidence in evaluating and meeting their newborn infant’s needs, including infant feeding. You’ll apply fetal and newborn anatomy, physiology and pathology and professional accountability to conduct newborn assessments in the practice setting supported by appropriately qualified health professionals. This includes supporting parents to make informed choices regarding their newborn infant and sensitively sharing the results of assessments, providing the opportunity to build confidence in identifying complications, making appropriate referrals and facilitating care transfer.

This module builds on the skills you’ve previously developed at intermediate level and provides the opportunity for you to undertake a research project on a midwifery topic of your choice. You’ll choose from a variety of research methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative or a literature review.

In this module, you’ll undertake clinical placements in a variety of midwifery settings to consolidate prior learning and incorporate additional evidence-informed midwifery knowledge, skills and attributes. You’ll have the opportunity to develop proficiency in the full range of midwifery care for women, their babies and families, including continuity of care, assessment and evaluation, decision-making, organisation and management of care. You’ll contribute to care improvement strategies, safe and effective team-working and supporting learners’ development in providing midwifery care. This experience will enable you to achieve the proficiencies and standards required by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and European Directives for professional midwifery practice.