Midwifery shadowing means spending time beside a working midwife to watch how prenatal visits, labor and postpartum care actually run. It is the most direct way to test whether the profession fits you before you commit to a nursing or midwifery degree, and it gives you specific, honest material for later applications and interviews.
Midwifery is a calling that places you at the center of life’s most pivotal moments. As a midwife, you’ll be providing care and guidance for expectant mothers through pregnancy, labor, and the early stages of parenthood. If you are still comparing paths, our guide to what to expect during a pre-nursing internship shows how a related placement is structured.
As with other fields, shadowing in midwifery provides learning experiences and deepens your understanding of the profession. This exposure is also crucial in helping you assess whether a career in midwifery aligns with your personal goals and aspirations.
Key Points
- Shadowing lets you see the whole arc of maternity care: prenatal visits, labor and delivery, and postpartum and newborn care.
- In the U.S., there are three national midwifery credentials: the certified nurse-midwife (CNM), the certified midwife (CM) and the certified professional midwife (CPM). Each has its own education path.
- Every woman decides whether a student may be present. Respect her answer, protect her privacy and keep identifiers out of your notes.
- Reflection is what turns hours into learning. Write down what you saw, what you asked and what you still do not understand.
Why Consider Midwifery Shadowing?
The United States is currently facing a shortage of midwives; this creates a pressing need for new professionals in this field. According to 2023 research, there are only four midwives for every 1,000 live births, significantly lower than the average of 30 to 70 in other high-income countries.
The need is global, too. The State of the World’s Midwifery 2021 report, published by UNFPA with the WHO and the International Confederation of Midwives, estimates a global shortage of 900,000 midwives. It finds that midwives can meet about 90% of the need for essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health care, and that universal coverage of midwife-delivered care could avert millions of deaths each year by 2035.
If you’re considering a career in midwifery, shadowing offers an opportunity to explore this critical healthcare role. Observing the daily activities of local midwives, you get to:
- Confirm Your Career Choice: Gaining insights into how midwives apply their clinical skills and experience can either solidify your passion or make you think twice about pursuing a midwifery career.
- Gain Practical Insights: Discovering the challenges and rewards of midwifery prepares you for future training and practice.
- Further Enrich Your Career: Connecting with experienced midwives can open doors for mentorship and future opportunities.
- Enhance Your Application: Many midwifery programs value shadowing experience, as it reflects your commitment to understanding the field.
The path to a midwifery career begins with earning a health sciences-related bachelor’s degree. After that, you can pursue a midwifery education, obtain certifications, and complete a midwifery internship program. While shadowing provides initial exposure, internships offer deeper and more in-depth training for developing professional skills.
Which Midwifery Credential Fits Your Plans?
Before you shadow, it helps to know which kind of midwife you are watching, because the routes into the profession differ. The American College of Nurse-Midwives publishes a comparison of the three credentials. In short:
| Credential | Certifying body | Education | Typical setting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certified nurse-midwife (CNM) | American Midwifery Certification Board (AMCB) | RN license plus a graduate degree from an ACME-accredited program | Hospitals, clinics, birth centers, homes |
| Certified midwife (CM) | AMCB | Bachelor’s degree, required science courses and a graduate degree from an ACME-accredited program; no RN license | Same range as CNMs, in states that license CMs |
| Certified professional midwife (CPM) | North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) | A MEAC-accredited program or NARM’s apprenticeship-based portfolio process; no academic degree required | Mostly homes and birth centers |
Ask the midwife you shadow which path they took and what they would do differently. Their answer is often more useful than any chart, and it tells you whether a nursing degree first, a direct-entry program or an apprenticeship suits your situation.
What Happens When You Shadow a Midwife?
Completing a midwifery shadowing program means you get to work with experienced professionals. They will show you the complexities involved before, during, and after delivery. You’ll learn the best practices in:
Managing Prenatal Appointments
You’ll observe how licensed midwives conduct health assessments, discuss birth plans, and address concerns raised by expectant mothers. You’ll likewise gain practical knowledge including interpreting fetal heart rate patterns and determining the baby’s position.
Notice how much of a prenatal visit is conversation. Midwives explain results, check how the woman is coping and plan the next visit. Watch how they ask about symptoms that could signal a problem, and how they decide when to refer someone to an obstetric doctor.
Labor and Delivery Room Procedures
Observing licensed midwives allows you to learn how they guide women through labor and delivery. These include techniques for managing labor pain, monitoring labor progression, and making decisions when complications arise.
Labor is often long and uneven. Much of a midwife’s skill shows in the quiet hours: reassessing, explaining, encouraging movement and rest, and recognizing the moment when a normal labor stops looking normal. Watch the handoffs between midwives, nurses and doctors at shift change and during escalation, and how the plan is explained to the woman and her family.
Post-Partum Care
During your shadowing experience, you’ll gain insights on how to handle post-partum and newborn care. At this stage, you’ll learn how midwives monitor the baby’s health and ensure the mother’s recovery. They could also show you how to educate new parents and promote early breastfeeding effectively.
Throughout these experiences, you’re not just watching; you get to absorb valuable lessons that textbooks can’t provide. Simply put, shadowing lets you see how midwives apply their theoretical knowledge in real-world and sometimes stressful situations.
What Should You Watch for on a Maternity Ward?
A busy ward can feel overwhelming on the first day. Pick two or three of these to focus on each shift:
- How the midwife introduces herself and you, and how she asks whether you may stay.
- What is checked at every prenatal visit and what triggers closer follow-up.
- How labor progress is tracked, recorded and explained.
- Who is called first when a concern comes up, and what information is passed on.
- How comfort, fear and pain are talked about, in words the family understands.
- What is checked before a mother and baby go home, and what happens if they cannot return for follow-up.
What Steps Should You Take?
The sooner you take shadowing opportunities, the better. Here’s how high school students and bachelor’s degree holders can get started:
Find Shadowing Opportunities
Contact or visit with birthing centers, local midwifery clinics, or hospitals that offer these services. Many healthcare facilities have shadowing programs, while others may be open to arranging individual experiences. If you find it challenging to find opportunities in your area, reach out to midwifery associations for guidance.
When you write, keep the request short: who you are, what you are studying, why midwifery interests you, the days you are free and that you will follow the site’s privacy and infection-control rules. Hospitals often route students through a volunteer or education office, while birth centers and private practices usually decide directly.
Prepare for Your Shadowing Experience
While you don’t need to have extensive experience, it helps to build your knowledge of maternal, post-partum, and newborn care. So, before your visit, familiarize yourself with fundamental concepts.
Also, when you arrive at the facility, inquire about the terms of your participation and seek to understand their approaches and specific practices. This preparation will allow for a more engaging and informative shadowing experience.
A useful pre-visit checklist:
- Review the stages of labor and common prenatal and postpartum terms.
- Ask where students should stand during births and examinations, and when to leave the room.
- Confirm the dress code, shoes, badge and any vaccination or screening the site requires.
- Prepare two or three questions and a small notebook to use out of sight of patients.
Make the Most Out of the Program
You’ll likely encounter different situations in the process. So, practice active observation to maximize your learning. Pay close attention to how midwives interact with clients, their clinical methods, and their decision-making processes. Learn how they handle challenging situations, too.
More importantly, reflect on your observations and focus on the lessons that resonate with you most. Don’t hesitate to seek clarity on issues that concern you. If you can, ask your mentor for debriefing sessions, especially after witnessing medical emergencies.
Adopt Ethical Practices
While it’s natural to empathize with patients, always maintain professionalism. As an observer, you shouldn’t get too involved emotionally or offer medical advice. Avoid being intrusive, and be prepared to leave if an individual isn’t comfortable with your presence.
Your role may give you access to sensitive medical information. So, practice confidentiality at all times, inside and outside the facility’s premises. Birth is one of the most private moments in a family’s life: no photos, no posts and no details that could identify anyone. Our guide to patient privacy and clinic selfies explains why a single picture can break that trust.
While shadowing can undoubtedly enrich a participant’s experience, it can also help enhance the quality of care in some settings. A 2022 UK study in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, for instance, interviewed staff who had shadowed patients through their care as part of a national quality improvement program and found the practice led to service changes that benefited patients and their families. While this may not be applicable in all programs, it shows its potential benefits when done strategically.
How Midwifery Shadowing Works With IMA
IMA’s midwifery internships abroad run in two places: Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya, and Hospital Nacional Adolfo Guevara Velasco in Cusco, Peru. Stays start at two weeks, and the Kenya program runs year-round. Most of an intern’s day, six to eight hours on weekdays, is spent beside a midwife on the maternity service, across prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care and community maternal health education where the site offers them.
The program page describes the role in its own words: supervised and observational, with interns not delivering babies or performing procedures, and pre-midwifery students observing and helping with simple, noninvasive tasks where the ward allows. Licensed clinicians and local midwives supervise on the ward, each mother decides whether a student may be present, and interns step out if she asks. Cusco also asks for at least two years of Spanish.
More broadly, under the supervision of licensed clinicians and within their training level, IMA interns take part in direct patient care across tracks: they take vital signs, help with patient intake and triage, conduct basic patient interviews and assist with noninvasive tasks, alongside ward rounds, rotations, simulations and community outreach. They do not diagnose, prescribe or perform invasive procedures, and track pages such as midwifery set their own limits. IMA has maintained a 100% safety record for all high school and pre-health interns, and staff are on call 24/7.
Hours are logged by date, area and shift and validated by IMA’s U.S.-based Medical Director, and interns receive a certificate of completion. That certificate is not a midwifery license or a clinical credential, and each school decides how to count the hours. For a look at what students see on a maternity service in each country, read our guide to conditions interns see by region.
Turning Shadowing into Future Opportunities
As your shadowing program comes to an end, think about how you can leverage your valuable experience. Here are some suggestions:
Request Feedback
Ask your supervising midwife for constructive feedback on your engagement. They can pinpoint your strengths and suggest skills and knowledge enhancements.
Seek a Letter of Recommendation
This isn’t mandatory, but you can include this in your application to increase your admission chances. In 2021, 853 students were actively pursuing a midwifery career, adding to the roster of 2,723 certified professional midwives (CPMs). On top of this, 3,195 students were completing their certified nurse-midwife (CNM) and certified midwife (CM) programs, adding to the list of 13,409 practitioners. The same GAO report found that midwives attended 12 percent of U.S. births in 2021, and that a limited number of clinical training placements is one of the barriers students face.
Stay Connected
Maintain professional relationships with midwives you’ve shadowed. They can be valuable mentors as you progress in your career.
Taking advantage of your experience prepares your transition from an observer to a practitioner. Shadowing also helps expand your knowledge and experience as you complete your midwifery internships in the future.
How Do You Turn Shadowing Notes Into Reflection?
Within a day of each shift, answer three prompts in a few sentences each:
1. What did I see? Describe one moment in general terms, with no names, ages or room numbers. 2. Why did the midwife do it that way? Write the reasoning she explained, or the question you still need to ask. 3. What changed in my thinking? Note what surprised you, what you found hard to watch and whether it moved you toward or away from the profession.
These short notes become the raw material for personal statements and interviews. A specific, honest sentence about one prenatal visit is worth more than a paragraph about “seeing many births.” Nursing students weighing related options may also find our comparison of nursing shadowing and clinical placements useful, and our National Midwifery Week guide includes an observation template you can print.
Final Thoughts About Shadowing a Midwife
Embarking on a midwifery career is a commitment to lifelong learning, compassionate care, and professional growth. Through shadowing, you can gain a valuable opportunity to explore this path. With it, you can understand the birthing process better, learn to anticipate potential complications, and gain confidence in a clinical setting.
Shadowing also exposes you to the lesser-known aspects of midwifery: the long hours, the emotional toll, and the administrative tasks. Gaining a realistic view of the profession can help you develop resilience and prepare you to take on the challenges in your future career.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I Need to Be a Nursing Student to Shadow a Midwife?
No. High school students, college students and career changers can all ask to shadow. Hospitals may set a minimum age or require a volunteer application, while birth centers and private practices often decide case by case.
What Is the Difference Between a CNM, a CM and a CPM?
CNMs are registered nurses with a graduate degree from an ACME-accredited program, certified by the AMCB. CMs complete the same graduate midwifery education and AMCB exam without an RN license. CPMs are certified by NARM through a MEAC-accredited program or an apprenticeship-based portfolio and usually attend births in homes and birth centers.
Can I Watch a Birth While Shadowing?
Sometimes. Each woman decides whether a student may be present, and some births move too quickly or become too complicated for an observer. Ask your supervisor in advance and step out without question if you are asked to.
How Many Hours of Midwifery Shadowing Should I Get?
There is no national standard. Midwifery programs set their own expectations, so check the admissions pages of the programs you plan to apply to and keep a dated log of every shift.
What Should I Wear to a Midwifery Shadowing Shift?
Follow the site’s dress code. Most ask for clean scrubs or business casual clothing, closed-toe shoes, a visible ID badge and no strong fragrance. Bring a small notebook and water.
What Does a Midwifery Intern Do With IMA?
Interns spend six to eight hours a weekday beside a midwife on the maternity service in Mombasa or Cusco, under supervision. The program page describes the role as supervised and observational, with pre-midwifery students helping with simple, noninvasive tasks where the ward allows. See IMA’s midwifery internships abroad for details.
