Midwife training online

Midwifery training is alive and well in Manawatu despite Massey University's decision to stop taking new entrants to its degree course last year.

Eight first-year students from around the region are now enrolled in an Otago Polytech course delivered for the first time through UCOL.

The women come from Palmerston North, Hunterville and Sanson, with backgrounds in sharemilking, banking, bakery, animal health products, nursing and education, and four of them have young families.

They will be meeting once a week with tutor Jade Wratten, who also works as a midwife at MidCentral Health.

She says the strength of the distance, on-line learning course is that the women are able to do most of their study and practical work in their home towns, increasing the chances that they will stay on and work in those communities where midwifery skills are needed after they graduate.

The women on the course say they're not worried about coping with the increased theory and practical requirements that have been built into midwifery training.

It was that increased workload, which Massey wanted to spread across four years but the Midwifery Council wanted condensed into three, that saw the Wellington-based university course closed to new enrolments.

Student Katte Johnston said a 45-week academic year did not bother her.

"I've come from a job where I worked up to 70 hours a week and only had four weeks off a year."

And Ms Wratten said women who were passionate about becoming midwives had plenty of motivation to get through their qualification and move into work.

Later in their training the students will do their clinical work alongside practising midwives, but in their first year, their focus is on supporting women through pregnancy, childbirth, and baby's early weeks.

Each student will need to follow four to six pregnant women through the year, providing companionship and learning about the experience from the women's perspective and understanding the choices they make.

Women interested in having a midwifery student involved throughout their pregnancy can contact Ms Wratten through UCOL or Otago Polytechnic.

- © Fairfax NZ News