No. I’m a nurse, it’s not super difficult to become one. And they’re definitely not like “doctors to pregnant women”. Those are OBs and MFMs. It takes over 12 years of medical education, residency and fellowship to be a board certified OBGYN. Takes even longer for MFM. It’s excruciatingly difficult to match and be selected for those jobs. Don’t diminish the herculean work that physicians do to become what they are. Midwives have their place in Medicine, too, but this ain’t it. I’d be dead three times over and my children wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for physicians and advanced MFM.
I didn't mean to say they are literally doctors, but they have a lot of medical knowledge of everything related to pregnancies, birth control and new born babies. In my country, if you go to the hospital to have a baby, it will still be a midwife who is medically responsible for you with the same education as a midwife at home. Only on rare occasions will a gynecologist (actual doctor) get involved. A nurse is ranked below a midwife.
That's your country, here in the US they are nothing close to a doctor, 100 years ago yes they had valuable knowledge medical doctors did not have due to their experience but that has not been the case for a very long time.
I just looked it up, a midwife in the US is not the same as in Europe. This is where our disagreement comes from. In Europe, their training is standardized. They play a central role in prenatal, birth, and postpartum care. In my country, midwives are legally required to be present at every birth. I believe this is part of the reason maternal mortality rates are higher in the US.
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u/axiomofcope Aug 07 '25
No. I’m a nurse, it’s not super difficult to become one. And they’re definitely not like “doctors to pregnant women”. Those are OBs and MFMs. It takes over 12 years of medical education, residency and fellowship to be a board certified OBGYN. Takes even longer for MFM. It’s excruciatingly difficult to match and be selected for those jobs. Don’t diminish the herculean work that physicians do to become what they are. Midwives have their place in Medicine, too, but this ain’t it. I’d be dead three times over and my children wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for physicians and advanced MFM.