Overview

Give birth to an inspirational career with midwifery

Make a difference to the lives of women and their families with UC’s innovative Bachelor of Midwifery. Upon completion of this three-year full-time or five-year part-time degree, you’ll play a vital role in building strong communities as a creative and socially valuable midwife.

The degree accepts a small cohort of students each year, which allows for a highly flexible and personalised learning experience, giving you the opportunity to develop a very special bond with your fellow midwifery students.

The Bachelor of Midwifery offers Work Integrated Learning (WIL) opportunities in a variety of practice areas and starts early in your first year of full-time study. Over the course of your degree, you’ll undertake a total of 1310 hours of clinical placements, including the provision of woman-centred care to 22 women during their journey through pregnancy, labour, birth and the postnatal period. The course has an extremely high graduate employment rate, and feedback from industry is that it produces ‘sensational’ midwives.

Study a Bachelor of Midwifery at UC and you will:

• work with women in pregnancy, labour, birth and early parenting using a primary health framework
• participate in WIL placements, including rostered and on call shifts tending to women in labour and birth
• learn to contribute to the development of services, policies and research into maternity care now and as a future leader
• work at individual, family and community levels to facilitate all women’s rights to, and responsibilities in, active participation in their maternity care
• contribute to new understandings of midwifery and other work by participating in research activities
• experience a variety of workplace settings, including birth centres, regional and rural maternity units, and tertiary hospitals.

Work Integrated Learning (WIL)

WIL is essential to the process of becoming a midwife. With a total of 1310 practice hours across the three years of this course, UC invests significantly in WIL compared with other universities. From the moment you begin your studies, you’ll engage in clinical practice experience across a range of ACT Health and Southern NSW maternity settings, such as Calvary Public Hospital, Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, and Queanbeyan District Hospital.

You’ll support the birth journeys of 22 individual women during your time on the course and will graduate job-ready, with an in-demand qualification from an innovative university.

If you would like to undertake international work experience, opportunities exist to participate in two-week Study Abroad WIL programs in places such as South-East Asia and the South Pacific. You’ll also be encouraged to join the University of Canberra Midwifery Society, which has student engagement as a primary focus.

Please note: throughout your degree you will be working in continuity with women and will be required to attend their regular antenatal and postnatal visits, and be on call for the woman’s labour and birth. The nature of continuity work means that you will need flexibility in both your personal and professional life and be able to adjust your commitments accordingly.

Career opportunities

Upon completion of the Bachelor of Midwifery, you’ll be eligible to register as a midwife in Australia across a variety of settings, including rural and remote areas, hospitals, birth centres, communities and in women’s homes.

Professional accreditation

This course is accredited with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council (ANMAC). Graduating students will be eligible to apply for registration as a midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.