Midwifery Studies BSc (Hons)

You will develop your understanding of academic conventions in UK higher education aligned to your level of study, including expectations around critical analysis, structure, argumentation, evidencing, and referencing. The module focuses on developing communication strategies that will help you express your ideas clearly and coherently in written assignments and spoken activities. You will also reflect on your current academic and language skills and develop strategies for development ahead of your assessments.

The care midwives provide includes preventative measures, the detection of, and response to complications in mother and child, and undertaking first line emergency measures. You will explore the theory and evidence underpinning childbirth emergencies to develop your ability to recognise, diagnose and manage serious complications. You will identify when to summon appropriate assistance and select and justify the first line management of childbirth emergencies, within the scope of midwifery practice. You will also be introduced to aspects of high dependency care that will facilitate the application of knowledge relating to pathophysiology and underpin clinical practice in a variety of care settings.

This module will build on existing knowledge of the normal physiology of pregnancy to introduce you to emergency and high dependency scenarios within midwifery care. This is in keeping with the framework for Quality Maternal and Newborn Care (Renfrew et al 2014) for all childbearing women and infants with complications and NMC Standards of Proficiency for Midwives (2019).

This module consolidates your understanding of the healthy neonate and supports your progression to understand the assessment/care requirements of infants with more complex needs, including the preterm, the intrauterine growth restricted and the ill neonate. Factors that make the fetus/ neonate vulnerable will be explored, including genomics and epigenetics; these will inform your understanding of measures in pregnancy that optimise the condition of the preterm baby and develop your skills in the delivery of neonatal transitional care. This is in keeping with the framework for Quality Maternal and Newborn Care for all childbearing women and infants with complications and the professional standards for midwives.
Neonatal physical examination skills and understanding will be enhanced, and you will be introduced to the Newborn and Infant Physical Examination (NIPE) screening components and rehearse these skills with supervised simulation.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency fund (UNICEF) (2025) UK Baby-friendly Standards will inform this module content. The benefits and challenges of initiating and sustaining lactation and breastfeeding in complex circumstances will be explored and alternative feeding approaches will be examined. You will develop your understanding of the mother –baby relationship and the skills needed to support early motherhood as an essential component of midwifery care.

This module will build on the clinical knowledge and skills gained in year one and develop these as you explore the role of the midwife working with women with complex care needs in a variety of practice settings, in accordance with the framework for Quality Maternal and Newborn Care and professional proficiencies. You will develop your knowledge and skills in relation to basic life support and newborn life support, medicines management, patient safety, and referral and decision-making to provide care in complex maternity situations.
There will be an introduction to peri-operative care and consideration for surgical birth to include the essential skills required to support intervention, such as cannulation, episiotomy and suturing, and urgent neonatal care. There will be greater understanding of complexities in infant feeding for both the mother and neonate in accordance with UNICEF (2025) UK Breastfeeding Friendly Initiative. In addition, you will explore loss and bereavement, and interprofessional working; with consideration for referral to a multidisciplinary team, human factors, teamwork, professionalism, civility and risk. These areas of practice require that you are able to understand and work across professional boundaries, recognising the impact of the context of care provision on the personal and professional leadership skills you need to demonstrate in practice. The principles of continuity of care will be introduced and explored in preparation for learning in year three and to reflect the holistic nature of midwifery practice.

This module introduces you to new concepts and further develops existing knowledge and understanding of additional care needs that women and families may encounter throughout the childbirth continuum. The module will explore a variety of additional care needs and the role of the midwife in assessment and care, developing confidence and competence around effective collaborative working and inter-disciplinary practice. You will be supported to analyse the evidence base for practice around additional care needs and apply this to deliver safe, effective care to women in a variety of circumstances. Consideration will be given to a range of conditions and complications arising during and/or due to pregnancy, and of pre-existing conditions that women may enter pregnancy with. This will be supported and guided by up-to-date information on conditions having the greatest impact on maternity care and maternal and fetal health, utilising key sources of information such as MBRRACE and empirical research. The importance of holistic midwifery care in complex circumstances will be highlighted and features as a thread throughout the module content.

This module builds on learning in year 1 to develop your knowledge of midwifery research and other sources of evidence and apply your skills of enquiry and appraisal. You will revisit research designs and methodologies with greater depth and exploration and consider their appropriateness and impact for the midwifery evidence base. This will also include appraisal of evidence from practice, such as clinical audit, enabling you to further combine clinical knowledge and skills to tailor care to women’s circumstances and needs.
You will be supported to develop your critical appraisal skills to increase your understanding and academic expression of the evidence supporting midwifery practice via discussion of a range of research methodologies, methods and critical appraisal tools. This will include critical appraisal of individual studies and academic papers, as well as the contemporary evidence-base, and consideration of research ethics, consent and service user involvement. How evidence informs development of guidelines and policy will be examined along with how these are applied and understood by stakeholders, midwives, women and families. The use of evidence for quality improvement and practice development tools will be discussed regarding application to future practice and narrowing of the theory to practice gap.
Skills for academic writing, evidence searching and retrieval, and referencing will be revisited, and this module content and further skills developed in identifying and appraising evidence, will feed-forward to developing the required scholarly skills for the year 3 capstone project.