A midwife is a trained health professional who cares for women and babies during pregnancy, birth, and the weeks after delivery, focusing on safe, low‑intervention and emotionally supportive maternity care. Midwives do much more than “deliver babies” – they monitor health, give practical advice, and act as an advocate so the mother understands her options and feels in control of her care.

Quick Scoop

Core role in pregnancy

  • Provide antenatal (before birth) care: check blood pressure, baby’s growth and heartbeat, order or perform screening tests, and spot early signs of complications.
  • Give advice on nutrition, exercise, mental health, and everyday questions like what’s safe to eat or which symptoms need urgent review.
  • Identify high‑risk pregnancies and arrange referral or shared care with doctors (obstetricians, specialists) when needed.

During labour and birth

  • Stay with the woman in labour, monitor contractions and the baby’s wellbeing, and support different positions, breathing, and coping techniques for pain.
  • Assist or lead the birth: catch the baby, manage the third stage (placenta), give medicines like oxytocin or IV fluids if they are within their scope, and call an obstetrician if complications arise.
  • Aim to keep birth as normal and low‑intervention as is safely possible, while acting quickly if there are warning signs (such as abnormal fetal heart rate or heavy bleeding).

After the baby is born

  • Check the mother’s recovery: bleeding, stitches or tears, blood pressure, signs of infection or postpartum depression.
  • Check the newborn: weight, temperature, feeding, early screening tests, and general adaptation to life outside the womb.
  • Teach and support new parents with breastfeeding, bottle feeding, safe sleep, bathing, and basic newborn care over the first days or weeks.

Emotional support and advocacy

  • Offer calm, continuous emotional support, reassurance, and clear explanations at each stage so families understand what is happening and why.
  • Help parents process difficult experiences such as miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death, and signpost to further counselling or support groups.
  • Advocate for the woman’s birth preferences and informed choices (for example, place of birth, pain relief options, who is present) within the healthcare system.

Where and how midwives work

  • Work in hospitals, midwife‑led birth centres, community clinics, and sometimes attend home births, depending on local laws and services.
  • Collaborate with nurses, doctors, health visitors, and lactation consultants as part of a wider maternity team.
  • Different countries have different types of midwives (for example, nurse‑midwives vs. non‑nurse midwives), but modern midwifery generally involves formal training, regulation, and ongoing education.

In short: a midwife’s job is to make pregnancy and birth as safe, healthy, and positive as possible for both mother and baby, from the first test to the early weeks at home.

TL;DR: A midwife provides medical, practical, and emotional care before, during, and after birth, focusing on normal pregnancies, early detection of problems, and respectful, woman‑centred support.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.