Four of seven students in the first intake of the Professional Doctorate in Midwifery program — believed to be the first in the world — will complete their degrees this year.
Director of the Centre for Family Health and Midwifery, Professor Lesley Barclay says being among the first graduates from this innovative program is only one of the trail-blazing achievements notched up by Sally Tracy, Nicky Leap, Pat Brodie and Chris Hendry.
Professor Barclay says the professional doctorate was introduced to provide an alternate doctoral preparation that more closely reflects professional priorities, rather than the traditional doctorate, which focuses on a discrete research study.
"We have among the Centre's staff and doctoral students a concentration of academic leadership in midwifery, maternal and infant health and neonatal nursing.
"There is quite a small group of midwifery scholars leading the world in higher degree research and preparation, and the Centre's staff and doctoral students are closely linked to and part of the forefront of this area of scholarly endeavour, and practice and policy development," she said.
Until World War II in Australia and the 1950s in the United Kingdom most babies were delivered at home into the hands of female midwives. Since then birth has been moved to hospitals and medicalised and in the process women's access to midwives as their primary caregivers has been restricted. However, recent reforms in maternity service provision are recognising that midwives are the most appropriate providers of care for the majority of women, with obstetricians providing care for women who have complications.
According to Tracy and Leap 70 per cent of pregnant women in the UK and New Zealand now elect to have a midwife provide continuity of care during pregnancy, labour and the early weeks following childbirth.
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