In this module, you’ll develop your knowledge and understanding of the historical and contemporary context for women, birthing people, midwives and midwifery in the 21st century. You’ll be introduced to the role of the midwife and the overarching legal framework that governs midwifery practice and the guidance which supports it, thus laying the foundation on which to build both your midwifery knowledge and practice competency. The module will provide you with the knowledge necessary to develop the communication skills required to work effectively with both women and birthing people, their families and the wider care team. You’ll be supported to explore the concepts of research and evidence-based practice, reflective practice, resilience and self-care and gain an overview of the midwife’s role in the administration of medicines and the law and ethics relevant in midwifery. You’ll gain an introduction to academic writing, research, patient safety and safeguarding. You’ll be introduced to key documents through both face-to-face teaching, group work and via the SML (Self-Managed Learning).
You’ll develop your knowledge and understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the major bodily systems and the impact that pregnancy and childbirth has on these systems, as well as an appreciation of the psychological impact pregnancy may have for the individual and their family. You’ll explore the development of the foetus and changes the neonate needs to make to extra uterine life.
This module will enable you to develop an in-depth understanding of the provision of midwifery care in the pre pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum periods and how to optimise normal biological, psychological, social and cultural processes working in partnership with women and birthing people. In the skills lab, you’ll begin to develop essential midwifery skills required to care for women and birthing people throughout the childbearing continuum through simulation. You’ll be introduced to communication skills in relation to inter-professional working and appropriate referral mechanisms. You’ll identify the evidence base to support your care planning for women and birthing people. You will also be introduced to clinical midwifery practice and the professional, cultural and interpersonal skills across the whole continuum of pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal care and early weeks of the newborn infant. We will prepare you to provide midwifery care for women, birthing people and babies with additional and / or complex needs whilst also facilitating the physiological processes of childbearing. In the practice environment, you will be working towards meeting the requirements of the Midwifery Ongoing Record of Achievement (MORA) for Year 1. You will be supervised in practice, by practice supervisors and assessed by practice assessors in collaboration with a named academic assessor. You will gain feedback from service users in relation to the care you have provided.
You’ll develop knowledge and understanding of how to optimally support the mother/birthing parent and infant during the initial period following birth and during the postnatal period. You’ll gain an understanding of the infant's physiological, psychological needs following birth through insight into the infant’s physiological adaptation to extrauterine life and the importance of initiating skin to skin contact to facilitate feeding and parent-infant attachment. You'll gain the skill of undertaking the initial and daily examination of the newborn, together with knowledge of physiological jaundice and neonatal screening. You’ll gain understanding of infant nutrition and its subsequent health implications, thus facilitating informed choices by women and birthing people regarding infant feeding. The role of the midwife and the multi-disciplinary team in promoting breastfeeding and supporting all families with their infant feeding choice is explored from a wider social, cultural, political, and global perspective, specifically to gain an in-depth understanding of how health may be influenced by these factors. It will build on current knowledge related to nutrition, anatomy and physiology and their impact on lactation gained from sister modules Universal Midwifery Care and Midwifery Life Sciences. You'll gain the knowledge and skills to facilitate baby led feeding, recognise optimal positioning and correct attachment of the infant at the breast, hand expression and be able to communicate and teach mothers and birthing parents these skills effectively. You’ll learn to recognise common complications of breastfeeding and how to resolve these. Emphasis will be placed on your understanding of the normal neonate’s abilities to breastfeed and identify factors affecting this ability. The module will include an introduction to formula feeding, emphasising the difference between formula milk and breastmilk. This module offers the opportunity to develop a working knowledge of the Baby Friendly Initiative and explores how it may be successfully implemented and used to promote breastfeeding in a variety of contexts.
Gain an understanding of social and health disparities and consider strategies to address them through effective midwifery care as a fundamental aspect of public health. We'll guide you in examining the crucial role midwives play in public health and their significant impact on promoting, supporting, and maintaining the health of women and birthing people, their families, and their infants. You’ll learn that enhancing midwifery education plays a vital role in enhancing care quality and reducing maternal and newborn mortality rates (World Health Organisation, 2020).
Develop your understanding of some of the most common physical and psychological pathologies affecting people of childbearing age and consider how these conditions are compounded by pregnancy. You’ll review the clinical characteristics and management of these conditions, developing an understanding of the ways in which the pathophysiology of these conditions impacts pregnancy, and evaluate what is required for safe and effective management during the continuum of maternity care for women, birthing people and their babies. You’ll be supported to understand how the multidisciplinary team works together to produce an evidence-based care plan that is appropriate for the individual and recognises client choice. Through a combination of online and face-to-face sessions, using both traditional, lecture style delivery and scenario-based learning/small group work, you’ll consolidate the knowledge gained from online resources and self-directed learning.
Building on your knowledge, understanding and skills of working with women and birthing people and their families with pre-existing medical complications, you will learn how to identify and understand the complex conditions or circumstances that women or birthing people may develop or experience during the childbirth continuum. Using scenario-based learning, develop your knowledge and understanding of the complex physical and psychological conditions that may impact women or birthing people and their pregnancies. You’ll examine how these complex conditions or circumstances may affect the unborn infant and the additional care or monitoring these infants may require during pregnancy and following birth. We'll support you to identify the midwife’s role in providing and planning care for women or birthing people and infants with additional needs during this period and the importance of multidisciplinary team working together to meet those needs. You’ll discuss the importance of providing an accessible evidence base to support women or birthing people to make informed choices regarding their pregnancies, bodies, and babies. You’ll learn how to plan and implement care for specific maternal and neonatal complexities alongside providing universal midwifery care in the childbearing continuum. Your clinical placements will underpin the theory within the module and to meet professional body requirements.
You’ll develop your understanding and knowledge of the obstetric emergencies that can arise in pregnancy, labour and the postnatal period. We’ll support you to develop your skills in recognising the deteriorating patient and actions that need to be taken in emergent situations. Through scenario-based learning, you’ll identify the role of the midwife within the multidisciplinary team in dealing with obstetric emergency situations for the woman or birthing person, and for the infant compromised at birth. We’ll support you to identify appropriate actions, communicate effectively and utilise clinical decision-making skills. You’ll reflect on your ability to plan for different contexts of care and evaluate your skills in managing an emergency situation in the home and hospital environments. You’ll explore the concept of risk, consent in emergency situations and human factors involved in inter-professional working in complex situations. You’ll identify and evaluate an evidence base to support the care planning for women, birthing people and infants in these situations and appropriate referral. You’ll reflect on the impact that emergent situations may have on the individual, their baby and their family’s future health and well-being. Self-care is important following challenging clinical situations, and we’ll support you to recognise signs of vulnerability in both yourself and colleagues and actions needed to minimise risks to or wellbeing of self and others.
Continue to develop your clinical midwifery, professional, cultural and interpersonal skills across the whole continuum of pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal care and early weeks of the newborn infant. We'll support and prepare you to provide midwifery care for women, birthing people and babies with additional and/or complex needs whilst also facilitating the physiological processes of childbearing. We'll support you to further develop your knowledge on the systematic examination of the newborn, medicines management and patient safety. You’ll develop communication skills in relation to inter-professional working and appropriate referral mechanisms. Your preparation for practice will involve learning in the skills lab and simulation suite on campus. In the practice environment, you’ll be working towards meeting the requirements of the Midwifery Ongoing Record of Achievement (MORA) for Year 2. You'll continue to be supported in practice, by practice supervisors and assessed by practice assessors. You’ll gain feedback from service users in relation to the care you have provided. You will continue to develop your portfolio of practice learning and reflect on placement learning.
You’ll be supported to transition from apprentice midwife to a qualified practitioner, ready to face the challenges in the modern health care setting. This involves adjusting to a new and challenging role, accepting additional and different responsibilities and further developing the complex skills required of a Registered Midwife. One of these relates to the midwife's role in ensuring high quality, evidence-based standards of care. To improve the experience for women, birthing people and their families is one of the most rewarding aspects of a midwife’s role and requires insight, leadership, and understanding of evidence, resources, teamwork and planning. In 2023, the Chief Midwife for England set the vision for more midwives to become involved with and undertake research (and service improvement) projects to drive forward improvements in care with the first strategic plan for research in midwifery. Drawing on your training as a midwife apprentice, together with consideration of national and local drivers for change, you’ll have the opportunity to review a range of sources of information and consider more broadly how to assess ‘needs’ in practice to improve the woman or birthing person’s experience through research and service improvement. You’ll apply this knowledge by choosing to either review a recent national service improvement project, or by proposing a plan for an innovative service improvement, or primary research project for the future. Whichever you choose, this will involve consideration of the background rationale together with any physical, human and financial constraints associated with the project that you have explored or are proposing. Through this you’ll demonstrate intellectual flexibility and creative capability, in readiness for employment in the health care environment.
We’ll support you to further develop the specialist knowledge and clinical skills you’ll need to provide safe and effective care to the newborn in the postnatal period. You’ll build on your existing knowledge and clinical experience gained in years 1 and 2 to enable you to recognise signs and symptoms of the deteriorating infant, those with additional needs, and the discharge of care to other disciplines. You’ll focus on the issues that may arise with the newborn and their families due to complex conditions identified at birth and evaluate the impact these may have on the wellbeing and welfare of the newborn and family. We’ll support you to recognise infants that may be at risk of potential safeguarding issues, whilst exploring difficult conversations. Additionally, we’ll enable you to explore the legal, ethical and professional issues which inform the provision of neonatal care and the national screening programme: Newborn and Infant Physical Examination (NIPE). You’ll gain the knowledge and skills required to perform this screening element alongside reviewing the professional role of the midwife in the provision of care, choice and consent for the neonate. You’ll recognise correct referral pathways and collaborative working with the wider multi-disciplinary team to ensure seamless holistic care provision.
In this module you’ll explore the importance of learning, teaching and delivering information within midwifery practice. An integral part of midwifery care is to share skills, knowledge and experience for the benefit of people receiving care, other colleagues and your own self-development (NMC, 2018). The module aims to expand your understanding of driving forces for learning, and teaching in practice and to prepare you to acquire transferable skills which will enhance your interpersonal qualities as a midwifery practitioner and educator. You’ll also look at and practice effective communication skills when teaching others, that ensure an inclusive and adaptive approach is taken to empower the learner. Developing this further, you’ll begin to understand the differences between coaching and mentoring and how these might apply in the professional context. Furthermore, you’ll complete an online learning course which will prepare you to become a practice supervisor as per the NMC Standards for Student Supervision and Assessment (SSSA) at the point of qualification. This a blended learning module which consists of face-to-face learning in the classroom and self-managed learning online at home.
This module is the culmination of the learning you've undertaken throughout the course and will enable you to bring all your learning together to demonstrate readiness for professional practice and graduation. In this module we'll guide and support you to be prepared for practice as a Registered Midwife; it will further develop your understanding of the NMC Code (NMC 2018) and the professional standards which guide nursing and midwifery practice in the UK. It will emphasise the importance of prioritising people, practicing effectively, preserving safety and promoting professionalism and trust. A wide range of placement experiences will enable you to complete the practice proficiencies required by Future Midwife: Standards of Proficiency for Midwives (NMC 2019). Your knowledge will be developed through attendance at range of learning opportunities which will address patient safety, professional practice, employability, team working, problem solving and life-long learning. By the end of the module, you'll be able to demonstrate readiness for midwifery practice within the context of contemporary UK healthcare practice. You’ll develop knowledge and understanding of quality assurance frameworks, clinical governance and risk management. Drawing on learning from this and associated modules, you'll be able to plan and deliver safe and effective, evidence-based care, to women and birthing people and their families. You’ll demonstrate graduate skills and readiness for practice through the development of a practice portfolio of collated evidence from the modules you have undertaken, your MORA and reflection on practice experiences where you have integrated theory and practice. Presentation of this evidence will demonstrate the ability to be a reflective practitioner, leadership skills and lifelong learning.
Ruskin Modules are a great opportunity to explore challenges and ideas outside your area of study. Working with students from a range of courses, you'll be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines, and apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, realise your potential and help you prepare for the world of work.