Nurse-Midwifery

Midwife

What is a nurse-midwife?

A nurse-midwife may do many different things … stay with a woman during a long labor and deliver her baby into her arms … listen to a new mother’s concerns about breastfeeding … help women find their best choice in contraception and then prescribe it … help new families grow in health during prenatal care … and make every moment a teaching moment.

Midwives approach women’s health care, pregnant or not, as normal life events and provide personalized care to empower women and families.

Why study midwifery at UW?

• We have been training nurse-midwives since 1993.
• We are partnered with more than 20 community sites across Puget Sound and the Northwest.
• Our emphasis is evidence-based practice and leadership, with access to top nursing and midwifery researchers on faculty.
• We are part of a large public university, with access to other professions including medicine, global health and public health.
• We provide multiple degree options including: Master of Nursing (MN), Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP), and post-graduate certificate.
• Distance learning is available with many classes meeting on campus three times a quarter.
• We are fully accredited by the American Midwifery Certification Board.

Students’ project, theses, and capstones from recent years

• Principles for practice: an evidence base for engaging fathers in prenatal care (Jennifer Hamblett)
• Postpartum sexuality: improving first-time mothers’ experience through anticipatory guidance (Samantha Evans)
• Maternal choice cesareans – an ethical quagmire (Sky Rogers)
• Nitrous oxide as labor analgesia in the US:  a proposed KAP study (Leslie Schear)

Midwifery Faculty

• Sally Avenson, MSN, CNM, ARNP, Lecturer
• Elena Bosque, NNP, PhD, Senior Lecturer
• Karen Hays, DNP, CNM, ARNP, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Ira Kantrowitz-Gordon, MN, CNM, ARNP, Program Director
• Judy Lazarus, MSN, CNM, ARNP, Community Liaison