Nurse Midwife job description

Prenatal visits, the delivery itself, and the postpartum and newborn weeks afterward all belong to the same clinician in this role. O*NET describes nurse midwives as diagnosing and coordinating every aspect of the birthing process, independently or as part of a healthcare team, often with well-woman gynecological care alongside it. BLS gives the occupation its own line, 29-1161, and counted only 7,920 of them nationally in May 2025, which makes it one of the smallest healthcare occupations reported separately. Median pay was $134,040. The tenth percentile stood at $93,620 and the ninetieth at $188,320.

Core Duties and Responsibilities

Nothing on this record outranks two things: prenatal, intrapartum, postpartum, and newborn care, and monitoring fetal development by listening for a heartbeat, taking external uterine measurements, identifying position, and estimating size and weight. Family planning is direct clinical work here, including inserting intrauterine devices, dispensing oral contraceptives, and fitting cervical caps or diaphragms. Nurse midwives prescribe within state limits, order and interpret lab and diagnostic tests, perform physical and pelvic examinations, write the notes other providers will rely on, and start emergency interventions to stabilize a patient. Explaining the procedure to the patient, her family, or another staff member runs through all of it.

Common Skills and Technologies

Active listening, speaking, critical thinking, and social perceptiveness lead together, which fits work where a patient's account of her own body carries diagnostic weight. Epic Systems and eClinicalWorks are the two record systems named as hot technologies for the occupation, with Excel and Microsoft Office behind them. Most of the rest is not software at all: listening for a heartbeat, measuring a uterus, and examining a patient are hands-and-instruments work.

Education, Training, and Career Path

Entry is through graduate school. Master's degrees account for about 81 percent of the survey answers, and another 16 percent hold a post-master's certificate, earned after a master's rather than instead of one. A post-baccalaureate certificate accounts for what is left. Nearly every reported title carries the credential in its name: Certified Nurse Midwife, CNM.

Sources: O*NET 30.0, 29-1161.00 Nurse Midwives, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/29-1161.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 29-1161, https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291161.htm.