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Midwifery Initiative

Collaborating to Increase Access to Midwifery Education

Receive your Graduate degree from a collaborating school that is affiliated with the Nurse-Midwifery Education Program of Shenandoah University.  The degree is granted by the collaborating school and a Post Graduate Certificate in Midwifery is granted by Shenandoah University Nurse-Midwifery Program.

Through our Midwifery Initiative, we offer options to make curricula more accessible to students living and working in rural areas. Since the nurse-midwifery specialty courses are completed in the second year of study, we allow students from the collaborating universities listed below to take the core credits of their graduate degrees at their home universities in their first year of study and then complete the nurse-midwifery specialty courses at Shenandoah in their second year.  Upon completion of the program,  students receive a Graduate Degree in Nursing from their home university with a Post Graduate Certificate in Midwifery from Shenandoah.

 A Message From Our Director, Dr. Penny Marzalik

The Nurse Midwifery Program at Shenandoah University

Shenandoah University offers a variety of options to receive training as a midwife. Learn more about the university’s midwifery initiative and graduate studies in nurse-midwifery from three current students. Nurse-midwives are advanced practice nurses who provide family-centered primary health care to women throughout their reproductive lives, including counseling and care during pre-conception, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum periods.

While in the Shenandoah University Midwifery Initiative Program you will take your core graduate courses at your home university in the first year and the midwifery courses with Shenandoah University in the second year. Your classes with Shenandoah will be online but you will come to SU in person for a four day immersion in the Fall semester and Spring semester of the second year. You will also be at your clinical sites, which can be at a birth center, hospital, clinic, homes, military facilities, etc.

View collaborating schools: 

Nurse-Midwifery Specialty Courses for Post-Graduate Certificate Students
NM 610Midwives as Primary Care Providers
NM 620Comprehensive Antepartum Care
NM 612Gynecologic Health Care
NMLB 624Midwifery Practicum I (180 clinical hours)
NM 640Comprehensive Perinatal and Newborn Care
NM 641Perinatal Complications
NMLB 630Midwifery Practicum II (240 clinical hours)
NM 660Advanced Nurse – Midwifery Role Development
NM 652Evidenced-Based Practice Project
NMLB 651Midwifery Practicum III (300 clinical hours)*

Clinical Hours 26

Clinical Hours 720

Shenandoah’s Midwifery Initiative is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education (ACME), 2000 Duke Street, Suite 300  Alexandria, VA 22314;  Tel. 703-835-4565  support@theacme.orgtheacme.org

Shenandoah University’s baccalaureate degree in nursing, master’s degree in nursing, Doctor of Nursing Practice and post-graduate APRN certificates are accredited by:
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You have developed a very solid plan.. We understand that students who are concurrently enrolled in both the Shenandoah School of Nursing Post-Graduate Certificate midwifery program and the affiliated universities graduate nursing programs will be awarded the already ACME-accredited Post-Graduate Certificate. We want to congratulate you on your continued creativity in extending the opportunities for nurses to become nurse-midwives through these innovative affiliations with Schools of Nursing. We also congratulate you on your innovative curricular design.”

Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education, 2013