Career
Nurse midwives
Care for women through pregnancy and birth.
$134,040
Median pay
+11.5%
Job growth, 2025–35
400
Openings a year
Master's degree
Typical education
6 years
Typical time after high school
Here's what you actually need to know.
The work
What people in this job do
- Provide prenatal, intrapartum, postpartum, or newborn care to patients.
- Monitor fetal development by listening to fetal heartbeat, taking external uterine measurements, identifying fetal position, or estimating fetal size and weight.
- Document patients' health histories, symptoms, physical conditions, or other diagnostic information.
- Provide patients with direct family planning services, such as inserting intrauterine devices, dispensing oral contraceptives, and fitting cervical barriers, including cervical caps or diaphragms.
- Prescribe medications as permitted by state regulations.
The outlook
How the forecast changed this year
The deeper question
What kind of person does this path ask you to become?
What this work centers on
O*NET interest profile, scored 1–7.
The work
Do you want most of your days spent on people & care, then ideas & analysis?
Responsibility
Are you willing to be the one responsible for this?
“Provide prenatal, intrapartum, postpartum, or newborn care to patients.”
Development
What would you need to build over the next 5–10 years?
Active Listening, Critical Thinking, Speaking, Social Perceptiveness.
Trade-offs
What does it ask of you in exchange?
6 years of education after high school (master's degree), for a median of $134,040 a year and 400 openings nationally each year.
Paths across
Careers that use similar skills
- Midwives
- Nurse Practitioners$132,300 · +41.0%
- Registered Nurses$97,550 · +5.6%
- Acute Care Nurses
- Obstetricians and Gynecologists$292,910 · +1.7%
Ask anything about this career.
“Would this make sense if I don't want to sit at a desk all day?” Answers will come from the sources on this page, with citations. Coming soon.
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Sources
- BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- BLS Employment Projections, 2024–34 (archived), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- O*NET 31.0 Database (August 2026), National Center for O*NET Development / U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 Crosswalk, NCES and BLS. Retrieved 2026-10-01.