Course Outline
MID700 Midwifery care across the continuum 1
Course Coordinator:Holly Meyer (hmeyer@usc.edu.au) School:School of Health - Midwifery
2025Session 2
UniSC Sunshine Coast |
Blended learning | Most of your course is on campus but you may be able to do some components of this course online. |
Please go to usc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
What is this course about?
Description
In this course you develop foundational midwifery knowledge and skills. This will encompass, pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapeutic approaches during normal pregnancy, birth, and the puerperium. You will undertake supervised clinical experiences across the maternity care continuum (120 hours). Your facilitator will evaluate your work at an introductory student level against the NMBA Midwife Standards for Practice. In addition, you will work towards meeting the required midwifery practice experiences for the program and your Continuity of Care experiences (CONNECT).
How will this course be delivered?
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Blended learning | |||
| Laboratory 1 – On campus laboratory workshop | 35hrs | Week 1 | Once Only |
| Placement – Clinical placement | 120hrs | Week 2 | Once Only |
| Learning materials – Online asynchronous learning and teaching materials and options for lecturer and peer to peer collaborations, and lecturer and peer zoom drop ins. | 5hrs | Week 1 | 8 times |
Course Topics
- Preconception and antenatal care including fetal wellbeing.
- Intrapartum care including fetal monitoring.
- Transitioning to parenthood and supporting parents to care for their newborn.
- Role of the midwife in facilitating women’s informed choice, within a multidisciplinary team
- Pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapeutic approaches during preconception, conception, normal pregnancy, birth, and the puerperium.
- Digital health, clinical reasoning, decision-making, reflection.
Mature Content
What level is this course?
700 Level (Specialised)
What is the unit value of this course?
12 units
How does this course contribute to my learning?
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Mapping Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | Professional Standard Mapping * Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia | |
| 1 | Explore the advanced use of digital health and emerging technologies related to the care of women and the neonate across the normal childbearing continuum. | Knowledgeable |
1.2, 1.3, 1.6, 1.7, 2.2, 2.3, 3.2, 3.6, 4.4, 6.1, 7.3 |
| 2 | Analyse evidence-informed midwifery care for the well woman and her fetus/baby across the childbearing continuum. | Engaged |
1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 1.7, 2.1, 2.8, 3.5, 4.1, 5.2, 6.3, 7.2 |
| 3 | Examine culturally appropriate psychosocial and physiological factors impacting childbearing for well women, across the childbearing continuum. | Sustainability-focussed |
1.1, 1.7, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 4.1, 4.3, 5.1, 5.2, 6.2 |
| 4 | Critically appraise advanced pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapeutic approaches across the childbearing continuum. | Creative and critical thinker |
1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.3, 4.4, 5.1, 6.2, 7.2 |
| 5 | Critically reflect on clinical learning to enhance continuity of care experiences. |
Ethical Engaged |
1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 5.1, 6.4, 7.3 |
| 6 | Demonstrate a satisfactory level of progression towards the ANMAC Midwifery Professional Experience (MPE) requirements and hours for the course. |
Ethical Engaged |
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
| 7 | Apply principles and practices of academic writing, referencing and research. |
Knowledgeable Ethical |
1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 3.3, 7.3 |
* Competencies by Professional Body
| CODE | COMPETENCY |
| Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia | |
| 1 | Standard 1: Promotes health and wellbeing through evidence-based midwifery practice |
| 1.1 | The midwife identifies what is important to women as the foundation for using evidence to promote informed decision-making, participation in care, and self-determination |
| 1.2 | The midwife accesses, analyses, and uses the best available evidence, that includes research findings, for safe, quality midwifery practice |
| 1.3 | The midwife uses health assessment and health education to support birth and reproductive health, and minimise the potential for complications |
| 1.4 | The midwife undertakes ongoing processes of reflection to ensure professional judgements acknowledge how personal culture impacts on practice |
| 1.6 | The midwife supports the development, implementation and evaluation of evidenced-based health initiatives and programs |
| 1.7 | The midwife identifies and promotes the role of midwifery practice and the midwifery profession in influencing better health outcomes for women |
| 2 | Standard 2: Engages in professional relationships and respectful partnerships |
| 2.1 | The midwife supports the choices of the woman, with respect for families and communities in relation to maternity care |
| 2.2 | The midwife partners with women to strengthen women’s capabilities and confidence to care for themselves and their families |
| 2.3 | The midwife practises ethically, with respect for dignity, privacy, confidentiality, equity and justice |
| 2.4 | The midwife practises without the discrimination that may be associated with race, age, disability, sexuality, gender identity, relationship status, power relations and/or social disadvantage |
| 2.5 | The midwife practises cultural safety that is holistic, free of bias and exposes racism |
| 2.6 | The midwife practises in a way that respects that family and community underpin the health of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples |
| 2.8 | The midwife participates in and/or leads collaborative practice |
| 3 | Standard 3: Demonstrates the capability and accountability for midwifery practice |
| 3.1 | The midwife understands their scope of practice |
| 3.2 | The midwife practises within relevant legal parameters and professional standards, codes and guidelines |
| 3.3 | The midwife participates in own continuing professional development to maintain the required knowledge and skill base for safe and effective practice |
| 3.5 | The midwife engages in timely consultation, referral and documentation |
| 3.6 | The midwife uses relevant processes to identify, document and manage complexity and risk |
| 4 | Standard 4: Undertakes comprehensive assessments |
| 4.1 | The midwife works in partnership to determine factors that affect, or potentially affect, the health and wellbeing of women, communities and populations |
| 4.3 | The midwife analyses information and data and communicates assessments and anticipated outcomes as the basis for midwifery practice |
| 4.4 | The midwife assesses the resources that are available to inform planning |
| 5 | Standard 5: Develops a plan for midwifery practice |
| 5.1 | The midwife interprets assessment data and best available evidence to develop a plan for practice |
| 5.2 | The midwife collaboratively develops plans until options, priorities, goals, actions, anticipated outcomes and timeframes are agreed with the woman, and/or relevant others |
| 6 | Standard 6: Provides safety and quality in midwifery practice |
| 6.1 | The midwife actively contributes to quality improvement and research activities |
| 6.2 | The midwife practises to achieve the agreed goals and anticipated outcomes that meet the needs of the woman |
| 6.3 | The midwife is responsible for consultation and referral and/ or escalation in situations that are outside the individual’s scope of practice |
| 6.4 | The midwife provides and accepts effective and timely direction, allocation, delegation, teaching and supervision |
| 7 | Standard 7: Evaluates outcomes to improve midwifery practice |
| 7.2 | The midwife revises plan and actions based on evidence and what is learned from evaluation |
| 7.3 | The midwife uses evaluation and reflection to inform future practice and professional development |
Am I eligible to enrol in this course?
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
Pre-requisites
Enrolled in GD007
Co-requisites
Not applicable
Anti-requisites
Not applicable
Specific assumed prior knowledge and skills (where applicable)
Not applicable
How am I going to be assessed?
Grading Scale
Limited Grading (PNP)
Details of early feedback on progress
Early feedback will be provided by the clinical facilitator when completing the Progressive component of the Clinical Assessment Tool. This feedback includes assessment of your competency in all standards. The facilitator will discuss the deliberations with you and you will have the opportunity to provide comment on the tool during both the Progressive and Summative components.
Assessment tasks
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Written Piece | Individual | 750 words |
Week 3 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 2 | Case Study | Individual | 1000 words |
Week 7 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 3a | Practical / Laboratory Skills | Individual | 15 minutes |
Week 1 | In Class |
| All | 3b | Placement performance | Individual | 120 hours |
Refer to Format | SONIA |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Consumer resource | ||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | This assessment task gives you an opportunity to demonstrate principles of academic communication through an evidence-informed lens when critically evaluating a consumer (woman or neonate) resource. |
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| Product: | Written Piece | |||||||||||||||
| Format: | As a midwife you will create a consumer resource to inform woman and their families about information relating to either ONE pharmacological or ONE non-pharmacological therapeutic intervention during the childbearing period. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Applying technologies, Information literacy |
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| All - Assessment Task 2:Normal deviations | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | This assessment task gives you an opportunity to discuss psychosocial and physiological factors impacting childbearing, while planning a multidisciplinary approach to midwifery care for a woman and/or her fetus/baby considering normal deviations across the childbearing continuum. |
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| Product: | Case Study | ||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | Further information about the case study will be available on Canvas. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Collaboration, Problem solving, Information literacy |
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| All - Assessment Task 3a:Objective Structured Clinical Assessment | |||||||||||||
| Goal: | To demonstrate requisite knowledge and safe midwifery practice, required for progression to placement. |
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| Product: | Practical / Laboratory Skills | ||||||||||||
| Format: | In the clinical laboratory you will complete a Objective Structured Clinical Assessment (OSCA). You will be allocated a scenario from the choice provided on Canvas. Details regarding the assessment will be provided by the course coordinator on the course Canvas site. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Problem solving |
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| All - Assessment Task 3b:Clinical Assessment Tool and portfolio | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The purpose of this assessment is for you to demonstrate completion of allocated placement for this course and satisfactory competency based on the NMBA Midwife Standards for Practice as measured in the Clinical Assessment Tool. Evidence of your MPE is collected progressively throughout the program in a portfolio. Your competence in meeting the NMBA standards will be assessed in MID701, 703, and 705). Details regarding MPE evidence will be provided by the course coordinator on the course Canvas site. |
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| Product: | Placement performance | ||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | The clinical facilitator will complete the Clinical Assessment Tool including assessment of your competency in all standards and completion of the required hours. The course coordinator provides the final decision and outcome. If you are not meeting satisfactory practice standards at any point of the placement, learning processes will be implemented to support you to attain the necessary behaviours to satisfactorily meet each standard. Unsatisfactory behaviours which put client safety at risk or which do not adhere with the NMBA Midwife Standards for Practice, Code of Professional Conduct and/or Code of Ethics criteria and standards may result in your removal from placement. If you do not meet each standard at a satisfactory standard you will fail this course. Please refer to the Canvas for details. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | Communication, Collaboration, Applying technologies |
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Directed study hours
A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
What resources do I need to undertake this course?
Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
Prescribed text(s) or course reader
Please note that you need to have regular access to the resource(s) listed below. Resources may be required or recommended.
| Required? | Author | Year | Title | Edition | Publisher |
| Required | Sally Pairman,Sally K. Tracy,Hannah Dahlen,Lesley Dixon,Priscilla Peart,Bernadette Pulis | 2023 | Midwifery Preparation for Practice | 5 | Elsevier |
| Required | Sara Bayes, Sally De-Vitry Smith et al | 2022 | SKILLS FOR MIDWIFERY PRACTICE AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND EDITION. | 2e | Elsevier |
| Required | Roslyn Donnellan - Fernandez,Maryam Bazargan,Clare Davison,Michelle Gray,Kirsten Small | 2024 | Pharmacology in Midwifery | n/a | Elsevier |
| Recommended | Elaine Jefford,Julie Jomeen | 2019 | Empowering Decision-Making in Midwifery | 1 | Routledge |
Specific requirements
Your clinical placement may have specific requirements, and information will be provided during your placement orientation. UniSC uniform as outlined on Canvas is to be worn on all placements.
How are risks managed in this course?
What administrative information is relevant to this course?
Assessment: Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Assessment: Additional Requirements
This course will be graded as Pass in a Limited Grade Course (PU) or Fail in a Limited Grade Course (UF) as per clause 5.1.1.3 and 5.1.1.4 of the Grades and Grade Point Average (GPA) - Academic Policy.
In a course eligible to use Limited Grades, all assessment items in that course are marked on a Pass/Fail basis and all assessment tasks are required to be passed for a student to successfully complete the course. Supplementary assessment is not available in courses using Limited Grades.
Assessment: Submission penalties
You must contact your Course Coordinator and provide the required documentation if you require an extension or alternate assessment.
Refer to the Assessment: Courses and Coursework Programs – Procedures.
SafeUniSC
UniSC is committed to a culture of respect and providing a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community. For immediate assistance on campus contact SafeUniSC by phone: 07 5430 1168 or using the SafeZone app. For general enquires contact the SafeUniSC team by phone 07 5456 3864 or email safe@usc.edu.au.
The SafeUniSC Specialist Service is a Student Wellbeing service that provides free and confidential support to students who may have experienced or observed behaviour that could cause fear, offence or trauma. To contact the service call 07 5430 1226 or email studentwellbeing@usc.edu.au.
Study help
For help with course-specific advice, for example what information to include in your assessment, you should first contact your tutor, then your course coordinator, if needed.
If you require additional assistance, the Learning Advisers are trained professionals who are ready to help you develop a wide range of academic skills. Visit the Learning Advisers web page for more information, or contact Student Central for further assistance: +61 7 5430 2890 or studentcentral@usc.edu.au.
Wellbeing Services
Student Wellbeing provide free and confidential counselling on a wide range of personal, academic, social and psychological matters, to foster positive mental health and wellbeing for your academic success.
To book a confidential appointment go to Student Hub, email studentwellbeing@usc.edu.au or call 07 5430 1226.
AccessAbility Services
Ability Advisers ensure equal access to all aspects of university life. If your studies are affected by a disability, learning disorder mental health issue, injury or illness, or you are a primary carer for someone with a disability or who is considered frail and aged, AccessAbility Services can provide access to appropriate reasonable adjustments and practical advice about the support and facilities available to you throughout the University.
To book a confidential appointment go to Student Hub, email AccessAbility@usc.edu.au or call 07 5430 2890.
Links to relevant University policy and procedures
For more information on Academic Learning & Teaching categories including:
- Assessment: Courses and Coursework Programs
- Review of Assessment and Final Grades
- Supplementary Assessment
- Central Examinations
- Deferred Examinations
- Student Conduct
- Students with a Disability
For more information, visit https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/policies-and-procedures#academic-learning-and-teaching
Student Charter
UniSC is committed to excellence in teaching, research and engagement in an environment that is inclusive, inspiring, safe and respectful. The Student Charter sets out what students can expect from the University, and what in turn is expected of students, to achieve these outcomes.
General Enquiries
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In person:
- UniSC Sunshine Coast - Student Central, Ground Floor, Building C, 90 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs
- UniSC Moreton Bay - Service Centre, Ground Floor, Foundation Building, Gympie Road, Petrie
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- Tel:+61 7 5430 2890
- Email:studentcentral@usc.edu.au