School: Nursing and Midwifery

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Care of the Birthing Woman
  • Unit Code

    MIT2102
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    2
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
  • Unit Coordinator

    Ms Krystyl WISSEMANN

Description

This unit explores principles and practice underpinning the assessment in labour and management of the woman/birthing person and fetus from a range of cultural backgrounds when intervention is required. It extends earlier theoretical knowledge and clinical experiences and further develops midwifery knowledge when working with women/birthing people during labour and birth.

Prerequisite Rule

Students must pass MIP2103

Only students studying Bachelor of Science (Nursing)/Bachelor of Science (Midwifery) (Y76) can enrol in this unit.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Examine the relationship between the role of the midwife, the legal and ethical implications in the care of women and neonates with health challenges, maintaining a woman-centred approach and upholding women’s autonomy when medical intervention is recommended.
  2. Describe the roles and responsibilities of the midwife in assessing, planning, providing and evaluating safe, culturally competent, collaborative and effective evidence-based care during birth.
  3. Explain knowledge of anatomy and physiology of childbirth to the comprehensive assessment and monitoring of the woman and her baby during labour and birth.
  4. Provide a rationale to common interventions used during labour and birth.

Unit Content

  1. Assessment of deviations from the expected norm in the intrapartum period.
  2. Cultural and inclusive considerations in relation to the care of women and babies when care deviates from the normal.
  3. Ethical, legal and practice implications in the care of childbearing women and neonates with health challenges with reference to national/international midwifery philosophies, definitions and frameworks.
  4. Evidence-based care of childbearing women and babies requiring intervention during labour and birth.
  5. Common interventions observed in labour and birth.
  6. Common medications used in labour and birth.
  7. Midwives and womans perception of pain.
  8. Pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies.
  9. Assertive communication skills when caring for women in the intrapartum period recognising their right to self determination.
  10. Skills in debriefing with women, families and other members of the multidisciplinary team.
  11. Partnership with women.
  12. Informed consent.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 213 x 2 hour tutorialNot Offered13 x 2 hour tutorial

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
AssignmentEvidence-based care of childbearing women and babies requiring intervention during labour and birth. 50%
ReportPolicy/guideline review50%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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