Consultation has closed
This consultation is now closed. Thank you to everyone who provided their feedback, we greatly value it.
The information we have prepared on this consultation page is directed to members of the public. If you are a current or former Ontario midwife and would like to give your feedback, we invite you to please share your thoughts here.
Background
The mandate of the College is to protect the public by ensuring our registrants meet established standards of competence to provide effective and safe care. Our processes and practices are governed by laws, regulations, and professional standards set by our Board. These regulations help to ensure that midwives act ethically, competently, and safely in their practice.
Midwives currently registered in Ontario are required to demonstrate that they possess the up-to-date knowledge, skills, and judgment required to practice the profession competently and safely. These competencies must be demonstrated at the time of registration, when transitioning from the inactive class to active practice, and as an ongoing requirement during the first two years of practice, and every subsequent five-year period.
The current Registration Regulation narrowly measures currency by the number of births midwives attend in both hospital and out-of-hospital settings, which does not fully capture the evolution of midwifery care. Attending births alone is not the only way to maintain and refine midwifery skills and knowledge. Other activities may play a valuable role in keeping competencies current and ensuring high standards of care.
Since 2020, the College has been updating the Registration Regulation to better align its requirements with the evolving landscape of the midwifery profession. The primary goal of the proposed changes will allow the College’s Board the authority to set minimum requirements for the profession, ensuring the public is protected while reflecting the evolving nature of the profession.
Purpose of the consultation
In anticipation of the changes to our Registration Regulation, we are working to develop a policy on currency that will enable registrants to demonstrate the necessary knowledge, skills, and judgment required to practise midwifery safely and ethically. The College’s primary mandate is to regulate in the public interest and the policy will aim to achieve this by including all types of midwifery activities.
Proposed policy
- Instead of birth numbers, all types of midwifery activities will carry weight. In other words, registered midwives are able to demonstrate currency using both clinical or non-clinical midwifery activities.
- Currency is demonstrated based on the last two years of practice.
- Non-clinical activities are measured in terms of hours due to their diverse nature
- Examples of eligible activities could include*:
- Clinical activities
- Full scope/base course of care
- Client encounters (an interaction between a client and the registrant for the purpose of providing midwifery service(s) or assessing the health status of the client)
- Intrapartum care (primary and second)
- Non-Clinical activities
- Academic/teaching
- Administrative or leadership activities in the field
- Advocacy or governance activities in the field
- Research and education
- Workshop, courses, training
- EDI-related activities
- *the public consultation will assist with the compilation of this list
- Clinical activities
How to provide feedback
We invite you to share your feedback on the proposed policy by letting us know what aspects you support and why, any concerns or challenges you foresee and suggestions for addressing them, as well as any additional considerations or perspectives that should be taken into account.
Members of the public and system partners may submit their comments on this page below until Wednesday, January 29 2025. You may also email your comments to cmo@cmo.on.ca.
Midwives wishing to provide feedback are asked to use the survey provided to answer specific questions about their practise.
Anonymous on February 14, 2025
Hi there i really appreciate the opportunity given to us to participate on this important step in our midwifery profession.
my proposition concernining the midwifery standard is that
-consedering the fact that our profession is not yet value enough in our general society as it is supposed to be we may try to give chance to everybody who is try to intergrate the profession here in Canada( i’m talking about the internationally educated midwive, internationally educated nurses, RN or RPN who wish to become a midwife or to work in midwifery field).
-the limit of years of experience may be five so as to capture the maximum of interested and competents canditate.(due to the fact that in previous years there was low demand in midwifery field some midwives may have transitted to nursing field…
we may need to ask a course by course assessment to personalize the training. if we fill some canditate may need to furnish particular efforts in somes areas of our practice we could provide teachers or one on one coaching for those particulars candidates.
– we may also need a resume from the the candidate showing the detail of their experience
we could have like a check list of all or many activities carry out by midwives and make sure at the end of the bridging program that every midwife is able to carryout at least 80% of the
Midwife on January 29, 2025
Although I am a midwife in Quebec, and a staff member of the Canadian Association of Midwives, I am filling this feedback as a general member as I am not an Ontario midwife. I am fully in support of the proposed changes to the Registration Regulation. I think it is very important that the College of Midwives of Ontario add both clinical and non-clinical activities in the policy on currency, so that it better demonstrate the ways midwives are contributing or can contribute to the profession. In particular, I am completely in favour of including full scope course of care, so that midwives can provide sexual and reproductive health care across the life course. This will help midwives work to the full scope so that they can help address access barriers to SRH and help midwives contribute to Ontario’s health care crisis.
Anonymous on January 29, 2025
Although I am a midwife in Quebec, and a staff member at CAM, I am providing my feedback as a member of the public since I’m not an Ontario midwife. I am in total agreement with the proposed changes to the Registration Regulation. I feel it is important that the College of Midwives of Ontario recognize the variety of ways that midwives are contributing and can contribute to client care and the advancement of the profession. I totally support the recognition of both clinical and non-clinical midwifery activities. In terms of clinical activities in particular, I fully advocate for the possibility of midwives being able to provide full scope care, so that they can provide sexual and reproductive healthcare across the life course.
Midwife on January 28, 2025
I stepped into an EMCM role last year that does not currently have the capacity to do births so I’m glad to see these changes take place to adapt to the ever changing world of midwifery.
Anonymous on January 23, 2025
Hello,
In my point of view this would be a highly positive development. The reason is that in the midwifery education system in some countries-including my home country- it is not common to use mentors for practical education in the field. Because of this, university educators and professors are in the main charge of clinical education in all aspects. This way, the main responsibility of the health care provision and birth in on their shoulders, and university professors are in direct encounter with clients.
To my knowledge, the experience in midwifery education is not accepted as proper experience for registry eligibility requirement, currently. As a result a great work force potential would be missed.
Thank you very much for the opportunity for sharing comments.
Anonymous on January 22, 2025
births or doing part of scope internationally (global health work).
Globally, 10 clients per year or 20 births in 5 year is often used as a Benchmark for gaining hospital privileges. We will need to fine tune these numbers.
regards,
Anonymous on January 22, 2025
I am an internationally Registered Midwife.
Can you guide me on how to get Registered with Ontario as an RM.
Midwife on January 22, 2025
This may be a duplicate – I was given an error when I submitted this the first time.
I believe the College needs to take a long, hard look at how previously registered midwives have been discriminated against. There are midwives who were disabled in the course of providing clinical care and as as result were unable to perform some or all of the active clinical portions of midwifery practice. They were then given a single choice – give up their registration or return to full clinical practice. It’s obvious and clear that there are many ways to practice well woman, infant, and prenatal care without engaging in on-call activities, and yet these disabled midwives were forced to give up their professional registration just because it took more than 5 years for them to return to a healthy enough state to deliver intrapartum care.
The CMO is now admitting that delivery requirements are not the way to define ‘midwifery activities’, and there is a not insignificant number of fully trained, competent, capable and disabled midwives who were coerced to give up a designation that was fully fine to remain in an ‘inactive’ state indefinitely. Going through this process without giving thought to reincorporating these injured midwives would be a gross disservice to the individuals that often gave the most to the profession.
Anonymous on January 22, 2025
I believe the College needs to take a long, hard look at how previously registered midwives have been discriminated against. There are midwives who were disabled in the course of providing clinical care and as as result were unable to perform some or all of the active clinical portions of midwifery practice. They were then given a single choice – give up their registration or return to full clinical practice. It’s obvious and clear that there are many ways to practice well woman, infant, and prenatal care without engaging in on-call activities, and yet these disabled midwives were forced to give up their professional registration just because it took more than 5 years for them to return to a healthy enough state to deliver intrapartum care.
The CMO is now admitting that delivery requirements are not the way to define ‘midwifery activities’, and there is a not insignificant number of fully trained, competent, capable and disabled midwives who were coerced to give up a designation that was fully fine to remain in an ‘inactive’ state indefinitely. Going through this process without giving thought to reincorporating these injured midwives would be a gross disservice to the individuals that often gave the most to the profession.
Midwife on January 15, 2025
Every 2 years is to often I think it should be left at every 5 yrs as it is currently!