The country needs a new generation of midwives

Apps that measure the size of an unborn child in fruit, explain every stage of foetal development in detail and allow pregnant women to track their symptoms. Other mums who explain on social media how to do it right, healthfluencers who explain what is "normal". A pulling sensation in your stomach, pain in your back, a feeling of dizziness. Is that normal? ChatGPT has the answer. Pregnancies – like all areas of our lives – are becoming increasingly digitalised. Anyone expecting a child can hardly avoid it.

However, all these tools often raise more questions than they answer and contribute to a great deal of uncertainty among expectant mothers. After all, not all the answers provided by the internet are true. But who has the right answers – and can see through all the chaos? In a world full of technical possibilities and growing complexity, the midwifery profession needs to be reimagined. This is what the new Bachelor's degree programme "Sciences Maïeutiques – Sage-femme" at the University of Luxembourg aims to do from September 2025.

A new degree programme is born

We meet Ali Ghanchi, director of the new degree programme, and Joeri Vermeulen, visiting professor and representative of the European Midwives Association (EMA) at the Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine at Belval. This is where the midwives of the future will soon be learning not only technological skills at the highest medical level, but also a sensitivity to current social issues. To be more precise, we are in the SimUL simulation unit, where everything is already in place for the trainee midwives. There is state-of-the-art equipment here that can be used to simulate births using augmented reality, the body of a pregnant woman can be digitally dissected as well as all the equipment that midwives have to work with, such as incubators. Here, students can learn in a protected space where mistakes do not yet have any real consequences.