TL;DR: BS Midwifery is now a four-year, 180-unit degree under CHED Memorandum Order No. 03, series of 2023, with 2,703 clinical practicum hours and 53 units devoted to practicum. The biggest change most people have not caught up with: CMO 03 requires all higher education institutions to shift from the two-year Diploma in Midwifery to the BSM programme — the Diploma now exists as a ladder exit inside BSM, not as a standalone course. Yes, there is a board exam. Under Republic Act No. 7392, the Philippine Midwifery Act of 1992, you cannot practise midwifery without a certificate of registration and a professional licence, and passing requires a general rating of 75% with no grade below 50% in any subject.
Midwifery is the Philippine health profession that has changed the most quietly in the last few years. If you are researching it using anything written before 2023, you are probably reading about a two-year diploma course that CHED has since told schools to stop offering as a terminal programme. Here is the current picture.
What Changed: Diploma to Degree
The governing document is CHED Memorandum Order No. 03, series of 2023, "Policies, Standards, and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Midwifery Program (BSM)," issued by virtue of Commission en banc Resolution No. 045-2022.
Article II, Section 2 is the sentence that matters: "All HEIs are required to shift from Diploma in Midwifery to Bachelor of Science in Midwifery as mandated by this PSG."
CMO 03's own rationale explains the trigger. The pandemic exposed how dependent midwifery education is on clinical exposure, because "the current midwifery law... requires the students to complete actual caseload before graduation." CHED records the previous clinical practicum requirements as 1,275 hours for the Diploma in Midwifery and 1,071 hours for the step-ladder BSM, and notes the measures HEIs improvised during the pandemic "were inadequate to develop the required competencies."
So the new PSG both raises and restructures the clinical requirement. If a school is still advertising a standalone two-year Diploma in Midwifery, ask what CHED authority it holds for that programme.
The Ladder: Three Exit Points
CMO 03 keeps the ladder, but inside one degree programme:
| Level completed | Award | CHED says graduates can function as |
|---|---|---|
| First year level | Certificate in Midwifery | Assistant Midwife in any health care setting |
| Second level | Diploma in Midwifery | Associate Midwife and/or Community Health Worker |
| Full four years | Bachelor of Science in Midwifery | Full-fledged midwife, qualified to take the Midwifery Licensure Examination |
CMO 03 states that students "may opt to exit at the end of level I or II to obtain the Certificate or Diploma in Midwifery respectively or they may choose to continue and finish the four-year BSM program."
That ladder is genuinely useful if money is the constraint — you leave with a recognised award and can return. But be clear-eyed about it: the PSG ties the Midwifery Licensure Examination specifically to graduates of the full programme, so the earlier exits are employment credentials, not licences.
How Many Units Is BS Midwifery?
CMO 03 gives a total of 180 units, "of which 53 units are intended for the clinical practicum":
| Curricular component | Units / Hours |
|---|---|
| General Education Curriculum, NSTP, PE | 50 units |
| Core courses | 42 units |
| Professional courses | 88 units |
| Clinical practicum hours | 2,703 hours |
| Total | 180 units |
The conversion is spelled out: one unit of laboratory or clinical practicum equals 51 hours. That is how 53 practicum units become 2,703 hours. Worth knowing when you compare a school's published curriculum against the PSG.
This is CHED's prescribed structure. Confirm the actual course list and unit count with your target school's midwifery department.
What the Fourth Year Looks Like
CMO 03 is explicit that the fourth year is different in kind, not just degree: general education and professional courses occupy the first three levels, while "the fourth year level is intended for intensive clinical practicum and midwifery specialization in DOH/CHED accredited affiliating institutions."
The curriculum carries a dedicated 8-unit Intensive Clinical Practicum course in the final year. Clinical rotation spans hospital facilities, birthing clinics, rural health units and communities — CMO 03 names all four settings as necessary to meet the programme's competencies.
Practical implications:
- Your final year is essentially full-time clinical work. Plan finances accordingly; part-time work capacity will be minimal.
- The affiliating institutions are the differentiator. They must be DOH/CHED accredited. Ask a school which hospitals, birthing facilities and rural health units it rotates students through, and whether the caseload requirement is reliably met there. A programme that struggles to give students actual deliveries is a programme that struggles to graduate them.
Yes, There Is a Board Exam
Republic Act No. 7392, the Philippine Midwifery Act of 1992, governs practice. Section 21: "No person shall practice or offer to practice midwifery in the Philippines, as defined in this Act, without holding a valid certificate of registration and a professional license as midwife."
What the exam covers
RA 7392, Section 12 sets the scope:
- Infant care and feeding
- Obstetrical anatomy and physiology
- Principles of bacteriology as applied to midwife practice
- Obstetrics
- Midwifery procedures
- Domiciliary midwifery
- Community hygiene and first aid
- Nutrition
- Ethics of midwifery practice
- Primary health care
- Professional growth and development
- Family planning
- Other subjects the Board may deem necessary to add from time to time
Passing
Section 16: a candidate "must obtain a general rating of seventy-five percent (75%) in the written test with no grade lower than fifty percent (50%) in any subject."
The caseload requirement
This is the requirement that makes midwifery education logistically hard, and it comes from the law rather than from CHED. RA 7392, Section 14, requires that before allowing a student to graduate, the school must show that during training the student "has personally attended at least a total of twenty (20) deliveries in the hospital and in its domiciliary services."
Twenty deliveries, personally attended. That is why clinical placement quality is not a nice-to-have in this degree.
Nurses crossing over
RA 7392, Section 19, allows a certificate to be issued to registered nurses who pass the midwifery examination, provided the nurse shows evidence of having actually handled twenty delivery cases, certified by a hospital director or chief or by the proper municipal, city or provincial health officer.
Exam dates and application windows change every cycle and are published by PRC in its master schedule of licensure examinations. Our midwifery board exam guide covers the application process, and PRC board exam requirements covers the paperwork.
What a Midwife Is Legally Allowed to Do
RA 7392, Section 23, defines the practice of midwifery in some detail, and it is broader than most people assume. It covers supervision and care of women during pregnancy, labour and puerperium; management of normal deliveries including internal examination during labour (except where the patient has antenatal bleeding); health education of patient, family and community; and primary health care services in the community including nutrition and family planning.
Carrying out a physician's written order, it extends to antenatal, intranatal and post-natal care of the normal pregnant mother, immunisation, oral and parenteral dispensing of oxytocic drugs after delivery of the placenta, suturing perineal lacerations to control bleeding, and giving intravenous fluid during obstetrical emergencies where trained for that purpose. Midwives may also inject Vitamin K to the newborn.
Read that list carefully if you are choosing between midwifery and nursing. Midwifery is a narrower but deeper scope, with real autonomy inside it — RA 7392 and CMO 03 both use the language of the midwife as an autonomous practitioner within that scope, with a duty to recognise conditions outside it and refer.
BSM Compared With BS Nursing
| BS Midwifery | BS Nursing | |
|---|---|---|
| CHED order | CMO 03 s. 2023 | Separate CHED PSG |
| Scope | Pregnancy, labour, puerperium, newborn, primary health care, family planning | Broad general patient care across the lifespan |
| Statutory caseload before graduation | 20 personally attended deliveries (RA 7392) | Set by nursing's own PSG and law |
| Licence | Midwife | Nurse |
Midwifery is often described as a cheaper or faster route into health care than nursing. Under CMO 03 that is less true than it used to be — BSM is now a four-year degree at 180 units, more than many nursing curricula. What it still offers is a clearly defined community and primary-care role that nursing does not focus on, plus the ladder exits.
Careers
Midwives work in rural health units and barangay health stations, hospital delivery and maternity units, lying-in and birthing clinics, private practice birthing facilities, local government health programmes, and community and NGO maternal health projects. The community and primary-health orientation of the curriculum is deliberate — CMO 03's clinical settings list puts rural health units and communities alongside hospitals.
Overseas demand for Filipino midwives exists, but requirements vary sharply by country and often do not map one-to-one onto the Philippine licence. Verify with the destination country's own regulator before planning around it.
On cost: we are not quoting figures. Midwifery carries laboratory and clinical affiliation costs, so it prices above a business or IT programme at the same school, and the intensive fourth year usually carries separate practicum-related charges. State universities and colleges charge no tuition for qualified students under the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. Get the current rate plus practicum fees from the school in writing.
Should You Take BS Midwifery?
- Do you want the specific scope? Pregnancy, birth, newborns, family planning, primary community health. If you want general patient care, nursing is the fit.
- Can you handle the caseload requirement? Twenty personally attended deliveries is a legal condition of graduation.
- Does the school have solid DOH/CHED accredited affiliates? This is the single question that most determines whether you graduate on time.
- Are you using the ladder deliberately? Exiting with a Certificate or Diploma is a legitimate plan if funding is uncertain, but understand you will not be licensed at those exits.
- Is the school's programme actually BSM? Post-2023, a standalone two-year diploma is not what CHED's PSG contemplates.
Ready to compare schools? Browse midwifery programmes across Philippine schools on SchoolFinderPH.
Sources
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 03, series of 2023 — Policies, Standards, and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Midwifery Program (BSM)
- Republic Act No. 7392 — Philippine Midwifery Act of 1992 (LawPhil)
- Professional Regulation Commission — Professional Regulatory Boards
- CHED MIMAROPA — Zonal Public Orientation on CMO No. 3, Series of 2023 (PSG for the BSM Program)
